Thanksgiving

I had a small breakfast this morning, saving my appetite for dinner at the Mansion. This is the first time Debbie and Josh had came and it was lots of fun having them there. Beside them there was Bev, Mik, Michelle, James, Mik's mother Margret, Mik's brother Jim and his family, Kim, Rome, Gage and Elle. The food was good and lots of it. The only problem was James beat me to the last piece of Pecan pie. As we were leaving I saw they had put more out and considered going back for a piece. One of these times Debbie is going to smile normally for me if I'm lucky.

James came home with me and we hung out at the Robinson's for a while, Diannne wasn't feeling well and we hope she gets over it quickly. When we left there James wanted to take a 4-wheeler ride to the pipeline and creek.

When we got back James wanted to try the Snow Board Dianne had gotten him last year for Christmas. We looked around for a hill with snow and finally settled on the field down at Eddie's.

James would ride down the hill and I would haul him back up with the 4 wheeler. It finally got kind of dark so we headed home. We made a run to BK only to discover it was closed along with just about everything else, we went back home and had Chicken Pot Pies. Michelle came up to pick up James and we had a nice visit. Vera is fighting a sore throat so she stayed home today, everyone missed her!

It was nice being with family today, I hope you got to be with yours.

More Creek

James doing a little multitasking this morning. He got a pretty good nights sleep after watching the movie at the Dolan's until midnight. I went out to do a little work on the oak chairs we are refinishing. It wasn't long until the kids wanted to go to the creek again.

This time it was Auna, Parker, James and I. First they rode some of the trails and then wanted to go to a different part of the creek than normal. I took them over to a new trail that ends above the creek about 50 feet and we had to walk down an elk trail. They decided to build a little dam today. James has just thrown a log into the water and got Parker wet. Just as they were finishing the dam, Auna spotted a Grouse in the bushes, that kept them busy trying to get a picture of it. By the time we left, they had seen 4 of them.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, James spotted an elk antler on the ground. That ended up going home with him.

James discovered he could pop wheelies with the little 4 wheeler today. He had a great time with that. After a late lunch and a little R&R we ran him home. I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the trails and mowing them. It was a fun two days with James.

Thursday Flying and Baseball

It was a great day for flying Thursday. Vera and I headed up about 9:30 and stayed until 4:00. I flew my T-28 and Stuka, both of which had spent the winter hanging from the ceiling in the shop. Barry stopped by in the afternoon and shared some pizza with us. We had a nice visit with him.

After flying we went to James' game at Western. They played great and ended up winning 12 to 2.

Work Party

The Lewis County radio control club had a work party first thing this morning to do maintenance and put up the safety fence for the summer flying. We had a pretty good turn out of 10 members and were all done in under two hours. Since it was so cold, windy and raining at times most of us headed home right after.


James had two games today, in the morning a make up game for one that was rained out Wednesday and a regular game in the afternoon. We were able to make the afternoon one and really enjoyed it. He also had a game Friday night that we came down to that ended in a 6 to 6 tie. It was a close game all the way and very exciting. James was in on two double plays, one that ended the game. When pitching he also picked off a runner on first base.

James on third leading off trying to shake up the pitcher. They ended up winning 5 to 3.

James and his friend Joey after the game. They both wear the Number 12 and have been friends a long time.

James running wind sprints after the game. He was really in a good mood. After all this today, my knee is still feeling great tonight.

An afternoon with James

Since James has a game tomorrow and no practice tonight, I picked him up after school today. We stopped at the Panda Express and got dinner, then headed home. After eating and visiting for a while, James mowed the lawns. When he was done with that it was time to clean the birdbath. Playing with the hose has been his favorite thing to do since he was little.

Here he is in 1999 playing with the hose, some things never change. After he was done with the birdbath, he was off to play with Auna. They came back and watched some WWE and a magician David Blaine doing card tricks. Lots of mobility in the knee this morning, I bent it back much further this morning. I even did some practice crawling on the bed last night. It feels a little different because there is no feeling on one side of the incision, but I don't think it is going to be a problem. Every once in a while I have been stepping up onto things with the left foot without thinking about it. Slow but sure we are getting there. Right now I have ice on it after doing some yard work with the shovel. I talked to Barry today and he said to say Hi to everyone.

