CAP’s Rising Star

Tonight was the Civil Air Patrol’s awards banquet. It was a very nice banquet with good food, a speaker and of course, awards!

Col. William Lewis, squadron commander

the speaker, Lt. Col. Greene

As Zack has only been in CAP since the fall, he was not expecting to receive any awards for this year. We were wrong…

Lt. Col. Greene, Major Ray and Zack 

The first award given was the Rising Star Award, to a new member who “has during the first year as a member accomplished the most, shows the greatest potential for continuing achievements to benefit CAP, Washington Wing, Mt. St. Helens, and themselves.”

Col. Ray and Zack

Thank you to the Civil Air Patrol for helping to raise up our future leaders to have integrity, excellence, respect and dependability.

We’re proud of you Zack!!! We can’t wait to see where God is leading you to go…

40th Birthday Surprise Party Fail (or was it???)

For Chris’ 30th birthday, I threw him a surprise party! It was lots of fun and I don’t get to surprise him very often…

But surprise parties are much easier to plan when he’s not working at home and when you don’t wait until the week before to plan it…

Thankfully we have fantastic friends and we were able to put together something that Chris would really enjoy! The only hitch was how to get him to go to Vancouver in order to be surprised…

But that seemed to be falling into place as well. Our dear friend in Vancouver just got home from having surgery and Chris wanted to visit him. All I had to do was get him to drop me and the boys off at Kate and Chad’s, go on his visit and then when he came to pick us up… SURPRISE!

The plan was so simple and yet so perfect! And then it SNOWED…

While it was totally an answer to prayer, it did put a slight damper on our plans. No longer was Chris willing to just pop down to see Don in this weather. Now I was going to have to blow the secret! :o(  I waited as long as I could…

We continued with our normal birthday routine: a yummy breakfast (when I told him about the party as casually as I could) followed by presents…

new slippers

   

Perfect for relaxing at home or going out to fetch the morning paper!

I ordered him a copy of “The Search for God & Guinness” earlier that morning and it came the very next day in the mail!

And, of course, a 6-pack of Guinness to match!

That afternoon we headed south and got to have a SPECTACULAR supper with the BEST of friends! Birthdays don’t get better than that…

Happy 40th Birthday Chris! We love you!!! Sorry you weren’t surprised but spending your birthday with dear friends is the best present ever!!! Like you said, “growing older is made sweeter by good friends.”

Snow Days

So I think the freaky weather started on Tuesday. I remember this because I was afraid we would have to cancel our first book group. Thankfully, we didn’t and the weirdness waited until we woke up to snow on Wednesday morning… (of which I was pleasantly surprised)

Now snow was in the forecast, but not until late Wednesday. But it didn’t last long and we went about our normal routine despite the hail, wind, sun, rain, snow, sun, snow/hail mix… In fact, on Wednesday evening in only 8 minutes it went from sunny and 40 to SNOWING and 34. Again, it didn’t last long and it was all gone shortly afterwards…

Until we woke up to snow again on Thursday morning… I have to admit I was pretty disappointed this time as it was NOT the several inches of snow that was predicted. I felt gypped! This wasn’t what I ordered…

Then to make matters worse, the sun came out and melted all the snow away!

Tabbi would hardly even step foot into the snow

   

The girls finally ventured out to explore

Then the freaky weather started up again! Hail, sun, snow, wind! And all in about 20 minutes!

This isn’t snow, it’s hail-snow!

 

It was like little tiny snowballs even bigger than the airsoft BB’s which were STILL on the deck!

Then it stopped, everything melted (yet AGAIN), until about 3:30… when it started to SNOW!!!

In about an hour we had a couple of inches! And it didn’t stop!!! This was the snow we had been promised!

Here’s what the deck looked like in less than an hour!

  

By 5:30, the boys were able to transform our mailbox into a snow monster!

  

It wasn’t even dark yet and still showed no signs of letting up!

Around 8:00 we realized we had a LOT of snow! And it was still snowing…

The neighbors? What neighbors??? I don’t see the neighbors! Our fence had become a wall of snow!

This morning we awoke to a glorious blue sky and sparkling whiteness everywhere!!!

           Even the snow monster looked better this morning!

Pots? What pots???

Our tiki torch looks more like a giant snocone!

The woods look so beautiful in the snow!

Right after breakfast the boys headed out to play in, what is probably to be, the last snow of the season… :o(

Unlike the cat, Betsy loves the snow!

  

We may not have a hill but we do have stairs!

Will’s just chillin’!

He is now practicing for his role as the evil snow ruler!

I had no idea how fortunate we were until we finally got our newspaper and I read that we were the only place in the region to get snow!!! Sorry everyone! But we promise to enjoy it for you… :o)

Airsoft Army

Last Saturday was Zack’s big airsoft battle. And it totally proved that God even cares about 20 teenage boys getting together to dress in camo and shoot one another with tiny plastic BB’s. The Wednesday before was cold and snowy. The following Wednesday was, too. But that Saturday was GORGEOUS!!! Sunny, beautiful blue skies and in the 50’s!

First off was the training session in the garage complete with a Power Point presentation. Then it was off for drills.

I think Tony’s ready to go…

We’re even ready in case of poison gas!

Visual aids

Dallas? Where’s Dallas??? I don’t see him! :o)

 

Grabbing a cookie and heading out for drills

After drills the boys did a bit of practice target shooting while they waited for lunch: BBQ hot dogs!

  Then it was time to pick teams and head for the hill…

Circle up boys!

  

I think we could start our own militia! LOL

The boys all had a great time and there were only minimal causalities… Zack did a really good job pulling this whole thing together (and cleaning up after, too)!