Adam here. Okay, we caved. We are migrating our blog to Blogger. The new address is:

http://adamandlisahansen.blogspot.com

There are just a lot of things that Blogspot makes a lot easier to do than this blogging site does. So we moved. Please update your links, since this will be the last blog entry at this site.

We will keep this up as an archive of everything we have posted thus far, at least until Blogspot allows people to import blog entries from other sites.

Thanks, and please visit us at our new blog.

Adam here. So I finally pulled the trigger. I had been getting progressively more FedUp with FedEx for several months, what with the extremely exhausting labor and schedule (2AM-7AM will kill anyone if they do it for long enough), the inability to maintain a social life while working said schedule, always being sore, and feeling as though most of the management there couldn't care less about employee well-being or satisfaction. After talking with my youngest brother Kacy about my options, he had good things to say about the money made by the pizza delivery drivers he has known. So I went in to my nearest Papa John's location and put in an application. That was on Monday. I attended new employee orientation on Tuesday, bid adieu to FedEx on Wednesday, and had my first night of delivery driving that same night. After a very quick training session of riding along for five delivery runs with an experienced driver, I was sent out on my own. I did six runs in about two and a half hours, and I enjoyed it far more than any morning I have ever worked at FedEx. It helps that I had some good tips and a bunch of nice people at the doors. I should be able to work fewer hours and make more money with Papa John's than I ever did with FedEx.

Next up: Halloween. Otherwise known as the Bane Of My Soul.

I freely admit to being a Halloween Grinch.

 Halloween used to be fun when I was a kid, and then was just annoying when I was a teenager. It might have been better if I had ever gone to a friend's party during my adolescense, but that never actually happened. I have never been a big fan of playing dress up, and the horrible costumes I had many of my childhood years didn't help in that department. So when I got too old to Trick-Or-Treat (which is either age 12 or graduation from elementary school, whichever comes FIRST), Halloween lost what little appeal it had for me.

And it only got worse when we moved to our current house. Our house is in a cookie-cutter neighborhood, where the houses are close together, and there are plenty of lamps along the sidewalk-equipped streets. This means that not only will all of the children in our neighborhood be out in force tromping all over the place, apparently all children within a 30-mile radius will be bused into our neighborhood to get candy at my house. The first time I saw the line of minivans parked on the street leading to our neighborhood, I got a sour taste in my mouth. I would be okay with handing out candy to the kids from my neighborhood (even though roughly 99% of those wrappers will end up as litter on my lawn within a couple of days), but I will not spend $50+ on candy to be dispersed to kids being bused in from other places.

Halloween might hold a softer place in my heart soon. Apparently it is one of the biggest pizza delivery days of the year. That means a lot of delivery runs and hopefully a lot of tips for me tomorrow night. If it turns out to be nicely lucrative, then I may have to abandon my Halloween-Hater stance. But Lisa will still flee our neighborhood and take Joshua up to Grandma and Grandpa's house tomorrow night. Are we alone in our distaste for Trick-Or-Treating busing?

...at least if you're a 17-month old.  Lisapants here.  I don't know how this game started, but it certainly tickled Joshua's funny bone.

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Lisapants here.  I've been remiss in posting lately, especially with updates about Joshua, so here are some pictures from the past few months that illustrate what our little boy has been up to lately.



16 months old!









Trying to tackle Molly before she escapes under the chair.



Playing with toys.



Climbing on everything he can reach.



Cheering for our favorite NFL team.  (Too bad there's not much to cheer about this season.)



Practicing his Houdini act by escaping from his crib and acquiring the biggest bump ever on his head.  He's also expanding the act to escaping from his high chair, which he has pretty much perfected.  Luckily, he hasn't taken a dive off the high chair, and we've switched back to his booster seat, which is harder to escape from.



Munching on apples while we made applesauce all day at Grandma's house.



17 month old.



Playing with magnets on the fridge.



Just being cute!

He is constantly on the move and constantly babbling as he toddles around the house.  He can say "Mama," "no-no," and "yeah" pretty well, and he makes sounds that kind of resemble "wow" and "night-night."  He loves to wave at people, blow kisses, and give high-fives, and he will gladly lift up his shirt and point to his belly if you ask him where it is.

