I can't believe that our baby girl is five years old already. Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday that she was still a baby. We celebrated her birthday over at my mom's house today, and we also took her to eat at Red Robin last weekend for an early birthday lunch. As presents, she received a cute purse-like bag that holds two stuffed animal dogs, some clothes, and some Hello Kitty stuff too. For food, we had Pizza from Sam's club, pasta salad, which my wife made, and of course the usual birthday cake and ice cream. She said that she had a really fun birthday!

Hi everyone,

Tonight we went to the Harvest Carnival at our church, just as we do every year at this time. We watched as our kids played the games and were given candy afterwards. My son Aaron and I, also bought hot dogs to eat while my wife was with our daughter Anna, who was watching someone make a pink balloon dog for her. We left after about an hour or so as our son is fighting some kind of flu bug and he wasn't up to staying longer. I hope he is over it soon.

I hope you all have a nice weekend!

Gerry

Hi everyone! Yesterday our daughter Anna's preschool class went down to the Spooner Farms Pumpkin Patch in Orting WA., and our whole family went along. It is the best one that I've seen yet, as the whole place is set up perfect for kids to have a great time. When we first got there they sat us down and talked about different types of pumpkins, bees, bats, and other things having to do with the farm. Then we were given a ride on a tractor pulled cart out to the pumpkin patch where they had some nice pumpkins laid out in rows so everyone could choose one to take home. After that we were able to go into a barn area where you could look at some animals and see some other things they had set up for the kids. We also had snack time with some free hot apple cider, and then we were free to go look around on our own. We passed on the corn mazes and went into the gift store instead and bought some kettle corn, and a pumpkin carving knife to carve our pumpkins. Overall, this place has a great fall theme and is definitely worth going to. Check out my "My Pix 2009" photo album if you want to see the pictures of it.

Although today is the first day of Autumn, we are still having summer-like weather here in the Seattle area. I hope this is a sign that we will have a mild winter here this year, but we'll see. Last year we had extremes in everything and I hope we don't see a repeat of that this year.

Have a nice day!

Gerry

Hi everyone, I'm a little late with this one, but our four year old daughter Anna went to her first day of preschool last Monday. Although we are doing home school with both of our kids, and Anna is actually already doing the Kindergarten curriculum, she is going to private Christian preschool this year at a local church. This is the same one our son Aaron went to five years ago and it was a good experience for him and he really liked it so now it's her turn. If we could, we would probably have them both going to private Christian schools all the way through high school, but it's just too expensive, so home school it is.

We are back at home after spending the last few days down at Seaside, and Cannon Beach in Oregon. This is the only vacation that we managed to squeeze in this Summer due to our busyness, and my working so many weekends. It was short, but very nice as we did the usual beach walking, souvenir shopping, game playing, and the like. We also ate a lot of restaurant food and some Ice Cream as well. If you visit Seaside, Make sure you stop at Pudgy's, because it is one of the best Restaurants in town. There was also a neat hot rod car show going on in Seaside which we spent some time looking at, as our son Aaron loves old cars. I kind of like them too. We also visited the Seaside Aquarium, which my wife and I  have seen several years ago, but it's the first time for our kids. They liked feeding fish to the the seals just like I did the first time I went there. We had beautiful weather while we were there, and we had a very good time. I've added a bunch of photo's from the trip to my photo album "My Pix 2009", Which is playing in my slide show. Take a look if you want to.

Have a nice week!

Gerry                                                                                                                          

Well, today my family, along with a friend of my wife, and her two kids went to see the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. This was the first time that I have seen this since I was a kid and it was great! It was at the ShoWare Center in Kent WA not far from where we live. It is a perfect place to see a circus as it is a lot smaller than a huge coliseum but big enough for an event like this. Before the show started we were allowed to go behind the building and see some of the animals up close. The tigers are really awesome to look at from that distance but I'm glad they were behind two layers of wire fence just the same. Then when we went inside they had kind of a small preview show where we could walk around the floor and watch the performers and clowns do some things up close. Really a neat way to start the show and I've never seen anything like it before. Then came the real two hour show. There were so many different acts in in it that it is hard to remember them all, but there were some of the usual high wire, and way up high acrobatic type routines with a few new twists, a lot of magic type stuff, and some great animal tricks too. But my favorite part was when they shot the two lady acrobats out of the cannons onto the huge air mats. I knew they were going to do it for real when I saw a green laser light shining below the cannons toward the mat to ensure a straight shot. It was great. When the show was over we all went across the street and had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Panera Bread Co. All in all it was a very good day and I highly recommend going to see this circus show if you get a chance. 

