Boosing the signal

A friend of mine is battling cancer and is trying to raise funds to cover the home care that he needs. Here is a link to the fund razer page. https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/9LG7b

If you can help it would be greatly appreciated. :)

Florida Day 3

Next day Tom, Bill, Cameron, Me and Ryan (one of Tom’s EOD buddies that is from Illinois) went fishing in the gulf for red snapper:


Our boat the American Spirit






Cameron got the first fish!


Tom got one too


Bill's first catch


Dolphins follow the fishing boats


A storm on the horizon - we could hear the thunder!


The entire boats legal catch


Our catch!

One of the hands was fishing off the front of the boat - he hooked a bull shark - about 6 feet long! We couldn't keep it (and I didn't get a picture) they are protected. There was also some mahi mahi (which is NOT dolphin as I have always been told), and trigger fish - Bill hooked a trigger and he looked like he had gotten a Marlin! It really fought hard!

 

When we got back to the hotel, we ate and then headed out to the beach. Bill and I got to ride a jet ski (for free!) for 15 minutes before they closed down for the day. Of course I didn't get pictures of that - they kids didn't know until we got back in that we were out.




Austen found a hermit crab


A little horse play in the water


One last picture before we left

 

That evening we ate at a Mexican restaurant. Cameron ordered some really hot meal. He was so funny. It was so hot but he was not going to let it beat him – he ate the whole thing making the most terrible faces the entire time!






We are back home now and doing laundry and trying to recover from all the early mornings we had. Tom is on his way home now. He had to wait until this morning to sign out and he will be home for about a month.

Florida Day 2

Next day was Tom’s graduation at the Navel EOD School on Eglin AFB:




Tom getting 'pinned'


In front of the EOD memorial


His whole class (that made it through!)

 

We stopped at the Air Force Armament Museum:




Tom just couldn't pass up checking out the bombs on the aircraft


This is such a funny picture - Erik is up in the landing gear and Meghan is checking him out.


Of course Aubri had to post in front of the big guns!

 

Then Cameron, Austen, Erik, Aubri and Meghan went to the beach while Tom took Bill and I around base and back to the board walk for some shopping.




Beach Beauties!


They buried Erik in the sand.

 

 

Florida!!

I'm going to break this post up into at least 3 because I have so many pictures!

13 hour drive from St. Louis starting at 1:00AM Yes, you saw that correctly – AM! We decided to try to beat the morning rush traffic since we were picking up our rental at the air port at 6:00. So I called ahead and they said we could pick it up early – anytime after midnight. We arrived and they didn’t have the vehicle that we reserved but they did have a mini van (which is what I wanted in the first place and was told they were sold out). So that worked out great – and it was cheaper!

We got home and loaded everything up and took off at 1:00. Bill drove to Arkansas and then I drove through Arkansas and Memphis and into Mississippi. We stopped for breakfast somewhere in Mississippi and then Bill drove to Alabama. I drove into Louisiana and then Bill drove on into Florida and to our hotel.

We arrived about 2:30 and met up with Tom and Cameron (a friend that the boys grew up with down the street and is now in the Army at Ft. Campbell – he came down for Tom’s graduation on a 5 day pass.) We went down to the wharf in Destin to a place called AJ’s (where Tom and his buds party!)


Bill and I


Aubri and Erik


Cameron


Erik and Meghan


Austen and Tom

Then we stopped by the beach on the way home. We didn’t’ stay long as a storm was coming in.

 

 

I’m going to Florida to get out of the heat!

Well ok, maybe that isn’t the real reason we are going but we are leaving for Florida in the morning.  Tom is graduating from EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) school at Eglin AFB near Destin Florida on Friday, so the whole family (including my new future daughter-in-law) are driving down in the morning.  It’s a 12-14 hour drive so we plan on leaving between 6:30 and 7:00.  We are renting a vehicle to drive down – I wanted a mini van but they were all out a month ago when I made the reservation so we have a GMC Yukon or something similar.  I am hoping to be able to get all of our luggage (we are only going for 3 days) plus some chairs so that we can sit in comfort at the beach on Saturday. 

Our agenda is: 

Thursday – pick up the rental at 6:00am, drive all day.  I expect to be at the hotel around 9 or 10 if we get out of St. Louis on time.

Friday – graduation at 8:00am.  Then I’m sure Tom will want to show us all around.  That is pretty much Tom’s day.

Saturday – BEACH!  We are still trying to decide what we want to do.  Bill, Aubri, Tom and I want to go deep sea fishing but Erik and Austen want to go Para sailing or jet skiing.  Meghan doesn’t care as long as it involves the beach and sun!  I figure we COULD do both but the expense will decide really.

Sunday – drive home all day, drop off the rental and fall into bed exhausted!

Monday – I have to work!  From home so I can hopefully catch up on my laundry.

It's Official!

Erik proposed to Meghan last night and she said 'yes'! They are both so excited! They will be waiting until after they finish college to actually get married so this is going to be at least a 3 year engagement.

Rainbows

My Livejournal friend CBPotts wrote this yesterday and I really liked it so I asked permission to share:

Last night, after supper, there was a rainbow. It'd been raining for a good part of the day - it was raining then - and it was warm, and I stood in the doorway and I watched that rainbow. It stretched not too far - one end started three houses down the road; it ended in my neighbor's pasture - a slow whale roll belly curve upward; nothing too ambitious.

It was faint, then it brightened, and then it started to fade again. It seemed to switch from rainbow to cloud second by second by second, teetering on the fluffy gray edge of oblivion, almost entirely gone and then abruptly back on, full force and bright. The pattern repeated itself, and the rainbow lingered quite a while, until the rains grew heavy once again.

It's weird, sometimes, to watch in actuality something that has a strong life as a symbol.

Rainbows for me are about tenacity - at one end, of course, is the pot of gold, assuring us that good fortune is out there, somewhere, just waiting on us to find it; a meteorological exhortation to persevere. I remember Sunday School lessons telling me, in grand detail, how the rainbow was the symbol of God's covenant with his people; that he would never flood the world again. Just hang in there, baby. Someday, these waters are going to part. A better day is coming. The rainbow is for gay pride: love will not be denied.

We've got collective narratives about rainbows; we've got personal narratives about rainbows. And I wonder how much of our experience of rainbows depends upon what narrative we're engaged with at the time we see the rainbow. Thinking "What would this mean to someone else?" Someone I know; a stranger. What would it mean to them. What could it mean to them?

At what point does the meaning supercede the moment? Story is a powerful thing. Who has time to stop and watch a rainbow? We don't need to tarry, Story tells us - you already know what that's about.

But let's say you stop, stop and watch the rainbow. The only way to deepen your understanding of anything is to pay attention to it. I didn't know that rainbows did this slow, pulsing dance; that they've patterns of existence, of being and not-being side by side stretched out across the sky - and maybe they all don't, but this one did - and I'd not known that before.

Now with this knowledge, look again to the symbol. Is it not enhanced? It's hard to maintain a belief that good fortune is out there somewhere; to remain ever optimistic. Our hope flickers at times - dim at times, bright at others. The same too, I think, can be said for the experience of faith - the two are not so different, after all - and our confidence in a promise can wax and wane. Love's journey has not been smooth.

And still it keeps on shining. There's a lesson, there, I think, but more important, now, to me, is to remember that seeing things as they are enriches their existence in Story. It's so easy to default to the symbol, to the shorthand, to the quick and easy understanding that we miss critical elements of the narrative.

It's too hard a turn anywhere from there, so I'll go now. There's work that needs doing, and I'm the one to do it. Onward, upward, forward, y'all.