Adam here. I have noticed a trend that is really starting to annoy me. First, a little back story:

Sarah Palin is being mocked by lots of people in the media because of all the hemming and hawing whenever she is trying to think of a politically correct answer to a question. The segments of Katie Couric's interview with her are a perfect example of this. While this is embarrassing for Governor Palin, I have no problem with that part. If you agree to an interview with any reporter (or anchor, in this case), then you should be prepared for difficult questions. Well, unless you are Barack "Media's Golden Child" Obama. In that case, plan for a softballs and hero worship. For super conservative candidates, plan for the worst. Anyway, the clips that CBS has released of the Couric/Palin interview have shown that Sarah did not do well with the difficult questions. Fine. She is not very polished. We get it.

The trend that really annoys me is how the dumbest people I know are making fun of Sarah Palin's perceived intelligence. On the news last night, they had the following quote from an old woman in a barber salon in Seattle's Rainier Beach neighborhood: "She don't even talk right." SERIOUSLY? Someone here is a pot, and someone here is a kettle, old woman. I will let you pick which one you are. Also, shouldn't she be at a hair salon rather than being the only woman getting her hair cut in a barber shop?

Another event happened this morning, at work. One of my coworkers was criticizing how Sarah Palin did in the debate last night via the following sentence: "She did terrible. She can't even talk with the good right grammar." Mind you, this is a person to whom I regularly have to explain things that I take for granted as general knowledge. She also regularly asks me how to spell words. She is in her mid-thirties, by the way.

I would point out the staggering irony to those people who provided these examples, but I don't feel like explaining the concept of irony to so many people. All I can do is wonder why these people (and so many others) think they can mock someone for not appearing smart when they have proven on many occasions to be far less intelligent than the person who is the object of their derision.

New life rule: You don't get to make fun of the intelligence of someone else unless you are demonstrably smarter than they are.

I can't wait until the election is over so I don't have to constantly hear about all of this every day. I guess that is the plight of those who are completely burned out on politics. All I can do is shake my head from the sidelines at the contradictions and stupidity that permeate our entire political system.

Adam here. So, I have noticed something that has been bothering me for a while. Partly because it is counter intuitive, but mostly because it is pretty gross. I work two jobs, one in an office and the other in a warehouse environment, and have used the bathroom facilities at both of them. Being an observant person, I have noticed something puzzling. The percentage of men who work in my office that wash their hands after using the bathroom is appallingly low. I estimate fewer than 40% actually wash their hands before returning to work. Even more annoying is the habit that some of the dirty 60% have of turning on the water, rinsing their hands for half a second, and then drying them with a paper towel, no soap involved. Not only is this not actually getting the hands clean in any way, it is also wasting water and paper towels. No wonder people here take so many sick days.

Here is the counter intuitive part: I estimate that somewhere around 75% of the men at my warehouse job wash their hands after using the bathroom. You know, actual soap and water, scrubbing, etc. This is baffling to me, since the level of sophistication of many of my warehouse coworkers is typically lower than that of my office coworkers. If nothing else, the income and education levels of my office coworkers far exceed those of the guys at the warehouse. You would think this would translate into better manners and general cleanliness, but you would be wrong. It still makes me shake my head regularly.

Does anyone else have a theory as to why this occurs? It makes no sense to me.

Adam here. I witnesses an interesting phenomenon at FedEx this morning, which led me to coin a new word that I think everyone should start using: futilitard.

fu·til·i·tard [fyoo-til-i-tard]
-noun, plural -tards. From the combination of the words futiltiy and retard.
1. An individual who continues to doggedly pursue an objective that has been established as having no chance of success.
2. An individual who does not understand the phrase, "pick your battles."
-adjective form: futilitardity

The story behind this new word:

There was a minor argument between my brother, who started working across the conveyor belt from me a few weeks ago, and one of the Quality Assurance (QA) guys who tapes up packages that were apparently packed by mentally handicapped monkeys and have broken open at some point during the shipping process. Anyway, once the QA guy tapes up the damaged boxes, he typically throws them back on the raised platform that the package handlers walk on while loading delivery trucks. Today, the QA guy decided to throw a couple of said boxes directly in Kacy's path as he was trying mightily to catch up with a really large amount of boxes coming down the conveyor belt. This impeded Kacy's progress and frustrated him, of course. These particular QA-fixed boxes needed to go all the way back to the beginning of the conveyor belt, while Kacy and I work at the very end of the belt. So Kacy told the QA guy to take the boxes to the beginning of the belt rather than expecting one of us to set aside our already backed-up work in order to schlep the boxes all the way up to the front of the belt. The QA guy did what all of the QA people that I have met there do: he copped a major attitude and started to tell Kacy to pick up the box and take it back up the belt. All the while, Kacy was still trying desperately to cope with the unrelenting stream of packages coming down the belt that he needed to load.

