Indoor Flying

We went walking this morning with Pastor Pam and Don.  It was a little cool, but no wind and we had a good time.

Can you see the change to the shop?  I got a call from our friend Bob this morning, he wanted to invite us to dinner before the indoor flying at the Centralia Middle School tonight.  We made arrangements to meet at Applebee's at 5:30 and we left home about 5.  The traffic was terrible on I5, so we were a few minutes late.

Vera had this Fiesta Chicken Chopped Salad and loved it!  We had a nice time visiting with Bob before and during dinner.  Bob showed us a new way to get to the school that we will probably be using from now on as it avoids going out on I5 to get to Harrison.

We had a great time flying, there were 11 flyers this time and most of the time there were 5 planes in the air.  We flew for 3 hours and I only had 2 midair collisions!  With that many planes in the air there were quite a few collisions but no or little damage because they fly so slow.

 We filled up at Safeway on the way home and it has been a long time since I paid this little for gas!

Here is the change to the shop if you didn't spot it, I got the sensor for the weather station mounted this afternoon.  I will probably put it up a little higher when the weather improves.

Christmas Day

We went down to Mik, Michelle and James' for Christmas dinner and Christmas present exchange today.  Dinner was great and the prime rib melted in your mouth.

This is James kicked back after dinner and present opening.  Their tree sure looked great!  I forgot my camera today, so I just have a couple pictures I took with my cell phone.  We had a great time and I will probably be a couple of months getting rid of the weight I put on from dinner and the desserts I had.

After we got home I had a great time setting up the weather station I got from Mik, Michelle and James.  I got the software downloaded onto my laptop so I can download the logs it keeps.  I have wanted a weather station that hooks to the computer for a long time.

We got a picture of our great grandson John Patrik on the quad we got him for Christmas.  They posted a video of him riding it on Facebook and he looked really excited bouncing up and down on the seat as he drove it.

Christmas Eve

The family Christmas Eve party was at Dan and Robin's again this year.  It is a great place to have it as there is lots of room for everyone.  Cathy got pictures in front of the tree organized right away, this picture is all the cousins.

As usual, there was lots of great food tonight, I made several passes around the table.

Dan and Robin did a lot of work to provide us with a delicious dinner, Thank You!

 Santa (Saint Mik) showed up after dinner.

Ava and Harper were the first ones to get gifts from Santa, they were a little shy and would not sit on his lap.

He had presents for the older kids and they were not shy about sitting on his knee.  He had several questions for Auna about her boyfriend.

After Santa left, Cathy organized a group shot of everyone there.  Counting Cathy and I on the balcony, I counted 38 people this year.

I believe Peter was the first one to choose during the gift exchange, 28 people in it this year.

Lynne looks pretty happy with the gift she has just stolen.  The third person to steal an item gets to keep is as it can not be stolen again.

James was Vera's designated gift chooser this year and he had to do it quite a few times because his choices got stolen several times.

Does anyone recognize this guy, Cathy took the picture and there is lots of glare!  I think this is the only picture I have of the top of my head.

I got a present from Sam and I love this picture which was on the card.

Wrapping

I finished wrapping the presents today, that is Vera's in blue and mine in the gold.  It feels pretty good to be ready a day in advance.

Dianne (Jennifer) gave us this nice center piece this year, it looks great on the stove.

I wandered around the house taking pictures this evening, I am not sure how long we have had this Nativity, but it is one of our favorites.

We have a bunch of battery operated candles, so it looks nice and cheery in the living room without being dangerous.  I did a little work on the Dirty Birdy and then sprayed some primer on it.  While I was waiting for that to dry, I found and corrected a warped aileron on the Edge 540.  It had needed some left aileron trim when I test flew it, so I had brought it into the shop when we got home.

Christmas Lights

What a nice day, we made a recycling run and then picked up some groceries, when we got home I got the quad with GPS out and made a flight.  I had so much fun I got the quad with the camera out to  take some pictures with the leaves off the trees, it looks a little different.

I decided to follow our trails with the quad, this is heading into the narrowest area.  It was fun flying under limbs and dodging around trees.

Here I am coming back to the yard South of the house.

I flew up between some branches and got this picture of the house.

This evening we were planning on taking a tour of the Christmas lights around Castle Rock.  Just as we were leaving, I got the idea to take pictures of Bob and Cathy's lights with the quad.  I got several good pictures, but I learned that the steadier it was the better the picture in such low light.  After driving around looking at the lights, we came home, Vera to watch Jeopardy and me to watch Monday Night Football and edit pictures.

Church

Vera and I did a reading and lit the 4th Advent candle today at Church.  They had couples who had been married over 50 years do one each Sunday.

Afterward there was a birthday party for Jesus, everyone brought treats and we had a great time.

The youth group put on a play during the party, the little guy in black did a great job singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, it was really cute!  The girl in green sang a solo that was really nice.  When we got home, James came up and we worked on the Maxima and tightened up a couple of belts that had been squealing.  The funny thing was, as James and I were talking it turned out Mik, Michelle and James did a reading at their church and lit the 4th Advent candle also.  I settled in this evening and watched the Seahawks win.

Christmas Cards

My goal today was getting our Christmas cards done!  I picked up Christmas stamps when I went down to get the mail and a switch I needed from Bredfield's.  I got the laser printer to work from this computer today, something I have been trying to do for months.  I printed out labels, put them on all the envelopes, stamped them and then had Vera sign them, because if I did it, it would not be pretty!

