Cora's 6th Birthday and Jordon's T-Ball

 

Today was Cora's sixth birthday and they had a party at Silver Lake Park.  Jackie posted pictures on Facebook and sent us some.  She had also sent me some suggestions from Amazon and I made sure they got there in time.  Vera crocheted Cora a doll and Jackie said she slept with it.

Cora is playing with some of the toys she got.

Cora and two friends are wading in the lake.

Jordon had a T-Ball game at the Y today and had a pretty big rooting section.  There were his parents Josh, Debbie and brother Jacob.  There were also, aunt Michelle, grandma's Bev and Natalie, Great grandma's Vera and Anita and Great grandpa me.

Jordon is at bat, he keeps his eye on the ball and usually gets a hit on his first swing.  Watching some of the kids take a big windup and then miss is really fun.

Here he is throwing the ball back to the tee.  He has a pretty accurate throw.

Jacob was up late last night and looks like he is getting pretty comfortable on the floor.

The older boys were going to a fishing derby after the game so Jacob went home with his grandma.  He really likes riding on great grandma Anita's walker.

Flowers and Mowing

I finished changing oil in the mower today.  I started on it yesterday but the drain plug when I finally found it is next to impossible to get at so I gave up.  Today I went down to NAPA and found a suction pump that I could use to suck it out through the dip stick hole.

I didn't notice Vera taking pictures until I made this pass.  I still haven't washed the mower but the engine is sure clean. 

After taking the pictures of me Vera started taking pictures of the flowers.  The Rosemary sure looks nice.

If we are lucky we will beat the birds to a few of these strawberries.

We have lots of Bluebells coming up in various spots.

The Bleeding hearts are sure big this year and they are everywhere.

After getting the tools put away I went in for a great spaghetti dinner Vera had made.  This evening I started fitting the canopy on the P-40 Warhawk.  I still have an instrument panel and headrest to add before I can fasten it down.

Plum Tree

 

This is the load of limbs I hauled away from the plum tree today.  I had to move them so I could get at the plum tree to pull it back up.  Yesterday I hauled off two trailer loads and you can see another pile in the background of the picture below.  I will probably end up hauling off four more loads.

This is the view from the carport after I got it pulled upright.  The weather didn't cooperate at times, we had rain, hail and sunshine today but luckily no snow.

It took me three tries to get the tree up like I wanted it.  The first two attempts were at the wrong angle.  I finally had to clear a trail that shows on the left side of tree.  There was an old stump back there that I hooked one cable winch onto.  The other cable winch went to a tow strap wrapped around the tree by one of the higher branches.  I still have to drive in a couple of stakes to hook the bottoms of the 2X6's to.

Finally some flying weather

I took this picture of the Skylane and Mt St Helens just before my first flight of the day.  I also flew the Extra 300BP and the Leader.  The weather was great and I had my coat off right after the first flight.  Only one other flyer showed up and I found out later it was his birthday so I wished him "Happy Birthday" on Facebook.

Mt Rainier was showing up very nicely all day.  It sure felt good to get in some airplane flying, I have been flying the helicopters at home but it is not the same.

The jumpers were active today.  They don't seem interested in sightseeing as once the chute opens it looks like a race to the ground.  About one the wind came up like someone had turned on a fan.   I made one very bumpy flight and then we loaded up and headed home.  I checked after we got home and the winds were about twelve mph with gusts close to twenty.  This evening I worked on the P-40 a little, then went out and did some more cutting up of the blow down branches.  I also found some more I didn't know about.  That late snow sure created lots of work for me.

T-Ball and Car washing

Jordon had a T-Ball game today and it was perfect weather for it.  He was right after the ball each time there was a hit.

Mik came down to watch, he said Michelle was home testing her new hammock. 

This is Jordon's first time at bat he got a pretty good hit.

Jordon is running to third, the base coaches are very encouraging, they give the kids a high five when they arrive. 

This is Jordon's second time at bat.  Vera said he really nailed this one and it went way out in the field.

When he got to second base the coach asked him where he went next and Jordon pointed right at third base.

Here he is running to third base.  They only played two innings so the game was over shortly after this.

On the way home I stopped at the South end of Front Ave and took a picture of the trees from there.  They sure look nice this year.

We debated what to do after lunch and finally decided to wash the car.  The pollen is really bad this year and we had to use toothbrushes on every crevice.  When we finished up we washed some of the worst spots on the motor home and called it a day.