Somewhat understandably, Kacy got annoyed and stubborn, saying that he was not going to take the fixed boxes back up the belt, and that the QA guy could do it himself. I have also become really annoyed about being asked to do something that could wait while I am in the middle of a flood of boxes coming down the belt at me. I am going to try to abbreviate the story now. Kacy dug in his heels, the QA guy started yelling, Kacy yelled back, the QA guy started cursing at him, Kacy insulted him back, QA guy challenged Kacy to "settle this outside," Kacy tried to not laugh in his face, and the QA guy went off to find a manager to tattle to.

The managers have far better things to do than deal with snotty package handler attitudes and QA guy power trips, so they told the QA guy to take it up with the guy supervising our line (Eric). QA guy came back and essentially was saying that Kacy was going to get his hash settled now that management was involved. At this point, I couldn't stand the idiocy anymore and I intervened with a general, "WHO CARES?!?!?" I schlepped the packages back up the belt myself and told Kacy and QA guy that their argument didn't matter. And it truly didn't. Obviously the managers didn't care about something so trivial, or one of them would have come over and dealt with it rather than passing it off to Eric. I was sick of their stupid argument and just wanted both of them to shut up so that I could do my work in peace. Break time was announced over the loudspeaker, the belts stopped, and QA guy took this opportunity to rehash his argument, but direct it at me. Kacy left to get a pop, and QA guy wouldn't shut up. All I could do was repeat, "I DON'T CARE. NO ONE CARES. GO AWAY" to QA guy over and over. I eventually walked away, too, because I just couldn't take QA guy's whining, and my "no one cares" mantra was falling on deaf ears.

This is where the new word, futilitard, comes in. QA guy is officially a futilitard. He was on a retarded quest to accomplish a futile goal of settling Kacy's hash or convincing either of us that he was anything but a jerk with an attitude. But even when the utter futility of that goal was well established, he relentlessly pursued it anyway.

In the end, Eric came over, wasted his break time listening to the futilitard's rant, promptly ignored most of it, and then said to Kacy, "When you have time, bring the fixed boxes back up the belt." Which was what Kacy was going to do anyway, once the crushing tidal wave of boxes that he needed to load abated.

Oh, and so that you fully understand the futilitard in this story, he is a 50-something, weak-looking, 5-foot-6-inch guy who works the graveyard shift at a FedEx facility, taping up boxes that have been damaged in shipping. Obviously, not a winner. I would argue that his futilitardity is a direct cause of his current career path. Also: challenging 275-pound, 6-foot 22-year-olds to fight in the parking lot.

So please, feel free to use my new word: futilitard. After all, we all know someone (perhaps multiple somones), who just don't know when to drop it. They don't know when a battle isn't worth fighting in the first place, let alone when to give up on it. They can't tell that even if they were right in the first place, continuing the argument just makes everyone around them want to scream with frustration. I know that I will never again refer to that guy by his actual name, or even the somewhat dismissive "QA guy." He will always be futilitard prime to me.

Lisapants here.  Joshua and I took a trip to the Urgent Care center yesterday because he developed a rash that wasn't going away. 



I think he might have gotten it from brushing up against something leafy in my mom's garden on Monday.  He developed a rash on his cheeks that afternoon, and by Tuesday it spread to his back and chest and a little on his arms and legs.  It didn't seem like it was itchy or bothering him in any physical way, so we decided to see if it would go away on its own.  On Wednesday it was getting worse, though, so I called his doctor and since they couldn't fit him in in the next couple of days, they suggested taking him to the Urgent Care center. 

Now, the Urgent Care center is not my favorite place to be, since the last time we were there, it took four hours to be seen by a doctor.  But that was on a Saturday afternoon, and there were lots of people there before us.  On weekdays, it opens at 3pm, and we were there at 2:45 to check in.  We ended up being first in line, so we were in and out in a half hour.  The doctor determined it wasn't a food allergy, but a contact dermatitis, most likely caused from something he touched.  She said there wasn't much to do about it but wait for it to go away, especially since it didn't seem to be bothering him at all physically.  She didn't want to give him Benadryl because he was under 2 years old, and she said there weren't any creams that would help.

So, now we wait.

