Bev's Birthday

Chuck flew up to Vancouver on Saturday to help his mother celebrate her 81st birthday.  We had more of a birthday festival as Bill likes to say.  We celebrated for 4 plus days with plenty of food, wine, margaritas and dessert.  Bill always loves when his brother comes to visit.  He tries to think of all kinds of ways to keep him entertained.  On Sunday, the three of us went out to the Gorge to do a little hiking.  The guys did the whole 7 mile round trip between Bonneville Dam and Cascade Locks.  I did a one way trip.  We ate breakfast in Cascade Locks and then the guys hiked back to the car and I explored Cascade Locks a bit while I waited for them to come back and pick me up.

After we came home, we worked on Grandma's birthday dinner.  We wanted Cindy and Jim to join us for dinner and Sunday was the day that they could come.  So we celebrated a couple of days early with them and skyped Tom so that he could say hi to all of us too.

On Bev's actual birthday--the guys took her to Olive Garden for lunch and then we all went out to Mexico Lindo for dinner.  Had a great visit with the brother-in-law!

AORN 60th Congress

I decided I wanted to go to AORN (Association of periOperative Nurses) Congress this year.  I usually try to go every five years or so to get a lot of continuing education hours toward my certification.  But somehow, it has managed to become nine years since my last congress.  The last one was in 2004 in New Orleans when I was the president of our chapter.  It was the 60th year so there was a lot of excitement for hitting that milestone.  And Mary Russell from our chapter won a national office--on the nominating committee.

I spent the first couple of days and nights on my own.  My roommate's husband came down for the weekend so they spent it together until he left for his business trip to Phoenix Monday morning.  I didn't really do any sightseeing as such.  But my hotel was about a mile from the convention center so I would walk different routes to get between them to check out what the downtown area had to offer and do some "walk by" photography.

The Gaslamp Quarter was very cool.  I love old buildings and architecture so it was fun to walk through that neighborhood.  A lot of the buildings were from the 1800's and some with more '30's art deco architecture.  I loved the Victorian gingerbread look to some of the buildings--especially the Horton Grand Hotel.  And there was restaurant after restaurant lining 5th Ave. 

Sunday morning I walked along the waterfront and saw the Star of India--a ship built in 1863.  I came across the USS Midway Museum and the Greatest Generation Walk with several monuments and memorials.  I loved "Unconditional Surrender"--a recreation of the famous photo of the sailor kissing the nurse on VJ Day in 1945.

My hotel was near Little Italy.  Sandy and I skipped one late evening session to eat at Davanti Enoteca in Little Italy.  We had the best happy hour meal and ended it with a to die for salted caramel pudding.

I had a great time but was very happy to get home.  It is always good to get rejuvenated and excited about your career again but it can get pretty tiring.  

Vancouver Goes Hollywood

We were invited to an Oscar party at the Kiggins Theater put on by the Vancouver Chamber of Commerce.  It was a fun idea making the event as much like the real Oscars as possible.  Bill and I had never been to the Kiggins Theater before.  It was was built in 1936 and was recently purchased and renovated by Dan Wyatt.  It was interesting to see all the art deco touches.

Bill and I elected not to go for the VIP treatment--arriving by limo and getting the swag bag of goodies, etc.  But we were still greeted with enthusiasm by the guys from "The Vancouver Side" announcing our arrival on the red carpet.  There was the atmosphere of several photographers taking our pictures and cameramen videotaping our interview with "The Fashion Police"--Alisa Tetreault--co-owner of Most Everything Vintage; Brett Allred of Beigeblood hair salon; and Seth Aaron Henderson--Fashion designer and Project Runway Season 7 winner.  They were interviewing everyone as they came in about their wardrobe, jewelry and their hopes for who would win the Oscars that evening.

We enjoyed our James Bond inspired cocktails and appetizers, checked out the upstairs bar and visited with friends while we waited for the show to start.  It was great seeing the Oscars on the big screen.  Very fun way to watch the Academy Awards and feel like you were almost there.

There was an article in the Columbian today about the event if you are interested in learning more about it.

I Love You

Maddy posted this picture of Tom last night.  She always says that Ariel loves Tom more than she loves her.  Tom and Ariel certainly look cute together.

A Valentine's Date

Maddy has been to a place in Kirkland called Palettes and Pairing where you can go to a painting class and drink wine in the past.  She has gone with friends.

And with her parents just before she moved to Pensacola.

She was excited to find a place in Pensacola that does the same thing.  So she arranged to go with Tom yesterday.  They took a bottle of Malbec with them to enjoy while they worked on their masterpieces.  What a fun way to celebrate Valentine's Day together!

Valentine's Day

We never go out for Valentine's Day.  It is always too crowded.  If we do go out, it is on another night.

This year, Valentine's Day fell on a Thursday--CAA night.  So the president decided to find out who would come that night and no one raised their hands.  So another guy recommended that they have a Valentine's Dinner for the wives.  So Bill and I headed down to Aurora Thursday night to enjoy a tri-tip dinner.  I got a rose and we watched the movie "Amelia" with Hilary Swank playing Amelia Earhart.  It was a very nice evening with Bill and our friends.