Hope you got to enjoy the sunshine when it peeked through the clouds.

4 09 2010 James Baseball

I did not do much today, that session working on the Blazer really made the knee tender. In the afternoon we took the motor home down again to watch James' Baseball game. We came early to get a good parking spot, I put dinner in the oven and we read while that was cooking. James has started pitching, he went in at the end of the 3rd inning and pitched the 4th and part of the 5th. The 4th inning was great for him, he only had to throw 7 pitches to retire the side.
The picture below is James heading out to pitch the first time.


For only having one practice session, I thought he did good.

They have moved the bases and pitchers mound back further this year.

They ended up losing, but one of the boys got a home run and they looked pretty good at times.

Easter

We had a great Easter! It started with me getting the best nights sleep I have had since my knee surgery. I did all my exercises and then iced my knee before getting ready for the Easter Party. Barry stopped by about 11 and we had a nice visit for an hour. At 2 we headed for the party. There was an egg roll for adults followed by one for the kids. James launched his egg a little high as everyone is looking up at it. I ended up getting third in the adult egg roll.

After that there was an Easter Egg hunt for the kids.

James has just picked up a money egg and zeroed in on another.

After a raw egg toss over pavement(no second chances there) and we had dinner there was a surprise 70th. Birthday Party for my sister Cathy.

After presents, cake and ice cream, we had to take a look at the Scrapbook of pictures and family member memories of Cathy through the years. After that, I was getting little tired so we headed home for a quiet evening of watching TV.

Play now, pay later!

I was out taking pictures of flowers and took this picture of moss in a pot on our deck. The Macro feature of the digital cameras can sure turn something ordinary into an unusual picture.

We went flying Saturday at Toledo. Boy was it a nice day, we had 13 members flying. Everyone was happy to be out enjoying the sunshine. I think we spent more time talking than flying.

The guys had not seen James for awhile. I thought he might be a little rusty, but he took off and put on one heck of a show of low level slow flight. He says it is from playing video games, but I think he learned to fly so young that he will never forget.

James leaned a little too far back once. We spent about 3 hours there until the wind came up and it started getting cooler. We stopped in Toledo and picked up a pizza for dinner. Their combination weighs a ton! James mowed the yards after we got home. All the activity kind of caught up with me, my knee swelled up pretty good and got pretty stiff. I iced and elevated it all night and it is doing fine today. The doctor said 8 or 9 weeks recovery, but it feels so good that I am probably pushing it at times.

Hope you got to enjoy Saturday, because Sunday is sure not as nice a day.

Staples

More backseat time for me today. I can remember seeing the Weyerhaeuser bridge as a kid riding with the folks. They used to dump logs into the river at Rock Point and I would always be hoping to see it happen. The spray would fly half way across the river. Vera took me down to get the staples out of my knee this morning. My first time with staples, I have had 300 plus stitches but never staples. I was a little nervous about it, but turns out they did not hurt one bit. I was watching and could not feel them.


This afternoon Vera and I went down and picked up James after school.

We had a good time hearing about his Olympic experience. We hit Burger King and then settled in for a quiet evening at home. I showed James my technicolor leg and he took it pretty well. Nice to start having a little more normal days. My next check up is in 3 weeks and they will take Xrays then. I am curious to see what it looks like. Hopefully we can get a picture for here. We were going to take one of the staple pulling, had the camera along but both of us forgot as we were watching it done.

Hope you have a nice weekend.

Boys trip to the bridge

Before we went to the creek, I had James pose with my B-36 fuselage. I put the picture on the forum where I am showing the build so the guys can get an idea how big it is.

James and Parker just North of the bridge. It was a first today, James didn't get any water in his boots.

Nice and peaceful down there, I zoomed up on the this area that looked interesting.

James loves to roam up and down the creek.

James crosses the creek every chance he gets.

Boys trip to the creek

Looking down from where we parked the 4 wheeler at the end of the new trail. You can see the trees that beaver have fallen in the lower part of the picture.

Two stumps the beavers have done, One fairly fresh and one that looks like last years.

Lots they can plink at down there with the BB gun.

Parker did not have boots, so James gave him a piggyback ride each time they crossed the creek.

The worst part was the final climb back up to the 4 wheeler. James drove back, so we made a lot better time than my driving on the way down.