The phone Camera

We made a run to town for the mail and a few things at Select.  I was sure surprised when Vera came in with me.  She has avoided going in with me because of the mask mandate.  It is kind of interesting that we found some items we haven't been able to get from the big stores in Kelso/Longview or online.  I had been thinking about taking a picture of the trees on Front Ave and remembered today.  This picture was taken by the Fibre Credit Union as we were on the way home.

When I came in tonight from working on the P-40 I stopped to take a picture of the sunset.  As I was messing with the zoom on the phone I discovered it had a wide angle setting.

This is the normal setting on the phone, no zoom or wide angle.  One of these days I may have to sit down and read the manual.

Some Crazy Weather, T-Ball and Easter

4-9-2022 Jordon had a T-Ball game today at the Y.  He did good hitting the ball and paid attention when playing as a fielder.

Jacob with Jordon's batting helmet on.  T-ball is so much fun to watch, my cheeks hurt from all the laughing and smiling during the game.  The following weekend I got to the Y and discovered I had no billfold with me so I missed that game.

4-11-2022  This picture was taken at 12:30 AM as we were heading to bed.  I had seen on Facebook that people were getting snow so I checked and sure enough we were too.

We had six inches in the morning and no power.

The snow was really heavy and weighted the rhodendrons down.  Normally they are as tall as the motor home.

This is how it looked from the shop.  Since there was no power we moved into the motor home and spent the day there.  It was nice and warm with the furnace going and we were able to microwave lunch and dinner.  The power came on about 6:00 PM, it was off for sixteen hours at our place.  Some areas did not get power until the next day.

4-12-2022  I discovered two cascara trees South of the shop had came down from the weight of the snow.  The largest one knocked down a rhodendron and the plum tree.

This is the root ball of the larger cascara.

Easter

4-17-2022  There was a good turnout at Bob and Cathy's for Easter.  Jacob was really excited when he found the bag of Reese's M&M's in his basket.  He held onto them for a long time.

Jordon was happy when he found the Reese's bunny in his basket.

James, Michelle and Mik were there also.

Robin read the entire book that Michelle got Jacob to him.  It looked like he really enjoyed it.

Just before the Easter egg hunt they got the cousins together for a picture.  They are sure a cute group!

Debbie, Josh and the boys left right after the cousin's picture.

The kids are checking out their Easter baskets after the Easter egg hunt. 

Josie was so much fun to watch.  She handled the steps on the deck without having any problems.

The adults are lined up to be put into egg hunting teams by Cathy.  The kids got to hide the adults eggs.

Bob was busy taking lots of pictures also.

The adult eggs contained items that the teams had to make into a scene.  The scene had to be about Easter and tell a story.  James was on team one and found three eggs.

Michelle was on this team which I believe is team two.  When they were finished they had to tell and explain their story to the kids who were the judges.

I believe this is team three making their Easter bunny story.

After all the teams had told the judges their story the judges went around the corner and made their decision about who won.  Then they came back and Bridget told who the winners were. 

Team one was the winner with their story about the Easter Boss.

The egg roll was the next event and the Easter Boss is explaining the rules

There was so many people that it had to be split into two groups.  Once enough were eliminated the two groups formed into one. 

There are some really intense expressions as they take winning pretty seriously.  Rick was the winner of the Egg Roll.

Michelle is helping Cathy pass out eggs for the raw egg toss down on Dan and Robin's driveway.  I posted a video of the first few throws on Facebook if you want to hunt it up.

There were teams going out on just about every throw.

This may have been the last throw.  Julie and Kevin were the winners.

Bakery

4-19-2022  A new bakery is opening in Castle Rock.  We went down this morning and picked up breakfast.  Everything turned out to be great.  Vera had the apple Danish, she said it as delicious.  I had the apple fritter and a cream horn.  The apple fritter was great, the cream horn had a custard filling which is different from what Huson's used.

I got ambitious this afternoon and got the cascara cut up so I could pull the rhodendron upright.  Several roots got broken off so I am hoping it will survive.  Those chunks of the cascara are really heavy, James came up on Wednesday, loaded them into the garden trailer.  Then we took them to the compost pile and he unloaded them.  It may take a few years but they will rot away.

The plum tree will be the next thing we pull back up.  It's roots look in much better shape that the rhodendron so I feel pretty good about it surviving.  I have also been working on the P-40 Warhawk when the weather is bad and the next post will probably be about it.