Visit to Barry's

I had all kinds of things planned for today, seaplane flying in the morning, a trip to Puyallup, a stop at Barry's and Costco.  I was planning on going to Puyallup to deliver the money for the kits I have been selling for a friend who has Parkinson's.  I emailed him and in the end he wanted to donate one thousand dollars to the model club and I was to keep the rest for my troubles.  Since part of the reason for seaplane flying was it was on the way to Puyallup I talked myself into not getting up early to go there.  Instead, we made a later start, took the back road and headed to Barry's to pick up a generator and store it for him.  When we got to Barry's no one was home or answered the phone so  we went to Mod Pizza for lunch.  When no one was here after that we headed to Costco but Barry called before we got very far and I turned around.  It turned out he was at the dentist.  I got a nice picture of Barry and Bentley while we were visiting.

Bentley is giving me the eye!

Barry and I are loading the generator, it was a tight fit but we made it.  Everything even the ramps fit just like I had planned.

Barry and Mona did a great job on the front yard, it is easy to see why it sold in two days.  Vera and I made our stop at Costco and then went home via the Little Rock Road.  It was a nice pleasant drive, when we got to Chehalis I was ready to be home so it was freeway the rest of the way.

Water Fall and Baskets

This is one of the baskets Vera and I redid this spring, I am really proud of it.

The pond started losing water like crazy!  I filled it up at night and it was almost empty the next day.  I did some checking and found the fire weed and grass had roots going down into the water blocking the channel.  Getting them out turned into a real wrestling match, but I won and it is flowing great now.

When James brought up Vera's Mother's Day basket he moved the Parrots Beak one to a different hook.  I have fertilized it several times and it now has way more blooms than before.

Flying and Baseball

We went flying early to beat the heat.  One other flyer showed up a little later and I think that was all for the day.  When it warmed up, we headed home and enjoyed the air conditioning.

James had a 6:00 game at Woodland, there was a pretty nice breeze and I arranged an umbrella to shade the west side of the car so we were pretty comfortable.  James didn't play a lot, he was suffering from a sore back and ribs after getting ran into at first while stretching for a high throw.

 He pitched for one inning, you can really see him concentrating in both pictures.  After the game we hit Dairy Queen for dinner and headed home.

Windy Flying!

The wind came up fairly early today and pretty soon it was 15 gusting to 20 mph.  I put my planes on the ground so they wouldn't get blown off the table.  I think the wind kept some people away as there only five of us there today.

I had to do a little research online to figure out what Ralph's plane was, it turned out it is a Vought Kingfisher.  It sure flew nice!  One of the flyer's plane went down out in the hay field, two people pointed out right where is should be, but five people went out looking and didn't find it.  Later Leonard walked out to where he saw it go down so I went with him but took a different route.  I went across the fence into the wooded area and looked around  but had no luck.  We both came back a different route without seeing anything.  The guy is coming back later with his quad with a TV camera on it and try to find it.  I hadn't walked on the treadmill this morning so it was good exercise.

Vera made sandwiches and we stopped at the South Lewis County Park to have dinner on the way home.

Vera's Birthday

It was Vera's birthday today, I went down to the Flower Pot yesterday while Vera was at bible study and ordered this basket for her.  Laury was working and did a great job making it up.  This afternoon we went out for lunch at Gee Cee's.  They serve large portions, Vera and I both brought half of our meal home and had it for dinner.

Vera really likes the hanging basket from the Mik, Michelle and James.  I watered and fertilized it today and it is recovering from the move nicely.  James and Kolbi came up to wish Vera a happy birthday, I totally forgot to take a picture of them with Vera and the basket.  We settled in later and watched the latest American Ninja Warrior and the Spartan's this evening.

Flowers and Triplane

Vera's bible study class had a celebration for her birthday today, her friend Carole gave her these roses.

James and Levi brought up this huge hanging basket for Vera's birthday from Mik, Michelle and him.  I had James hang it and I am glad I did because he said it was heavy!  He also brought her a bottle of fertilizer for it.

A friend had a bunch of radio control equipment he wanted to get rid of, I made an offer and he accepted it.  He stopped by and delivered it today, we had a good visit while getting caught up.  Just as he was getting ready to leave James came in to tell me he had brought the basket and that I had company.  Another modeler from Long Beach had stopped by to visit, his daughter has move to a place a little further up the Spirit Lake Hwy.  I introduced the two visitors and went to help James with the hanging basket.  James and Levi had to head right back, so I went back and visited with Todd and Dennis a little more.  After lunch Vera and I started going through the stuff I had bought.  This little Fokker Triplane was part of it and after binding it to my transmitter I got in a couple of flights.

I went out on the back porch and put one twilight flight on the little quad.  I had a good time and then I turned off the power in the wrong order and lost the video I had shot.  With a little luck I will get it right next time.

Dental Appointments

 We both had dental cleanings scheduled today, Vera suggested taking the little quad and flying at Willow Grove afterwards.  My appointment ran a little long because they found a spot that needed filling.  Luckily the dentist had an opening right after my cleaning.  I moved to his area and everything went great.

It was pretty windy in the Longview area but I gave it a try.  The faster quads handle wind fairly well and mine is a type of racing quad.  It did get bounced around quite a bit.

We were parked right at the end of the park at a turn around,

Vera found a nice rock to sit on and knit, she also warned me that I was getting close to some power lines.  This picture is as I was coming in to land..  Some of the club members have come out here and flown their planes over the sandy area.

