Friday, June 30, 2006

Who me?

Deanna was crawling around the house and I just couldn't help but take a couple of pictures. She has really been moving around lately and just crawls around from room to room. It has been a while since I followed her around with my camera but she didn't seem to mind.

Devin and Deanna also played a little bit today. It is really kind of strange the way the kids play. At some times it seems like both Devin and Desirae run away from Deanna. They will be playing in one room and when Deanna crawls to where they are they grab everything and go into another room. At other times, like in this photo, they play really well with her.

The only problem with today is that Denise wrecked her back again this morning. She called me shortly after 0900 hours to say that she took herself out putting away the George Forman grill. So I finished what I needed to (budget spending estimates) and headed home to help out. Hopefully her back will fill better tomorrow.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Rocket Launch

I received a call from a friend at work telling us about a scheduled rocket launch from Vandenberg AFB that was about to happen. So we moved everyone outside to watch it go. It was running a bit late but just before 2100 hrs Denise saw the contrail and we were able to follow the rocket for a while before we lost it in the clouds. It was pretty neat to watch and I am glad that we were able to see it!

It's been a year!


Well, it started a year ago today! I am surprised that I have kept this blog up and operational for that long but a year ago today I posted my first entry to this blog. Not sure what is going to come in the next year, but hopefully this blog will be apart of it.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Crazy week...

I should have more to say - but this has been a crazy week so far. This should have been a nice quiet week, one where I could get some stuff done. But as it turns out both of my bosses are TDY or in school and my counterpart is gone as well. So I am the person responsible for everything this week. Wouldn't be so bad except that I have another area that I have never really had to think much about, the networks, and they are just doing a stellar job. So has made for a LONG day with more of the same to except for the rest of the week. Oh well - it is a good experience... Maybe I can get Denise to do something for this week...

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Intel Mac...

This is going to be a quick one... Though I did put together a new entertainment cabinet today I have been spending the last part of the day working on the awards packages that are due, well they were due on Friday. The meeting to discuss them is tomorrow morning. Anyway I am using my new MacBook with Parallels to run Windows XP so I can work the documents in the funky Air Force forms application. It only works with Windows, though I don't know why, and is a major pain to use. At any rate the MacBook is running it fine and I only have one left until I am complete - and can go to bed... More to come tomorrow!

Saturday, June 17, 2006

BBQ at Caleb and Terry's

Caleb invited us over for a pre-father's day BBQ. I have been wanting to see his new place for a while and it was everything Caleb said it would be. He has a pretty big place on 5 acres that include a pool, horse stables, ATVs, motorcycles, pool-table, video games, etc, etc, etc... Needless to say their place is beautiful and even with ALL the people that were there it did not feel crowded.

Kids being kids wanted to spend most of their time in the pool. Even I finally got into the pool and it was pretty neat, and tiring! Somehow Caleb and Denise talked Desirae in jumping off the diving board. Luckily I was able to get a picture of it because it only happened once. I think Desirae scared herself and after the first time we couldn't get her to do it again. The only bad thing was that she sank to the bottom and Caleb had to grab her and bring her back up. She was pretty proud of herself though.

One of the boys was kind enough to saddle up his horse and took Desirae around the coral. I would have thought that we wouldn't been able get her off the horse but she didn't her little ride and was ready to get off. Denise also took a ride around. It was pretty neat and it was cool to have the opportunity to do that in a more relaxed environment unlike trying to do it at a fair or something like that. I didn't ride, but I have never really been an animal person. We tried to get Devin to come out and ride, but once he started playing video games getting him to leave the house was pretty much over.

All in all it was a really nice time and everyone had a lot of fun. I am really glad that we made the long trek over to their place. They invited us back again and I think we just might have to take them up on that!

Friday, June 16, 2006

Pere's going away...

Today was the last day of work for Capt. Matt Pere. We had a going away luncheon for him on the patio of the main building. Since I had my camera with me I went ahead and took some photographs until it was my turn to present our memento to Bomber. When he opened the box he seemed to like it and I could hear folks in the audience commenting on it. Since I put the camera down for it I don't think anyone captured any images of it, oh well... The freaks also presented him a plaque, the picture above is JJ presenting him the plaque.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Little helper...

Desirae has been begging Denise to feed Deanna so she let her take her turn. Desirae did pretty good until Deanna decided it was time to start playing in her food, then it was time to stop. Desirae did end up feeding her the entire thing though.

The screen guy called back today and said he would be here tomorrow to install them. We are both REALLY looking forward to having these and are hoping that they are as nice as everyone keeps saying they are. I wish we would have had them before last night because all the dirt kicked up from the lot behind us came in the windows yesterday.

