A Birthday Celebration

Chuck arrived Thursday night to help Beverly celebrate her birthday. We always enjoy when he comes to visit. Yesterday was Bev's 79th birthday and we spent most of the day together. She has been stressing over the fact that she was turning 79 but we had to remind her of the alternative and that it is just a number. We went out for bagels in the morning. Beverly and Chuck had never been to the Clark County Historical Museum so we took them there and enjoyed the exhibits on the I-5 bridge and women's equality. After that, we traveled a few blocks to go to a winery that we hadn't visited yet. Gouger Cellars has a small corner of a building that is also used for people to store their wine at the perfect temperature. We enjoyed the wine tasting and conversation with the owners. Then we got Thai takeout for dinner, enjoyed a chocolate torte cake and watched Alfred Hitchcock's movie, "The Man Who Knew Too Much." Tom leaves today to go back to school. Chuck leaves in the morning. So we will be back to relatively normal routines again. Although I officially start my new job tomorrow so that will be a bit of a change for me--hopefully a good one--and Beverly is having a cardiac catheterization procedure on Wednesday so I will need to take care of her afterward and spend the night with her. Please pray that everything goes well and that she doesn't need any further surgery. We are hoping she doesn't need open heart surgery. We were so grateful she didn't need to have it a few years ago and hope she doesn't need it now as well.

Best Buddies

Tom and Chris are enjoying spending time together over Tom's spring break. They have been playing Magic and went to buy Chris some more cards at the Bat Cave today. It is fun to hear them laugh with each other and having such a good time.

Packer Fanatics

This is sort of old news but I bought Tom a Packer Super Bowl champion t-shirt for Valentine's Day and Darren sent me one and a Packer wine glass. Tom is home for spring break this week so this was the first opportunity to get our picture taken together in them. Enjoying having Tom home for the week. I miss him when he's gone.

Congratulations Tom!

Tom got some good news this week. He has spent the past several months getting things in place to compete for what is called a "rated position" in the Air Force. The board for these positions chooses who will get to be in them during junior year of ROTC. Rated positions are those that are aviation related--pilots, combat systems officers (a newly created position to combine navigator, weapons specialists and electronic warfare officers into one job), air battle managers and remote aircraft pilots. It is fairly competitive and there is a scoring system that is used based on ratings from your ROTC commanding officer, GPA, PT test, field training performance, Officer Qualification Test, a pilot aptitude test and you have to meet the medical requirements to be a pilot. If you don't get a rated position, then you have to figure out what other branch of the Air Force you would like to work in like public affairs, intelligence, etc.

Tom found out on Tuesday that he has been selected to be a combat systems officer. He is so excited. His first choice was pilot but he is so excited and looking forward to being a combat systems officer and fly in the back seat. He had already thought about becoming an intelligence officer if his rated position didn't come through but is happy that he got a flying position like he wanted. And he is on an alternate list for pilot should any positions open up that he could move up to. I am thrilled for him and so proud.

I've tried to look up what I could about it on the internet. Looks like he will have more than a year of training once he graduates from college which obligates him to six years in the Air Force. After six weeks of basic training in Alabama, he should be headed to Pensacola for a year of training. I think I will want to make at least one trip down to Florida to see him. I have never been to Pensacola so that sounds fun. There is supposed to be aircraft specific training after that but I suppose it depends on what kind of aircraft you get selected for as to where that training occurs.

Congratulations Tom! One more box checked toward getting your Air Force career started.

Valentine's Celebrations

My request for a Valentine's date was to go to Cinetopia to see "The King's Speech". Cinetopia has been a theater near our home for about six years now but we have never gone there before. It is an upscale theater venue with a restaurant, wine bar and a few smaller "living room" theaters for 21 and older that have waiters take your orders for food and alcohol. It is a little more expensive than your regular theater but having better food and service made it a very pleasant experience. We'll probably do it again sometime. As luck would have it, "The King's Speech" was showing in one of the living rooms so we ordered some artichoke dip, wine and beer, put our feet up on the ottoman in front of us and enjoyed the movie. The movie was excellent. Should be interesting to see how many Oscars it will receive. It was a lovely presentation of the friendship that King George had with his speech therapist. Afterward, we picked up some Thai food to bring home and enjoy with Chris.

Sunday, Bill took me out for breakfast and then I cooked dinner at Beverly's to celebrate Valentine's weekend with her and Chris. Bill had checked out "The Rookie" from the library so we watched that after dinner at her house.

All in all, it was a lovely Valentine's weekend.

Way to Go Pack!

It is times like this that I miss being in Wisconsin-when there is so much excitement about the Packers being in the Super Bowl. There are a lot of Packer fans in this area but it just isn't the same as being in the home state to feel the pride and excitement everyone has about the game there.

I went to a Super Bowl party with Jeff and Julie Oerding at the Canby Theater. There weren't that many people that went to it so it was pleasant sitting there and watching the game up on the big movie screen. I was feeling pretty confident that the Pack would win after the first half but they just couldn't seem to get anything going in the second half and let the Steelers catch up. Thank goodness the defense kept up their end of the game taking the ball away three times--all turning into scores. So the Lombardi Trophy is coming home again to Green Bay for the 4th time. Way to go Pack!

Thunder Basketball

This is another one of those "this is the last time I'll be doing this" moments. Christopher was in Pep Band again this year. I went to one or two games last year and this was the last home game that they would be playing at this year so I decided to go and take pictures. The Thunder played Prairie High School and it was a fairly close game but the Thunder ended up winning it by 4. One more game at Camas Friday night and if they win, they will be the district champs.

The band is always very loud and very fun to listen to. I will miss hearing all their old standards that they play at football games and basketball games. So with a sigh, I realize that high school is almost over for my Christopher and going to Mountain View sporting events to see or hear my boys participate in sports or music is coming to an end.