Saturday, 30 March, was S.O.L.V.'s Spring volunteer beach clean up. And the tsunami that hit Japan last year really did a number on our beaches. Regular debris was easy to remove (lots of dumpsters were placed along the beach). But, the pieces of warf and building structures were a little challenging.

After finding a bag full of paper, bottles, plastic cups, etc. I helped a couple of OHSU students collect the big pieces of wood and we stacked them in piles and told the staff where they were. I was home by 1:00 PM. I received an e-mail today that said there were 4,000 volunteers and 52,000 pounds of trash removed from the beaches! That's good....we need to take care of the beaches we're blessed with.

When I got home Carol and I started THE MOSS PROJECT. This is what my roof used to look like. But, I can tell you that after about five hours of power-washing, the moss is gone and the tiles are grey again :)The story doesn't end there...I thought the flow of water would send everything down the rain gutters because they go into 4 inch PVC. Well, the volume was too much for the back side of the house and it clogged. So, after all of the roof was done we had to disassemble the downspout and unclog the elbow. By now it was getting dark and we were both really tired! The garden hose worked as a snake and we ran water through the system for a while to clear it out...what a mess. We re-assembled everything and cleaned up the patio. After everything was put away we got cleaned up and Carol fixed dinner. I had a really hard time getting up this morning!!! Guess my age is starting to show :)

Carol and I left for California last Friday and we flew into San Francisco, then on to Ontario, CA. Saturday we went to the NASCAR Nationwide race and managed to do a little shopping at the trailers. Crazy Kyle Busch won the nationwide. We had dinner at Marie Calendars (not many left). Sunday was the Sprint Cup race and we had a wild finish...and Kyle Busch ended up winning this race also :(  Monday was a "rain day", just in case the weather was bad on Sunday. So, we did laundry, took in a movie, and spent some time in the pool. Tuesday we traveled home...back to reality! Thanks to Jim and Vonnie Lash for transportation TO and FROM the airport! More news soon.

After our visit in Redding, we drove up the Oregon coast and spent the night in Lincoln City. I took these pictures while walking on the beach with Carol on Monday morning. We got home in the early afternoon and my poor van got a bath! Hope everyone is doing well, we'll write more soon.

This past Friday, Carol and I left Oregon to visit family in California. We got to visit Jimmy, Johnny, Cassidy, Jacob, Bethany, Peter, Emily, Roberta and Fran (Roberta's Mom). We worked on a few projects around the house together, and made a few trips to Ace Hardware. And we went to the auto parts store and picked up a couple of lights bulbs that burned out in the van. I supervised and the kids did all the work :) Emily has a new light fixture in her closet. The filters for the air intake (heating and A/C) were all changed. After the work was done, we went out for dinner at Red Robin. What a fun time! Plus, we got things done :) I'll post more pictures from the coastal trip back to Aloha soon!