Caught Unawares (I give an unanounced lesson)

Yesterday was Sunday. We attended church, which lately, I will admit, I have dreaded going. It's during lunchtime, naptime and any othertime that the kids need to be at home for. But we go anyway and sometimes it is a complete disaster. But not yesterday. It was the primary program and the boys both sang, and said the parts that they had really well. And on top of that they were well behaved up on the stand. I was impressed.

Standing in the foyer I heard the phrase "will do it" after my name. I wasn't involved in the conversation but I figured I had better see what the heck was going on. As it turns out I was volunteered to teach the lesson in the class that would start in about 10 minutes. The person that did the volunteering wasn't serious and I could have passed on it but I said I would. I think everyone was really surprised. So I prepared what I could in 10 minutes and away we went. It didn't go bad. At least I thought it didn't.

I started the lesson out by saying "we can do a lot of reading or we can do a lot of discussing, either way it's up to you guys". There was some of both that went on.

I am a bit fearful of the upcoming change to the church times in January. I am not sure how the kids will adjust. If it can be anything like yesterday then church will be a joy to attend. If not, then it will just be a chore and I really don't want that.

The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November

That's today! Time to vote.

I would like to say that it bothers me that people could run unopposed. Are there not enough people interested in local politics and making a difference locally to have a choice of candidates? I guess it's not that big of deal It bothers me even more that someone running unopposed didn't even bother to submit a candidate statement. Why would you not do this? I didn't vote for you. I don't know what you stand for.

The other person running unopposed at least submitted it a statement. Sure is was a "thank you for the opportunity to serve you again" statement. There was a little more to it than that but not much. I guess if you are the incumbent you can do stuff like that.

Sigh.

Perfect time of year for a good book

Only I don't have one. Not only that, I don't have time to read one. I am reading approximately 300+ pages a week for one of my classes this quarter. Some of the articles are really interesting but some of them I just have to wade through the content.

Curling up, wearing fleece or wool socks, wearing flannel pajamas and a sweatshirt, a tall glass of cran-raspberry juice, a down blanket, a book that has nothing to do with school, fiction, nonfiction, biography, no kids, maybe a book my wife has read so we can discuss it, having time to read. None of this has happened and I don' t know that it will anytime soon. I will be out of school for winter break before my oldest is so maybe I'll have a week to put the other 2 kids down for a nap or quiet time and read away. But then again, maybe not. I would just like to wonder around the book store for a bit.

and it snowed for the first time this winter yesterday. reading as the snow quietly falls and blankets the ground would be nice.

Vacations 7, 8 & 9 (otherwise known as Part III)

Back to remembering some of my absolute favorite vacations.



7. Crawford State Park. I don't remember when we did this trip but the weather was perfect and we only had the boys. A little bit of a drive and you are in the farthest NE corner of Washington. Mountains, trees, rivers are abundent. Closest towns include Metaline and Metaline Falls. Crawford State Park is small but worth the visit. Gardner cave is the draw, and probably even the reason for the park. Gardner cave is the 3rd longest limestone cave in Washington. You find yourself descending into the cave, noticing the cool, damp air and turning on a flashlight to explore. After a picning lunch we went on a short hike. We hiked along a wooded trail until we came to a big break in the trees that ran approximately East-West. Welcome to the 49th parallel and the US - Canadian border. Like so many of our trips in the NE corner of the state we ended up stopping in Colville for dinner before making the journey home.



8. Milwaukee, WI, Oct 2008. I am mobilizing from Ft McCoy and get granted a 4 day pass. My wife flew out and visited. We drove to Milwaukee, stayed in a nice hotel (way nice), ate good food, visited the Harley Davidson museum, got soaked while walkin in the rain, visited the art museum. If you ever visit Milwaukee make sure to go to Leon's Frozen Custard. YUM! I liked Wisconsin, it was very green with lush vegetation. I would like to go back with my wife and see more there.



9. Palouse Falls State Park, Nov 2006. A short drive to this park from where we live. The boys loved it. 200 ft water fall. Hardly any walk from parking lot.

3 (almost) Perfect Days

Saturday, Sunday and Monday were all very good. 3 days in a row. Saturday after My wife got home we went and picked out a pumpkin with the kids. It was great. Sunday after church we carved it. The kids had a blast. Today was great cause after school my wife and I watched a movie together. Sure, had to pause it so I sould go to work but it was a nice time. The kids have all been mostly good. The only way the weekend would have been better if everyone could have gone to church and not been sick but that's out of my control. I am really looking forward to tomorrow and see how good it can be.

A break from Vacations

No time this morning to post about vacations. That might come later today or maybe tomorrow. What I do have time to post about is the weather. This past weekend was awesome on so many levels. Two really good days spent with the family. Saturday was sunny and just a little chilly and after my wife got home from work and an afternoon out by herself (break from the kids) we went to a orchard to pick out pumpkins. Sunday we carved it and the kids had a BLAST! The weather was the same. Sunny but chilly.

There was frost on the car windows last week. Friday it rained. Today it is raining. People have whispered the "s" word (snow). I have to say I agree. Maybe tonight if it keeps raining and then the temperature drops.

My chores call so off I go. But remember you heard it here first. Snow is on the way.