And then, later that afternoon after we got home, Joshua tripped over something and hit his head on the corner of an end table and got a nice Y-shaped cut on his eyebrow, which is what the band-aid is for in the above picture.  It bled for a little while, and for a second I thought we might have to go back to the Urgent Care center to get stitches, but it wasn't that bad.  It stopped bleeding, and thankfully, he doesn't try to take the band-aid off.

This morning, the rash seems even worse on his face.



It looks pretty bad, but he still acts like nothing is wrong.  Hopefully it will just go away soon.  Tonight it seemed like it was getting better, but maybe I'm just getting used to it.  We'll see what he looks like in the morning.

Lisapants here.  One of our favorite websites is icanhascheezburger.com.  It has all manner of cute and adorable cats doing cute and adorable things with funny captions.  I was looking on there tonight and found this picture.



Our friend Dean is studying to be a chiropractor, and I thought he might enjoy this. The rest of you can enjoy it, too, if you want to

Lisapants here. (As usual, Adam's comments will be formatted thusly) We just got back yesterday from a long weekend trip to Coeur d'Alene, ID, to visit the amusement park nearby, Silverwood.  It has an amusement park as well as a water park.  We went with my parents and my brother and his family.  We left on Thursday morning, and met up with my brother Kevin on Highway 18 at Tiger Mountain and followed him most of the way across the state.  Since Kevin is a State Trooper, he has no fear of getting speeding tickets and drives as fast as he wants, and he would bail us out of any ticket we got while following him.  We stopped at a park in Moses Lake for lunch and to let the kids play on the playground.  Joshua went down a big slide by himself (probably not a good choice for his first time down a slide by himself) and got scared and was not very happy the rest of the time.



Joshua and Taylor playing in a tube.



Joshua heading up to go down the slide for the first time.



The second time going down the slide was with cousin Brooklynn.  He still didn't like it.  He went again with Adam and still was not a fan of the big slide. 

Adam's Comments: I blame myself for his dislike of the slide. I probably should have had him start out on a smaller slide, but I didn't think about how it would scare him to go down a big slide all on his own. Oops. Lesson learned.

We stayed there long enough for my parents to catch up to us, then we all left to hit the road again.  We were following Kevin again and about 30 miles before Spokane, we passed a hiding State Trooper who pulled out and followed us for a minute before he passed in front of us and pulled over Kevin.  The Trooper ended up being someone Kevin knew from when he first started working a year ago.  They chatted for about 10 minutes before he let Kevin go.  We're just glad he pulled over Kevin and not us.

Adam's Comments: Granted, Kevin would have also pulled over and gotten us out of the ticket, but I would prefer to just not get pulled over at all. Plus, it was a lot funnier when Kevin got pulled over instead.

We finally made it to Coeur d'Alene, ID, and checked into our hotel and unloaded.  We all went to a nearby park for dinner.  This park supposedly had the best big toy in the inland Pacific Northwest, and the kids had fun playing, even when it started raining.  Joshua even enjoyed going down a smaller slide all by himself.

Adam's Comments: It was indeed a great big toy. I even had fun running around on it in the rain. It reminded me a lot of a big toy in a park near my mission apartment in Oshkosh, WI that had a huge big toy styled to look like a castle. Good times.






Joshua and Ryan shared a swing, even though it was a tight fit.

Luckily, the rain went away and the next two days were sunny and beautiful.  We spent Friday at Silverwood riding the rides and Saturday mostly at the water park.



Joshua had his first Ferris wheel ride with Daddy.

Adam's Comments: Given his fear of the slide the day before, I was a little apprehensive about how he would react to the Ferris wheel. He was happy with it, though. No fear of heights in him, although it may have been different if I had not been right next to him. He decided that trying to eat the safety bar was a better idea than sitting back in the seat, but I am sure it didn't taste all that good. 



The end of the log ride, which wasn't all that wet after all.  But then, we weren't hit by the water cannon at the end, like my dad and Taylor were right before us.



Joshua's first carousel ride with Mama.

We all took turns watching the grandkids so the adults could ride some rides, too.  Brandie has a cute picture on her blog of Ryan and Joshua sharing their snacks and chilling out in their stollers.  Adam and I especially enjoyed the roller coasters.  Silverwood had three of them, two wooden and a new metal one.  The lines were super long, so we only rode one wooden one, "Timber Terror," on Friday and decided to try and get there right when it opened the next day and ride the other two before the lines got too long.  The second roller coaster, "Tremors," was faster and went underground, which was cool.  And "Aftershock," the metal one, was quite a thrill.  Here's a video from YouTube someone took while riding it.  My voice was shot afterwards from all the screaming.