The park is owned by the Port of Longview and they are happy with us flying there.  I stopped on the way out and took this picture of the river.  After that we went to Applebee's for dinner and then stopped at Fred Meyer for a few things.

This evening I went out to test the low light video camera at about 9:30, that is me in black on the deck.  These pictures are screen captures of the video, the camera is not real high resolution, 1280 x 720.

 I was surprised that the video was in color, when I went back under the trees it changed to black and white.  I have sure been having a good time with this new camera the last few days.

Mowing and Flying

I loaded up the mower yesterday evening so I could mow the club's landlady's lawn today.  Mrs. Herren is in her nineties, the granddaughter that had been living with her just moved out and she is not able to do the outside upkeep.  She wants to stay at her home as long as she can, so she asked the model club if we could mow for her rather than pay rent.  We agreed, but we still plan on paying the rent.  I parked the motor home at the flying field, got the mower unloaded and Vera settled in before I went over to mow.  I got the front done and did a little of the back which had been a goat pasture but it was too tall and rough for this sized mower, then I got wire wound around the center mower blade.  I watered her flowers and headed back to do some flying. Mrs. Herren's house is in the center of the picture above.

I only flew two planes today, but I had a great time with them.  I hadn't had the T-28 out for a couple of years and I had forgotten how well it flies.  The other one flew much better after I discovered the rudder hinge had failed, I put that piece of blue masking tape on to repair it.  More permanent repairs will be done tonight.

Three other flyers showed up, two of them had new radio controlled cars and we had a great time playing with them in the parking area.  I will have to take mine next time.

While I was unloading Vera took some pictures of the flowers.  We have lots blooming and I really liked this picture she took of the hydrangea.

 While she had the camera out she took a picture of me with the wire that was around the mower blade.  The blade turned out to be bent on one end so I replaced it.  After I got done, I mowed the lawn to test it out.  This evening I took the quad with the new low light camera out and did some flying in the dark.  It worked petty good and I had fun trying something a little different.

Baseball and Flying

James had an 11:00 game this morning, it was blowing pretty good and kind of chilly so James had his Monarchs jacket on.

When James gets a hit my picture will usually show him looking right where the ball is.

James is coming into second, Michelle is by the fence taking pictures and Vera is in the motor home watching.  It would be a much nicer picture without those cell towers.  We brought the motor home today because the Sani-Can they had yesterday was a mess!  This way we had a nice clean bathroom to use.

It seems like this was the weekend to get pictures of James sliding.  He was safe at third a couple of minutes after the picture of him at second.

He scored on the next hit.  They ended up losing 4 to 2 and that was the end of their playing for this tournament as it was a loser out game.

After the game we went over to the Toledo flying field.  There was a good turn out for Father's Day flying, I counted ten members there.

One of the guys test flew his new Stuka and I got a great picture of it and Mt St Helens as he came in to land.  It was way out of adjustment and he felt lucky to get it back on the runway in one piece.  I flew four flights while we were there.  One of the members had 200 feet of crepe paper attached to his plane and we were trying to cut it with our planes.  The funniest thing happened, I hit the ribbon and it didn't break, instead it hooked on my plane.  As you can imagine that did not work out well, two planes trying to go opposite directions.  We both ended up landing out in the hay field.  Mine wasn't damaged so I attached the ribbon that had finally broken to my plane and hand launched it.  I was playing around doing loops trying to cut my own ribbon when I hit it and got it wound up in the propeller and down I came again.  I made a total of five flights and then we headed home.

Jackie sent me the cutest picture of Cora today!

James Baseball

The roses are still blooming and Vera took some pictures of her favorite.

James was playing in a tournament in Winlock today, before the game started they had the teams participate in a chicken chase.  James didn't do it, but his team won.

Then they raffled off  this rooster, I am sure glad I didn't have a ticket!  Roosters can be really aggressive and noisy, I never liked any we had when I was a kid.

 James bunted his first time at bat but it went foul.

The next pitch he hit a nice RBI single.

James was stealing second when Spencer Stone hit a double.  James is rounding third headed home to score as Spencer rounds first.

James had been playing left field until they made a pitching change and he moved to first, this is one of his plays there.

James after stealing second, they were trying to get him in a run down between first and second when the player on third base went home.  The throw to home was high so both of them were safe.

A minute later James scored on a hit.  There was a bat laying in the way so his slide was kind of awkward.  They ended up winning 10 to 4.  We stopped at Betty's in Toledo for burgers, by the time we were done I decided to run back and see who they played at 5:00,  Michelle had came to this one so I visited with her and took a couple of pictures but it was kind of cold so we left after the second inning.

Debbie's Graduation

I made good headway today, I have everything except the ailerons covered.

This evening we went to our granddaughter Debbie's LCC RN class graduation.  Before the program started they had a slide show running of the students during the year, it was really enjoyable to watch.

This is the cake they had at a party for the graduates.

A selfie of Debbie and her study pardner Kyla that was in the slide show.

There were several speakers during the graduation, but it moved right along and was very interesting.

They had family and friends present the pins to the graduates, her fiance Josh presented Debbie's.

Kyla's mom and son presented hers.

Bev, Debbie and Kyla after the ceremony, there was a big crowd out in the lobby congratulating the new RN's.

We are all really proud of Debbie!

We all went to dinner at Sizzler afterwards.