Favorite Trips Part II

Let's see, we left off with #4 so here we go again. There have been so many amazing trips that it is really hard to try and rank them. I think of a trip and then I think, why isn't that toward the top? But here we go:

5. Roosevelt Grove of Ancient Cedars, Oct 2002 - We were still new to the Inland Northwest and hadn't done any hiking. Thing one was only about 4 months old. We bundled him up and he was carried in the kiddie backpack. It took us alot longer to get there than I thought it would. We drove up through Newport, WA and in to Idaho. The pavement ran out way before we got to the trail head. It was sunny, chilly and nice. If I recall we didn't even make it very far on the trail. We saw some very big cedar trees. Instead of retracing our steps and driving the same route back we decided to continue on and make one big loop. Pretty soon our full size truck was on a very tiny dirt road crossing a mountain pass. We saw hunters and their ATV's and the view was amazing, we just couldn't look at how close we were to the edge cause we were way to close. We ended up back in Washington and stop to eat and get our pictures developed at Walmart in Colville, WA and then it was back home for us. It was dark on the way home. I don't know if we'll ever go back because it is kind of out of the way for a day trip. Maybe an overnighter would be worth it, but it sure was memorable.

6. Missoula, MT, June 2008. By all accounts should have been a busted trip. We left way later then we should have and didn't really plan at all. We had all 3 kids with us and I was getting ready to leave in the next couple of months deploy to the Middle East. With a little prompting from our Garmin GPS, we were able to find the Smokejumper Visitors Center. We had missed the last tour of the day but that was OK since it was likely that the kids would not sat on a bus as they showed us around. They did have a little museum there which the everyone liked. After that we went to Ft Missoula and enjoyed everything there. Great views and a good place to learn about history there. By this time it was getting a little bit late so we tried to figure out what to do and ended up going to the mall to see a flower competition they had going on there. After that we ate dinner. They have a Fuddruckers in Missoula so we ate there. It was here that the kids finally started to lose it and break down. After dinner we drove home. I had to pull over at a rest stop and take a nap just west of Couer D'Alene. To put this into perspective we were probably less then 40 minutes from home but I just had to sleep. I think we got home around midnight. Overall it was a great trip for being to spur of the moment.

That's all I have time for right now but a preview of things to come include: NE Washington and some falls, so stay tuned!

Favorite Vacations Trips Part 1

I've been meaning to do this for a while. A long while. Maybe as long as a year, I'm not really sure how long any more. It seems like many of the best memories are associated with trips that we have taken so I wanted to put them done somewhere for two reasons, 1) I seem to be a bit scatered brained lately and the details fade fast and 2) I thought it would just be nice to remember and share. So here goes.

1. Trip to the Arctic Circle, August 2001. A four day whirlwind trip that my wife and I took. I had a 4 day weekend from work and she was able to get 4 days off from her job. There was no planning, we just went. This trip was my favorite for many reasons. Day 1 - Drove from home to Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks and stayed in lodging. Day 2 - left Fairbanks and Drove to the Arctic Circle (I should find pictures and scan and post them?) along the way we saw the pipeline, wildlife, crossed the Yukon River, saw gas that was really expensive (this was when gas was cheap) and there was nowhere else to get gas within hundreds of miles, and returned safely to the AFB lodging. Day 3 - Checked out early and drove to Denali National Park. Cars aren't allowed in the park so we got tickets to the bus and rode it to one of the Visitors Centers. The view is majestic. Plenty of wildlife to be seen. You can get off the bus at anytime you like and hike and then you just wait for the next one. We would have liked to stay at a historic lodge that night but they were all booked up so we stayed at a hotel just outside the park. We watched Jaws (which in my opinion is still one of the scariest movies ever). Day 4 - We took a very round about way home that was mostly unpaved. More wildlife. Passed by some glaciers and small towns.

2. Trip to Homer, AK, Thanksgiving 2000. The funny thing about this trip is that I don't remember too much about the actual Thanksgiving day meal uch about my wife's family. We ate at her Aunt's house. We left Anchorage the Day before Thanksgiving. I had just worked a 24 hour shift got off at 9 AM and slept until about 1 PM. There had not been alot of snow this particular year but we had to slow down in the pass shortly after Girdwood. We got there a little bit late but we had made reservations to stay in a cabin. The people that owned these cabins were super nice. The next morning we woke to discover they also had a great view. We wondered around town that weekend. One of the stores had programed their register to display "everyone do the snow dance" since it was late November and there was no snow in Homer. Part of the trip I was in a walking cast since I broke my ankle in October but part of the time I decided not to wear it. On the way back in the pass there was more snow then I had ever seen before falling. We kept on driving but visibility was almost nothing. We probably did the whole trip over the pass driving about 1o miles an hour.

3. San Juan Islands, 2008. Our 10 year anniversary when we ditched the 3 kids and went for an adventure. We stayed at an awesome place, ate some of the best food we have eaten, saw some orcas from land, took a boat trip to see some orcas and just enjoyed each others company. This was also right before I was mobilized and deployed to the Middle East. It seems like often times when we do our little trips with no planning we often find the really good places to eat. This wsa the case, we had some simply amazing mexican food and a really nice fancy dinner. We visited the State Park there as well as the National Parks. We also discovered lavender lemonade, lavender ice cream and enjoyed the lavender farms. Now that I think of it, This trip should be higher. My only hope is that someday we will be able to have a trip as great as this again.

It gets tough here to rank trips because there have been so many of them. But I go on...

4. Olympic National Park, 2003. Our first real trip with a 1 year old. We drove HWY 101 pretty much all aroud the penninsula. The weather was mostly good but would it really be the Washington Coast without some rain. My mamories of this is that we slept in a tent with a 1 year old, stayed at a Hotel with a one year old, hiked with a 1 year old. Seems to ba a pattern here. The hotel was the Military MWR (morale, welfare and recreation) site on the penninsula.

That's it for now but there will be more. I am not going to rank all of our trips to Seward (so many of them and all so good) and our trips to Ocean Shores (fun but work related).