Hi everyone, I worked again last weekend but I am happy to be off for this 3 day one. I don't know what we are going to do but at least I will have some time to spend with my family. I can't believe that Summer is almost over already and we haven't really had time to take a real vacation yet because of all my working, but we are planning to try to get to the beach for a few days soon if things work out right.

I hope you all have a very nice Labor Day weekend!

I finally had a day off today for the first time in a few weeks. I like my job, and working overtime pays well, but I was starting to get burned out. My wife was gone today, so I had the kids all to myself. We decided to go to the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum. We like Hydroplanes and have been meaning to go there for a while, but have never made it until today. It is pretty neat and has some cool old and rebuilt Hydroplanes. It really isn't very big though, but they are hoping to move to a bigger place next to the Museum of Flight someday. When we had seen enough, we decided to go to the Caveman Kitchen restaurant for lunch. This place has been here forever and is kind of famous. Their barbecue sauce is mostly tomato sauce but the food is still very good and you can smell the smoker cooking all the time. We ate outside on one of their picnic tables, but there were a few bees around who wanted us to share, so we took the rest of our food home. It turned out to be a very nice day, but bees aren't the only pests we had to deal with today as I had to try and chase a raccoon out  of our backyard again tonight. But that's another story for another day.

I hope you all have a nice week!

Gerry

From KOMO TV's web page: "Never in the history of KOMO News have we ever predicted a high of 100 in Seattle. That ends today with our inaugural triple digit forecast for the Emerald City. It would tie the all-time record high in the city, but believe it or not -- some forecast models think 100 is too conservative."

Who says it doesn't get hot in Seattle. OK, it's not like Arizona or some place that normally has very hot weather, but for around here, these are pretty high temperatures. Definitely the hottest weather I have seen since I have been working on the flight line. I will have to try to remember this week next winter, when I'm walking around outside complaining about the cold.

Gerry

Although my 52nd Birthday was actually today, we celebrated it Friday at Red Robin with just my family, and again yesterday at my mom's house with her and my two sisters. My brother was unable to make it but he sent me a huge card that plays music. I also received a couple of shirts and some money. It was a very nice Birthday!

A few days ago we found out that our son Aaron had won a drawing held at his orthodontist's office for 4 tickets to a Seattle Mariner's Baseball game for today. They turned out to be great seats just 14 rows up from 3rd base. Aside from the fact that the Cleveland Indians beat us 12 to 3, it was a great time except for the heat. We sat in the 90 degree sun all afternoon and survived by spraying ourselves with a water misting bottle and taking a couple of trips up to the refreshment areas. Who say's it doesn't get hot in Seattle. It is supposed to be even hotter for the next few days going as high as about 98 degrees (Fahrenheit) on Wednesday. I like nice weather much better than cold, especially since I work outside on the flight line for a living, but this much heat is a little too much for me. Luckily, I am also working inside our office area part of the time lately since I have been filling in as a team leader for the past few months, and I bought a nice fan that I can use at my desk to help me stay cool.

I hope you all have a nice week!

Gerry

Hi everyone! Well, Friday night I slept in a tent for the first time in around 40 years. I really didn't get much sleep as the ground was hard and there was a lot of noise from the nearby road, but it was my son Aaron's first WEBELOS overnight camp out so it was pretty neat anyway. We used my wife's tent, which I had never seen put up since we were married over 11 years ago, but it fit us two just perfect and is in pretty good shape for it's age. The camp was at a Lions Club park about 25 minutes from our house so it was just a short drive. I was never in the Scouts myself so it was a good lesson in how they do everything according to their schedule so you have to keep up with it. The whole event was run by kids a little bit older than Aaron who are Boy Scouts. They did a great job and I really learned to appreciate the self discipline that these kids have learned by scouting, and the leadership abilities that they have acquired. I watched as the WEBELOS learned lessons in fire building, compass reading, rope tying, and more. There was even a lesson in how to protect your food from bears. Over all it was a pretty good time. It was good to see kids who are on a better path than so many of those that  you see today. I expect that Aaron will probably continue on in scouting as he really liked this camp out experience.