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July 5, 2019

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Happy July 4th to you all!!

It's been a very busy week.

We got quite a surprise on Saturday as our dear Cuban friend Rigo and his girlfriend, Anna came by for a visit. He is quite the mechanic and helped Dave get the steamboat working again. After all the problems with the commercial burner he bought, Dave went online and figured out how to make one himself. Rigo took one look at it and took over. He tore everything apart and got it to work. After six months of messing with that burner issue, we finally had a fire. Dave was so happy as he wanted to be able to put it in the Manzanita parade on the 4th of July. It was nice to see Rigo again. But after Rigo left, it wouldn't work right, so Dave had to fiddle with it again and finally - two hours before the parade started - he got it to work. That's cutting it too close.

Monday, Dave was invited to join Jason and Paige on a charter fishing trip. They had to be at the dock by 4:45 a.m. so Paige and Jason came down the night before so they could get a little shut eye. They had a wonderful trip out in the ocean and caught lots of Rockfish and Crab. But what was the most exciting part about their trip was spotting a pod of Humpback Whales, who put on quite a show for them. They were spouting and flipping their tails in the water fairly close to the boat.

Tuesday, it was my birthday so I kinda enjoyed the day. In fact, I enjoyed is a lot! I got plenty of birthday wishes and all the family was here. That was really nice and that was all I really needed to seal the day. We ended up going out for Mexican food in Rockaway and toasting the day with a Margarita.

Lara came on Sunday, so she was a big help around here. She got a lot of the little things done that we haven't been able to do, including getting out the pressure washer and spraying all the cobwebs off the eaves of the house. Good-bye spiders! Also, Dave's friend Mark Goodman was visiting the coast from his home in Tennessee and came to visit this week so we got caught up with each other's lives.

Let's see, since the family was all here on Wednesday, we had a photographer take our family picture down on the beach. We had scouted out several locations for the photo shoot and settled on Manhattan Beach north of Rockaway. After a few showers and clouds, the sun finally made an appearance in time for our photo shoot. I am anxious to see how they look. One thing we did find out is that neither of us is real great in soft sand. It's a good thing we had help from our kids and grandkids to help keep us from falling while we were trying to walk in that stuff. Once we got into the harder sand, we were alright, but that soft sand just about killed us!

We made it to the Manzanita parade a little late this year. We ended up being the last entry in the parade. I wanted to put up a sign that read "Th-th-that's all folks!" But the best is always saved for last, right? After the parade, we came home and ate a quick picnic of chicken and macaroni salad before we headed for our next parade. This parade was on some people's farm and they had over 150 people there. It was in Mohler and this is the fifth year for this parade. They called it the "Red Neck Forth of July" as mostly farmers and their families come. We didn't know anything about this event until we were invited to participate. We paraded around with some tractors, golf carts, a fire truck, an old Model A and our steamboat all decorated for the holiday. We didn't stay very long as we didn't know too many people and we aren't into fireworks.

The next day, we all kind of went our separate ways. Jason and Leslie took their boat out in the ocean fishing for Halibut while Lara had to take Jadyn to a dance camp in Forest Grove. We had things to do around here to get ready for the community picnic on Saturday. After Lara got back from taking Jadyn to dance camp, she met up with Jason and Leslie and they went crabbing. They came home with 10 crabs this time. Like I mentioned, it has been a busy week and after everyone leaves, it will feel pretty quiet around here.