Adam's Comments: I have somewhat of a love/hate relationship with roller coasters. I love them, and they hate me. Usually, they express this hatred by not allowing me to fit on them. Luckily, I was just barely able to fit on all three of the good coasters at Silverwood. While in line for "Aftershock," there was a sign describing the ride and warning that people who have back injuries, neck injuries, heart conditions, or are pregnant should not ride the ride. Then, a little way below those warnings, it said "This ride may not accomodate persons of exceptional size." This is a red flag for me, as I have waited in long lines before, just to not be able to lock the harness down on myself for a ride, followed by a walk of shame as I depart the ride while everyone looks on. So I was a little worried that I would not fit. Luckily, having recently lost some weight really helped. I guess that means I am just barely not "of exceptional size." I was able to buckle the seat belt and lock in the harness for "Aftershock" with only a little effort. And the ride was AWESOME. Tons of fun. Now I just need to lose more weight in order to not have to worry about fitting on rides in the future when we (hopefully) go to some bigger theme parks for other vacations.

After riding the coasters on Saturday morning, we went to the water park.  There was a cool kids area that Joshua had fun splashing around in.  There was also a sprinkler area for toddlers, but he was too tired (past naptime) to explore and enjoy it.



Notice my awesome sunburn/farmer's tan!  Adam had fun on the speed slides, while I enjoyed the wave pool.  Then we rode some slides on innertubes and rode around the Lazy River a couple times.

Adam's Comments: I had a lot of fun on the speed slides. I only had time to hit two of them, since the line was so long, but I hit the best two. The first one was a long, steep drop that you feel like you are drifting away from as you plummet. The other had two bumps in it, but was also pretty fast, and lots of fun. There were far too many people in the Lazy River, mostly on foot. What is the point of walking the Lazy River? The whole idea is to get on an inner tube and float around with the current. Instead, we kept getting bumped on our tubes and splashed by a bunch of kids that were walking and messing around instead of just floating lazily. It was still fun, but would have been better with less bumping and splashing.

Also, I feel the need to point out some things about swimsuits. #1: There is a sign at the entrance to the water park saying that actual swimwear is required to go on the slides. Yet, I still saw a guy in dry denim shorts arguing with the lifeguard at the top of the speed slide tower about why she wouldn't let him go down the slide. Ugh. Denim is not conducive to sliding. #2: Tankinis are a good idea. Unfortunately, most of the women at the park who really needed to wear tankinis were wearing considerably smaller suits. And a lot of the women who could actually pull off the smaller suits were wearing tankinis. I am not sure how that happens, but the tankini-wearers really need to take the tankini-needers aside and explain to them that boyshort-style bottoms and tankini tops do a lot of good for certain body areas that may need a little work. After all, there is a reason that I wear big swim trunks that come all the way up over my unsightly gut and tie at the navel.



Joshua was so tired, he couldn't fall asleep, but finally he conked out and slept for a while.

We had a really fun time riding the rides during the day and playing cards at night until we were too tired to keep our eyes open.  After going to Sacrament Meeting on Sunday morning, we all headed home.  The ride home was pretty uneventful, and we were glad to be home again.  We love vacations, but it's always nice to sleep in your own bed again.  Today Joshua helped me unpack by taking everything out of his suitcase and throwing it all over the baby gate.






What a helper!  He was pretty proud of himself.  Now I have to get everything else put away and we can get back to normal life.  We had a really fun time, and it was a great way to end the summer.

Adam's Comments: This trip used up almost all of my remaining vacation days for the year, but was totally worth it. I have wanted to go to Silverwood for a few years now. It turns out that the drive isn't too terribly long, even though it is pretty boring at times. Coeur d'Alene is a really nice place (despite being so difficult to spell--that's why all the locals just abbreviate it "CDA") and I would like to head back there in the next couple of years for some vacation time. Spending more than just a couple of days there wouldn't be a bad thing at all. After all, we only really had time to see Silverwood itself. We saw very little else of CDA, but it seemed really nice. Maybe we will need to plan it out further in advance next time and spend a week in Northern Idaho or something. I still want to head to southern California for our next Amusement Park adventure (you know, Disneyland, California Adventure, Magic Mountain, Legoland, etc.), but Silverwood and CDA are high on my list of places to visit again.

Lisapants here, just reminiscing a little.  Ten years ago today I entered the MTC and started one of the hardest and most rewarding things I've ever done in my life.