Save Pearson Air Museum

This week--Pearson Air Museum in Vancouver, Washington was given two days notice that the National Park Service (NPS) intended to take over the museum.  The Fort Vancouver National Trust which currently ran the museum and the Pearson volunteers had two days to pack up everything in the museum and move it out.  The NPS intended for the contents to remain and to run the museum themselves.  Giving only two days notice, they were hoping that they would be able to seize all the exhibits.  While the Pearson Air Museum resides on NPS property, the museum was built with funds raised by the Pearson Field Historical Society and was turned over to the Fort Vancouver National Trust to run the museum on behalf of the City of Vancouver several years ago.  All the exhibits are property of the Trust or private donors. 

This has been an upsetting turn of events for our community and for our family.  We got involved with the Pearson Air Museum shortly after we moved here.  I remember one of the first events that we attended was when Tom Murphy reenacted the Silas Christofferson flight off the roof of the Multnomah Hotel in 1995.  We went down to the old Pearson Air Museum in a small green hangar to witness this historic flight commemorating the 1912 flight in a Curtiss Pusher.  The flight kept getting delayed so I took Tom and Chris home and watched on TV.  Once the pilot took off from the roof of the building, I rushed to pack the kids back in the minivan to get back to the airport to see him land.  Shortly after that, Bill got involved on the Board of the Pearson Field Historical Society and eventually became President of the Board.  He was involved in the transition of the museum from the Historical Society to the Trust.  One of the reasons being that the NPS was difficult to deal with at that time as well and the thought was that the Trust on behalf of the City would be in a better position to deal with the bureaucracy of the NPS than the Historical Society might have been.  Over the years, we have attended many events at the museum--children's day activities, hangar dances, Christmas parties, various charitable fundraising events including Dancing with the Local Stars and Festival of Trees, and a friend's wedding.  We even purchased a sleepover at the museum one year and invited Tom's entire 5th grade class.  Years later, his friends still remembered what a wonderful experience that was for them.

I love everything located on the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site--including Fort Vancouver which the NPS runs.  So this isn't about bashing Fort Vancouver.  It is a wonderful place.  But the history of that site goes way beyond Fort Vancouver--which was actually located there a relatively short time compared to Pearson Field.  Hudson's Bay Company may have been here first (after the Indians of course) but the U.S. Army wasn't far behind arriving in 1849.  I love Officer's Row in particular but it is fascinating to see the other old Vancouver Barracks buildings as well.  Vancouver Barracks went by a few different names early in its history but it played a central role in protection of settlers arriving on the Oregon Trail and in the Indian Wars of the mid-1800's.  Pearson Field's history dates back to 1905 when a dirigible landed on the polo grounds at Vancouver Barracks--making it the longest continuous running airport in the United States.  The first airplane landed here in 1911.  During WWI, the site was instrumental in spruce production for building planes for the war effort.  From 1923-1941, it was the home to the U.S. Army Air Service.  In 1937, the famous landing of Valery Chkalov and two other Russian pilots at Pearson after the first non-stop transpolar flight made news around the world and the City of Vancouver still has a close relationship with the Russians and the Chkalov family because of this historic landing in Vancouver. During WWII, it was a staging area for the war and the Kaiser shipyards were producing warships nearby on the Columbia River.  The military has continued its presence at Vancouver Barracks until very recently.  In the 1990's, the phrase "One Place Across Time" was used to describe this site because of its long history.  Fort Vancouver and the NPS's narrow-minded view about the history of the site represents only a small portion of the history here.  Being located in a thriving city, it continues to make history.

The National Park Service was re-negotiating its contract with the Trust.  It essentially made it impossible for the museum to continue any of the programs and activities that it has worked so hard to put in place.  The NPS has recently not allowed certain events to take place at the museum citing that they don't meet the NPS rules.  This closure is especially hard on many non-profit groups in Vancouver that hosted their events there at a discounted rate.  By allowing organizations to host their fundraisers at the museum, it helped the community as a whole allowing more dollars to go to charitable causes rather than to venue rental.  It has forced the museum to remove STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) based educational programs such as its summer aviation camps and Exploring Careers in Aviation program which the museum was in partnership with the Clark County Skills Center.   I just read on their Facebook site today, that a Simply Scientific Saturday was scheduled to be held in two weeks.  Programs like that were being scheduled all the time.  Now they are being canceled.  Bill and I attended one of the protests yesterday in our support of the museum.  So hard to go there and not be able to go inside and see the airplanes and other exhibits.

My son, 2LT Thomas Roller, also mourns that fact that this place has closed.   "I'm very disappointed that the place I learned to love flight has closed its doors for the time being.  It is a place I still hold dear to my heart.  I hope that the issues surrounding it are resolved before I go home and it can once again reopen.” He is currently learning to fly the T-6 in the Air Force Undergraduate Combat Systems Officer course in Pensacola, FL.  His story is just one of many young people that have been touched by the Pearson Air Museum and sparked their interest in aviation and aviation history.

I too hope that it is possible to open the museum again.  The museum exhibits must return to their home and be under the control of the Fort Vancouver National Trust and not the NPS.  No other location will be the same. If you want to help, there is a new Facebook page devoted to saving the museum.  Look for "Save Pearson Air Museum" on Facebook for events and ways that you can help.

Here is just a sampling of some of our more recent memories of Pearson Air Museum.  Unfortunately, many of our memories are from prior to owning a digital camera.  But I hope you can get a sense of what a special place it was to us through my photos.