Oh, speaking of that, Denise called me yesterday to tell me that the bulldozer was clearing the lot behind us. So it looks like we are finally going to have a neighbor directly next to us. Not completely happy, but I think it will be a good thing.

Monday, June 12, 2006

More asthma

I suppose I should have put two and two together, but I didn't. However it is official now, Deanna has asthma just like her big brother Devin. I know we have been giving her breathing treatments, but I didn't really think of it as an asthma thing. Anyway, Denise took her into the doctor today and she confirmed it. So now we have better medication for her and hopefully she will start feeling better. I suppose it was a good thing that we had the nebulizer in the house already. Oh well...

Denise started her "block of the month" club and finally made her first block. I think she is like 4 blocks (months) behind, but at least she was able to get one finished this last week.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

SCM Sniper Team

Well it has been a LONG time since the "SCM Sniper Team" has connected for a meeting. So the crew (Dave, Kris, and Randy) made it out today for some rifle shooting. I would like to report that we were shooting long distance, but everyone was re-sighting in our rifles so we started at 100 yards. Everyone needed to go through the process. By the end of the morning everyone had their equipment dialed back in for 100 yards. It was really great to finally get back out there and I am really glad that we did it. I have added a gallery of the pictures here!

Denise has also been trying to get some more information on having solar screens installed on our windows. So she has been trying to connect with the guy that has installed them for some of her friends. Today was the day that he finally came out. I have seen them installed at one persons place and they are pretty nice and make a big difference on the temperature on the inside of the house. We decided to have them installed and we should have them next week. They are not cheap, but I am looking forward to being able to keep the blinds open more. The demo was pretty cool too. One of Denise's friends had them installed on a couple of windows and then had the guy come back because her hottest room became the coolest and the coolest became the hottest. i am not sure how big the difference is going to be but I am looking forward to it.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Cotton Candy...

Denise purchased a cotton candy machine for our 4th of July get together. So it arrived today and we decided to test it out to make sure everything works well and to understand just how the thing works. So we had way too much sugar for the evening but it was cool. Denise was really good at spinning it onto the stick and I never really figured it out. It looks like it will be a bit of a pain, but I think we will still give it a try.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Braces Adjustment...

Well, from the walk the other day Devin got some pretty large blisters on his feet. Since the velcro was also coming off his braces Denise made an appointment today to have them looked at. The doc said that we need to slowly build him up to walking that far to get his feet conditioned to going that far for a continuous period of time. I guess we never really thought about it but we generally don't walk for over an hour continuously. So I think the plan is that Denise will try to talk him around the block once a day to start the conditioning.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Walking around...

After dinner we decided to take a walk together to give everyone something to do. So on with the shoes (and braces) and out the door we went. Devin did pretty good considering how long we walked and he had a tough time with it. By the time we arrived back at the house the sprinklers were running and both of the kids wanted to walk around with them. That really rejuvenated both of them, especially Devin.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

New bibs for Deanna

Denise bought some blank bibs and material pens for everyone to make new custom bibs for Deanna. So tonight after dinner everyone sat down at the table and worked on their new projects. They were all very creative, and still not complete, but in the end Denise is not sure if she will be able to tell the food from the coloring! Anyway it was cool and everyone had fun so that is what really counts.

Since I have been off my feet for the last couple of days because of my back I decided to work on the 2005 yearbook that I have been putting off. I went through and quickly selected some 700 images for possible inclusion and copied them over to the MacBook to start working on the book. It went much quicker than I thought it would have and I think I am just about complete. I am doing some final editing and correction on it and I might send it out in the next week or so for printing. Hopefully it will turn out as well as the last book did.

It looks like we have a blogger victim. When Denise surfed over to Gran's place her blog was deleted and all information removed from the web. I am not sure what happened and hopefully it was by choice that she dropped her blog. I definitely know how much work it takes to maintain one of these things but it was sad to see her site go. Denise and I both enjoyed reading about what was going on and her grandkids. So hopefully she continues to visit this site and maybe if she does one again she will let us know!

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Cub Scouts...

We went to the Boy Scout's meeting yesterday to find out more information and Devin ended up joining. When they asked if anyone was interested in being a scout his hand shot up like a missile. So they went through their ceremonies for moving the kids up to different levels, it was that time of year I guess, and then they came to the point when they presented Devin with his neckerchief and slide. Devin is really excited about it and excited to do more scouting type of stuff.

For some strange reason I blew out my back while we were there. Not sure what happened but when Denise called me over to take pictures I could feel it going and by the time he was done I thought I was going to fall to the ground. I probably should have gotten some heat on it when we made it home but I just crashed. So it still hurts pretty good right now though not as bad as yesterday since I have been able to move around a bit. This just sucks though.