This is me with my MTC companion, Katie Magleby.  She went to Melbourne, Australia.

I looked through all my mission pictures today, and it was fun to look back and remember how beautiful Alaska is and remember the people and fun things that happened.  Ten years seems like a long time, but it doesn't feel like it was that long ago. I don't feel ten years older; I feel pretty much the same.  I am so grateful for the experiences I had on my mission.  I learned so much about the gospel, about myself, about friendship, and it all helped me be the person I am today.

Lisapants here.  Well, Adam is starting the last year of his twenties.  He turned 29 yesterday, and we celebrated with a family dinner at my parents' house.  My mom was watching Kevin and Brandie's kids while they were on their anniversary get-away, and when they came back yesterday afternoon, they stuck around for dinner.  Adam went over after work, and I joined them after Joshua's doctor appointment in Seattle.  We had a good dinner and a fun time together.  Joshua and Ryan chased the balls around and we all got a kick out of Taylor making Joshua laugh with her funny noises. 

Adam has always like pie better than cake, so this year I got him a key lime pie from Costco in lieu of a birthday cake.  We put candles in it and sang Happy Birthday.  I have a picture of him blowing out the candles, but I forgot the camera at my parents' house.  I'll have to post it later.  (Update: here is the picture!)



On Thursday we're going to the Sunbreak Cafe in Auburn for a belated birthday breakfast before heading out to Coeur d'Alene, ID for a long weekend at Silverwood amusement park with my family.

So, enjoy being 29, Adam.  Next year, you'll be old like me

Adam here. While watching quite a bit of Olympics coverage over the weekend, I officially acquired a hatred for the phrase "Hate to lose." The swimming commentators said that Michael Phelps hates to lose at least a trillion times. I was getting really sick of it by that point. Then I heard Bob Costas interview Phelps after winning all of his medals. He asked Michael what his secret is. Michael replied, "I hate to lose." I wanted to scream, but laughed instead. Is there anyone in the entirety of mankind, throughout all history, who doesn't hate to lose? Some weirdo anywhere in the world throughout all time who likes losing?

Of course he hates to lose. Single-celled organisms hate to lose. Oh, how I wish that more athletes could actually have something interesting to say. Maybe then the hours and hours of athlete interviews would approach interesting. Instead, we get a whole lot of "I hate to lose," "I'm just looking forward to the next game," "We're taking this one game at a time," and other meaningless sports cliches. Ugh.

Now I know why they do so many produced story pieces about the inspirational backstories of the athletes. After all, if all they did was sit most of them down and ask them to tell their own stories, well, I think Strongbad said it best in one of his emails: Dead air, ... um, dead air.

On another, funnier note, I love the names of some of the Chinese athletes. We were watching the trampoline gymnastics, and one of the Chinese trampoline gymnasts was named Dong Dong. I lauged so suddenly that it scared Joshua and he cried for a little bit. That could not stop me from laughing, however. I said, "The only way his name could be funnier is if it was Wang Dong." And then, later that day, they had a piece about a student who participated in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and was later exiled. His name: Wang Dong. AWESOME.

Lisapants here.  Joshua turned 15 months old last week, and he just continues to amaze me as he grows up.



He is such a busy little boy, always walking around, playing with whatever catches his interest: the kitties, his toys, throwing toys and chasing after them to throw them again.  He is babbling more and more, and it's funny to watch him try to have conversations with the kitties.  He has 16 teeth and just had his first dentist visit last week, which he was none too happy about.  He loves playing in water.  Whether it's outside in the kiddie pool, or inside in the bath tub, he LOVES to splash around.  If he gets his feet kicking, too, the water can really start flying.

It's really cute when I tell him it's time for night night (either nap time or bed time) and he takes off down the hall and waits outside his bedroom door for me to catch up and let him in.  He goes over to his stack of books and picks one and we read it before he falls asleep.  Lately he'll grab my hand and use my finger to point at the pictures on the pages.

As usual, we think he is just the cutest little boy ever, but I'll admit we are a bit biased

Adam here. On August 9th, we got to do one of the coolest things I have done in a while. Lisa's dad works for Boeing (on the F-22 team), and his manager arranged for a charter bus to take his group over to Fairchild Air Force Base outside of Spokane for the air show there, called Skyfest. He asked if we wanted to go with, and I said, "Heck yes!"

