We're here to hike Aay! (Canada Here We Come) April 21-22

Christopher and I had a nice trip to Canda with the Boy Scouts over the weekend. We meet the other boys and carpooled up from Kent, WA to Vancouver,BC for a weekend, overnight hiking trip. What a joy it was riding up with a carload of boys for the 5 hour drive. NOT! Well, ok it wasn't too bad. Our only complaint was the owner of the van's precious little boy was a raving lunatic that picked on several of the boys riding in the van including Christopher. I intervened when I just couldn't take it anymore, but the kid's Dad let a whole lot of craziness go on without a word.

We all had to setup tents as soon as we arrived and then setup the kitchen and the Troop "station" as well. This event had a large number of "stations" that were all manned by individual troops and they all had different games, tests, and scenarios for the scouts to do. Our troop had an obstacle cource where they visiting scouts were given several items and told that one of their group had been injured and that the remaining scouts had to create a litter or stretcher and carry the injured scout through the obstacle course with hitting any barriers. They had to place a raw egg behind the injured scout's neck as they were transporting him through the course to make it a bit more difficult.

The new scouts had to make dinner for the rest of the us, so Chris and the other new scouts got busy and learned how to make spagetti for everyone. Once everyone got their dinner we all got ready to hike. We broke into small groups, got our trail maps and headed out.

He got to our first station and they weren't even ready for us! We helped them out by stringing some twine for them and helping put together spider webs of twine as well. They gave us "full points" for helping and we were on our way to the next station. We managed to get to a few stations and then it got dark. We got to one station that had an obstacle course that was crazy! That just meant that the scouts loved it. The station clipped a padlock onto a climbing line and told the scouts that they had to get the lock all the way to the other end. The line wound around trees, up a rope ladder and all around the area! They all had to work together to get through the course and they all had a great time doing it.

They did another station where they needed to pick a "victim" to transport them through some obstacles. Of course, they picked Christopher since he was the smallest scout in our group. They put him in their makeshift stretcher and carried him over some obstacles. They had to carry him while walking on milk crates to simulate walking across rocks. As you can see, he enjoyed the trek. He made it through the test in one piece and didn't get dropped.

There were enough stations setup so that the scouts could be up all night hiking to all the stations. We hiked through about half the stations when we got back to our home station. We checked in and decided to call it a night at around 11:45 pm. We had to get up early the next morning and we were the last ones up and packed to leave. We had an uneventful drive back and of course all the scouts in the van conked out and slept. It was a really fun trip and I'm sure we won't forget it!

Permission to come aboard Sir! (March 24)

Christopher had another nice outing with Boy Scouts! In later March he had the opportunity to visit the Coast Guard base in Seattle and spend the night. He was very excited and had a great time. They had a great turn out with almost 30 boys attending. The base commander is the dad of one of the scouts in Chris's troop and he arranged the whole thing.

We started over early Saturday morning and got right down to work. They split the scouts into two groups to make them manageable and then Chris went off and learned about finger printing. The scouts all seemed to enjoy it and after they had practiced their techniques they went and had a safety talk with a Coast Guard "Chief".

Chris and the rest of the scouts all really enjoyed eating at the Coast Guard commisary. He and the rest of the Scouts "chowed down". You should have seen the grins on the Coast Guard personnel!

After they all stuffed themselves we all had an opportunity to check out some of the smaller craft that they use for patroling the coastal waters in Puget Sound. Afterwards we all got to go aboard one of their larger vessels for a guided tour. The young officer who gave us the tour was the chief technician on board and was a former Boy Scout who had grown up in the area. He was very nice and took us all around the ship to see the various areas. It was neat to see the kitchen, crews quarters, laundry area, and the bridge. There were lots of good questions being asked and all the Scouts seemed quite interested in everything. Grandpa Kunz, being a former Navy man, would have been proud!

Saving you money!

Isn't that what Congress was after when they approved the changes to Daylight Savings Time(DST)? Saving you money and making you more productive. Well, I'd like to have a few minutes of private conversation time alone with my friendly neighborhood Congressman that voted this mess in! It's certainly NOT saving me any time at all.

Like hoardes of IT guys everywhere, I have had to look into the multitude of devices that have and are dependant on an internal clock and figure out if they need updating to cope with the DST changes. I spent a good chunk of time Friday finding and patching hundreds of computers. Thank God for good tools, but it still amounts to a lot of work. My staff and I were in the office on Saturday as well applying patches and otherwise getting everything ready for the DST change this Sunday. I hope everyone remembeed to change their clocks!

Arrow of Light

Last Friday was a big evening for Christopher. Chris completed his requirements for his "Arrow of Light" and graduated from "Webelos" to the "Boy Scouts". All the dens of the pack gathered to celebrate and they had their "Blue and Gold" banquet. Since it is Lent, this meant salad and cheese pizza for most of us, but it was a wonderful night and everyone enjoyed the meal.

Chris and all the other scouts had uniform inspections and then they moved on to the "Arrow of Light" awards. It was really neat to see and he was beaming with a big smile that we don't see all the time. It was great.

Sarah, Rebekah, Leslie and I were all there to share in Christopher's big night. Rebekah's little friend Joanna was there to see her big brother Devin get his award as well. Of course Rebekah and Joanna had a lot of fun playing during dinner and kept us all entertained with their game of Simon 'sez as you can see here!

Here are some more photos of Chris. He went to his first night of Boy Scouts tonight and I think he is really going to enjoy it.

What's up with the Groundhog?

The groundhog did NOT see his shadow this year! He didn't!
There, I've said it. I should have been able to expect an "early Spring" this year according to this year's Groundhog day prognostication. Well, the Groundhog has blown it so far.

Our Presidents day weekend started out with a beautiful Saturday. It was bright and sunny with a blue sky. We spent time outside and I even washed the Big Green van with the help of some of the kids. Of course that really jinxed it! It got overcast later and Sunday was grey, overcast, and rainy. Monday wasn't much better.

Today didn't look too bad for my ride into Seattle, but Leslie had all kinds of bad weather in her driving day. She had hail and rain with a large number of auto accidents thrown in. I'm just glad that she didn't have any fender benders. I'm taking the train home now and I hope that I won't find hail and locusts waiting for me when I get to my stop.

My hope is that we will eventually get some more sunshine as we are all tired of the rain. I hope everyone else is having a better time than we are!

Like Mother, Like Daughter...

I just had to put this up! Rebekah conked out after a busy day and I just had to take her picture. After looking at the picture I knew I had seen that pose before and had to share...

You know you've lived too long in Seattle when....

...you would put this combination on and you thought that it looked just fine! Doesn't Rebekah look fabulous? I don't remember what prompted her to change, but Leslie and I couldn't stop laughing when she showed us her outfit. The problem is that I could walk around downtown in Seattle and find at least a half a dozen women with similar taste. I just hope that we can repair her fashion sense before it's too late!

I hope that you are all enjoying warmer weather than we have been having. I keep thinking that it will get warmer after all the snow that we've had, but it just isn't happening. We thankfully have had some beautiful clear days, but they have been very cold. All I can say is that the Groundhog had better NOT see his shadow. I don't want any additional winter time!

We did manage to get out last weekend despite all the cold. Christopher needed to get a hike in to help him complete his requirements to get his "Arrow of Light" for scouts and so we all trekked out to "Flaming Geyser State Park". We followed the trail up along the river and found "Bubbling Geyser". It wasn't much to look at. There were just a few bubbles that showed, but it was still neat to see. On the hike back we found a lot of Salmon remains on the river bank area that were left over from the spawning season. Apparently this is normal, but not everyone appreciated the smell!