Not much went on around here the last couple of days, I puttered in the shop a little, played with my new radio, got a couple of flights on the quads and watched Thursday night football.

Christmas Concert

Mark Morris had their Christmas Concert tonight at LCC.  James is in the Mixed Advanced Choir pictured above.  They sounded great and I posted a short video  of their last song on Vimeo.

 Mixed Advance last song

This is James during the concert.  Afterwards we went to the Sweet Spot for a treat.  We had a nice visit with Mik, Michelle, James and Nalea.

Monday the 7 hour doctor appointment.
Well not really a 7 hour appointment, but let me tell you about Monday, Vera had a doctors appointment at 10 AM, she got in 10 minutes early and it didn't seem like very long until she was out again, all done except the doctor wanted her to get an eye exam.  We went over to schedule that and there was a cancellation so she could get in at 2 o'clock.  We had things to do in town so she took it and we headed  off to do some shopping.  After several stops and lunch at Freddie's just for the Halibut, we went back to Kaiser.  She went in pretty close to 2 and I started reading the Flying Models magazine I had taken in.  After falling asleep twice and dropping it on the floor I started getting a little concerned, it had been almost 2 hours.  I was just about to go in and see if there was a problem when Vera came out.  It seems they ran just about every test you can think of on her, except one they only do on Wednesday.  We made one more stop on the way home and finally got home about 7 hours after we had left.

A Beautiful Day for Flying

It was still a little foggy when we got to the flying field this morning, but not so bad that I couldn't test fly the new Edge 540.  It only needed a little aileron and elevator trim and it was flying pretty good.  On the second flight I found out the magnet for holding on the canopy was not strong enough when the canopy came off at the bottom of an outside loop.  I also put a flight on the new quad and let it do it's auto tune.  I had tried it once at home but it upsets it's self and then makes adjustment to the gain.  Having it 100 feet up sure felt a lot safer than doing it right in front of my shop about 10 feet away.  It flew better after that and I did some long distant RTL (Return To Home trials) which worked great.  I will download the settings onto the laptop and see what it changed.

We left the field about 11 so we could keep an appointment to check out a mower for the club that was part of an estate sale.  It was in great condition and the committee made a decision to buy it.  We moved it to club member Ken's house and then visited there for a little while before heading back to the field.

Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens were both looking great today.  It was warm enough when we got back to the field that jackets were not needed.

There were 8 flyers out today enjoying the great weather.  I had one aileron servo quit in the Dirty Birdy as I was landing, so I have some repair work to do on it.

This is my friend Steve making a low pass with his hot liner.  We stayed until about 4 when it started cooling off.  After we got home, I unloaded and put the motor home away, then I remembered we were supposed to be at Bruno's for Josh's birthday at 5!  It was almost 5, Vera was tired, so I ran down and got there about 15 minutes late, but I had a nice visit with Josh.  When I got home, I settled in to watch the Seahawks game recording.  I made sure that I stayed off the computer so I would not know how it came out ahead of time.  It was another win for the Hawks, then I watched Sunday Night Football before calling it a night.

Cricket County Christmas

This evening we went to the Methodist Church dinner and Musical "Cricket County Christmas".  We had a great time, the dinner was delicious and the musical was lots of fun, I laughed until my cheeks ached.

 Charlie (black hat and red underwear) has been my favorite character in every one of the plays they have done.  It was a really nice way to spend the evening.

This afternoon, I got the Edge 540 all done except for programming the radio.  Now all I have to do is wait for a nice day!

It was a dark and stormy day and night!

Thursday, Boy did it blow today!  We were lucky and never lost power all day, the lights flickered a couple of times, but that was it.  It was a good day to be in the house or the shop.  I got the one Christmas present we had to ship wrapped.  To get a box big enough for the present, I had to unpack one of my kits, so I modified the box to fit the present and ran it down to UPS.   Since I had the plane unpacked, I started doing a little planning on it.  I did go out once and fly the quad to see how it handled the wind.  It had to work pretty hard, but it stayed in one spot without me doing a thing.  I finished the hinging of the ailerons, just the servos and linkage and the wings will be done.  I spent the evening surfing the web and watching Thursday Night Football.

Friday, it was much nicer today, I took a walk around our trails and we did not have any trees come down, just lots of small limbs.  I took this picture as I was heading down to get the mail.  I got the servos mounted in the Edge's wings and one control horn mounted.  I also did a little work on the new project.  I gave Barry a call and had a nice visit with him, it sounds like they may get some rain this weekend.  This evening, I went to Papa Pete's and joined one of the local radio control clubs for their meeting.  I had a really nice visit with my friend Steve while I was there.  Of course, I ordered a family size pizza, so Vera and I will have plenty to snack on this weekend.

What was that?

Our smoke alarm was beeping this morning, so while Vera was at bible study, I went out to the shop to get some 9 volt batteries.  As I was walking towards the door with the batteries, I heard a loud thud on the roof.  I went out to look and a strong gust of wind had blown down my 2 meter and TV antennas onto the shop roof.  The 2 meter antenna looks OK, but I am not sure about that TV antenna.

After I had taken some pictures of the antennas, I took some of the trees blowing in the wind.

Barry sent me a picture with the caption that read "I got my Xmas lights up, too!", they look good!

It was my day to get pictures, Jackie sent me some of our great grandson John Patrik playing with the toys she had gotten him.  I did not get a lot done today, there was a big nap right in the middle of the day to break things up.