So we had to get up extremely early for a Saturday, but later than I have to get up on weekdays. We had to be up by 3:00 AM in order to get out the door at 4:00 and up to the building across from the Museum of Flight to get on the bus. Everyone was bleary-eyed and tired. Joshua was not happy about the hour, but he was content to sit in Grandma Pratt's lap shortly after the bus was on its way.

Side note: The last time I was on a charter bus for any length of time was my Junior year of High School on a band trip to San Francisco. I had broken my tailbone the week before the trip while helping out with a Cub Scout Pack Meeting, and I was having trouble sitting at all. So sitting on a cramped charter bus for TWO DAYS was a little taxing on me. This trip, however, was better in that I didn't have any injuries that would cause extreme discomfort.

Anyway, so we rolled into Fairchild around 10:30 or so, and the bus had to do a bunch of maneuvering and following directions of people who might not have known exactly where they were supposed to direct the bus. We finally got to the parking spot and off the bus around 11:00. It was already kind of warm, but not uncomfortable. It helped that it was pretty breezy.

After getting through security and complaining about their ridiculous no backpack rule (diaper bags were allowed, which hold far more than backpacks do, of course), we set up our camp chairs on a nice patch of grass. The show started shortly after that, but instead of a bang, it started with a whimper. The first event was supposed to be the Army's precision parachute team, the Golden Knights. Except they decided it was too windy to jump, so nothing happened. The announcer was busily explaining the circumstances (too windy, could be dangerous for the parachuters, dust devils were sighted, yada yada yada) and essentially stalling. After all, the schedule was pretty tightly organized and timed out. It was pretty disappointing. They had the Golden Knights' propeller plane do a fly-by, but it was less than impressive when you want a bunch of parachuters to do cool precision skydiving. Here's their fly-by:




There were a couple of vintage fighter jets flying around, but it was a little tough to get a good picture, because they were flying kind of high and small, so this is the best picture I could get of a T-33 in flight:




It's got a cool sort of look to it. You know, the classical straight wings that they used on the old prop fighters before they discovered that jet engines like to go a whole lot faster and swept wings enable that a lot better than straight wings.

Then a C-17 from McChord Air Force Base flew in and demonstrated a combat landing. It is astounding to see what a plane that big can do. They fly in at a really steep approach angle, pulling up to level out at the last second, which brings the plane in at a really high speed (making it less of a sitting duck for enemy fire on approach). Then, when the plane touches down, they immediately reverse thrust on all four engines and stop the thing within 1200 feet. They can even taxi backwards using the reversed thrust of the engines. That's nuts. A modern air liner takes several thousand feet to slow down after landing, and most of them are smaller and lighter than the C-17. Here is the C-17 after screeching to a halt in 1180 feet on the runway:



The jet figters were all parked in front of the crowd, next to the runway. Here are a couple of F-15 Eagles. Right after I took this picture, the pilot (who is sitting in the cockpit in this picture) started his pre-flight check and spooled up the engines. Holy hearing loss, Batman. It was loud. But that was nothing compared to what it did once it took off. More on that later.



Parked facing the F-15s was the coolest fighter in the world: The F-22 Raptor. That's a FJ-2 Fury in the background. Anyway, enjoy this picture:



It's certainly the closest I have been to the thing ever. It just looks awesome. And the things it can do in the air are unbelievable. Anyway, while some aerobatic guy was flying around, I went to see the other large aircraft parked further up the runway. Here is a B-1 bomber. I love the look of that plane. Gorgeous.



Here's a nose-on view. Lisa's dad told me about how his first job at Boeing was working on the software for the B-1. It had a very sophisticated ground-tracking radar that allowed the pilot to set that mode, and the plane would fly itself at a specified altitude above the terrain, tracking the changes in the landscape ahead of it. You know, in case you wanted to fly in below enemy radar and carpet-bomb a jungle or something.



They also had an old B-52 on display. This thing is much larger than the B-1, but just isn't a awesome-looking. This looks like a utilitarian design, whereas the B-1 looks like it could fly into space if it needed to.



While I was snapping pictures of the bombers, the F-15 took off and started its demonstration. The first thing you notice about the F-15 versus the older jet fighters is the noise. Wow. This is why they passed out ear plugs on the bus. The older fighters sound pretty much like a 737 while the F-15 sounds like a nuclear explosion at full throttle. It rattles your very soul. It's awesome. And it made every baby scream and cry. Joshua was not a fan, but I was.



