TEN

This kid loves her berries!

Puddle Art

Stomping on dry part of stairs after stepping in water puddle. Grace says this is puddle art.

Thanks Grandmuhie for the photos.

Move Some Army Dudes: Get Paid

From time to time I post about all the ancillary portions of my job; fun things I get to do, and get paid to do them.  As it turns out, this really is my job.  As I was in the middle of doing my job on Monday, a reporter started asking me about our mission for the day.  I was a little surprised, and unprepared, but Adam Ashton of the Tacoma News Tribune captures the day's activities quite well in his article, Flying Strikers to Yakima in C-17 Illustrates the Bennefits of a Joint Base: It's something that was done often early in recent wars, but now the services need to practice.  I must admit, I feel a little silly with the quote he credits me with, but it's exactly what I said.  I think that's why the government doesn't pay me to talk - maybe a bit too often, I do that for free. 

Even though I saw a photographer taking some shots, none are associated with the article.  Here are a few captured by one of my fellow crewmembers.  After loading, we popped above the clouds for a standar-ly awesome view of Rainier.  Note, Army dudes moved were not photoed.

Unchained and rolling out the back at our destination.

Bon Voyage!

And good sailing it was. We are in flight (free 30 min wifi - yes, please) on our way home from a 7 day cruise to the western Caribbean. Sun, scuba, and snapshots galore to come soon. For now, our cramped accommodations on the boat, and even closer quarters on the 7 hour direct flight home.

Library Books

Every couple of weeks Sarah brings home 15 or so new books from the library. The kids will spend the next hour or so in silence devouring the new content, pouring over the photos/artwor, and often times deciding on one or two favorites which will be read many, many times in the coming weeks. Of all the things kids do to make you feel like a you are a bad parent, this is one of the very few moments we feel like we must be doing something right, even if we have no clue how we did it.

Sam Goes Pro

I recently obtained my scuba certification (yes, still haven't posted about that, more on it later, seriously) in preparation for a big wedding cruise Sarah and I will attend this year.  I borrowed a friend's GoPro camera to film the open water certification dive.  Turns out the instructor was uncomfortable with that and stated, when I was certified, I could do what I want, but until then...  

If you have never heard of GoPro cameras, I suggest you do two things.  1) Get your head out from under a rock.  2) Go buy one.  I haven't felt the need to own one of these $400 pieces of equipment mostly because the video I see from them is usually from some dude base jumping off a cliff in a wing suit.  I'm adventurous, but I also want to see my kids grow up, so I don't do that.  

The GoPro I borrowed wasn't the newest model, so I needed to get an older, bit harder to find, waterproof housing for diving.  No problem, Amazon to the rescue; two days later the new housing was here.  Unfortunately, and more so, surprisingly, the mounting options I desired weren't available.  No problem, Tacoma FabLab to the rescue.  For a 1/2 hour's worth of design, and then one 3D printed item later, I had my wrist mount.  I'm definitely hooked on FabLab now - you are only limited by your own creativity at that place. 

I performed a test of all the equipment today at Sam's swim class.  It's not earth shattering, but in my opinion it's pretty awesome.  Original footage was 720HD and looks great on the computer.  I took about 30 seconds to edit the clips together, throw an audio track over top, and upload.  Can't wait to see what kind of results I get from some Caribbean scuba diving.

 

Snow Family

We finally had snow this year, 8 days ago, for about 24 hours.  It came in the early evening, and was mostly gone again about dinner time the next day.  Yes, we dressed Samuel in one of Grace's old snow suits.  We don't have a male gender specific one in his size.  He didn't care; he loved the snow.  Besides, his mittens have flames on them, and that's as manly as you can get.

 

When the snow started to fall, we got out into it, and then video chatted with the grandparents. 

Looks like about 3 inches by the morning.  

  

Great photos of the kids by Sarah

Thanks to neighbor Canadian Jessie for all the help with the kids and the Snow Family!  Now, one more photos of Sam, because his expression is hilarious, both in the photo above and the one below.