This was a realy close fly-by at high speed. It gave me an awesome shot of the plane in silhouette, and took away at least 10% of my hearing:



There was one really fun move where the F-15 pilot flew low along the airstrip at low throttle (and therefore pretty quietly), then pulled up to vertical, hit full throttle with afterburners, and essentially shot straight up and up and up until he punched a hole through the high clouds.

After the F-15, I got us a couple of cheeseburgers, followed by a frozen lemonade for me and a frozen root beer float for Lisa. It was all overpriced, but was welcome.

Next up was the star of the show for the group we came with, the F-22. Here is a silhouette shot of the Raptor:



Unfortunately, this one was a little farther away from the crowd than the F-15, so the shots are not as crisp and detailed as those with the Eagle.



The F-15 and the F-22 flew together in formation for the "Heritage Flight" portion of the show. The program said there would also be a P-51 in the formation, but there wasn't one anywhere at the show. So here are the Eagle and the Raptor in formation:



And then came the Blue Angels. I have seen clips of the Angels flying before, but it has been a really long time since I was actually at Seafair to see them or anything. They do some really cool stuff. But first, their support plane, a C-130 named "Fat Albert" wanted to show off. The C-130 was the predecessor to the C-17, so its demo was to do pretty much the same as what the C-17 did, only not as well as the newer plane. But Fat Albert certainly did have a better paint job:



The the Angels took off and did some awesome precision flying. There are six F/A-18 Hornets in the Blue Angels. For the majority of the show, four of them fly in formation while the other two do crazy head-on passes that make your ears hurt and your bladder try to relieve itself. Here is the Diamond Formation:



They take off, fly around, and do all sorts of stuff without breaking this formation in the slightest. At least, until they switch to the Echelon Formation:



And then they do this cool move where they fly above the crowd in Diamond Formation, then break in four different directions at high speed:



It was lots of fun, even though my sunscreen had given out by this point, and the 3:00 AM start that morning was starting to get to me. We packed up while the Blue Angels were still doing their thing and headed back to the bus. Do I look tired and sunburned in this picture?:



What about Lisa in this one?:



Joshua was all smiles for Grandma Pratt as we set out for home:



It wasn't until a few hours later when he lost all patience with being on the bus and got pretty tired and grumpy. But then, so did we all. It was such a fun day, though. I gotta get a Private Pilot license.

AdamOndi here. So we were watching some TiVoed Olympics from Sunday this evening, and the USA v. China water polo match was part of the 8-hour broadcast. It got me wondering how anyone can play water polo. It's a ridiculous combination of the two hardest things to do in the water for any length of time: treading water, and swimming as fast as you can. It's a wonder to me that the entire team survives each match. When I watched it, I kept waiting to see guys give out from exhaustion and sink. By the end of the match, there should be three or four guys at the bottom. Maybe it could be like hockey, where if a guy sank, then no substitutions would be allowed and the other team would be in a Power Play. In short: water polo is nuts.

AdamOndi here. The funniest thing I saw today was on my way home from work. The panhandler that normally works the Canyon Road exit off of SR 512 was not there today, but he had a substitute. This guy was quite a bit younger and less bearded. As I passed him with his "Homeless, need work" sign, I saw that his shirt said "World's Greatest Dad." Perhaps it makes me a bad person, but the irony of the situation made me laugh pretty hard.

...or are speedos getting smaller?  Is that even possible?  Lisapants here, just watching a little Olympic Men's Synchronized Diving and I keep wanting to yell at the TV for the divers to pull up their suits.  Alas, I don't think they can...yikes.

Lisapants here.  Last Thursday Joshua and I got to go to a concert at West Fenwick Park near my mom's house.  The musician was Eric Herman, and it was a really fun show.



He does a bunch of silly and fun songs that the kids really enjoyed.  Last year when Kevin and Brandie were in the hospital when Ryan was born, my mom had the girls and it happened to be the day Eric Herman was performing in the summer concert series at the park.  Brooklynn and Taylor LOVED it and haven't stopped talking about it since.  This summer we found out he was coming to West Fenwick Park again, and we were all excited to go.  My mom was watching my cousin's two girls, so they came with us, too.  Kevin and Brandie and their kids met us there and we had a great time.  If you have kids, or are just a kid at heart, I heartily recommend you check out Eric Herman's music.

Afterwards, we all went back to my mom's house to hang out and have dinner later.  The kids had fun playing outside together, and us big kids also managed to play a couple board games.



When it was time for the boys to get ready for bed, we realized that Joshua and Ryan have the same pajamas.  They were very cute being twin cousins for the night.  It was a fun day with the family.