Rain Gutter Regatta

Adam had his first cub scout rain gutter regatta.  One of many I am sure the Jenson's will be attending in the next decade or so.  He was awesome and I took some AWESOME pictures but the computer ate them.  Nevertheless it spared us this single picture of his first regatta.  At the end of the night his little red boat won 2nd.  Way to blow-Adam-O!!

Three finger stance baby!!!!

Okay, I have some serious confessions.  For my 8th birthday I didn't want a pretty white dress for my baptism, I wanted a BYU football and a San Francisco 49er's jersey.  I got them both.  I have brown-leather-oval disease.  It is this crazy rush of adrenaline that seeps into my veins and takes control of my body upon mentioning the game of football.  Not trying to boast here, but when I was a wee lassy I was freakin' rad at football.  I bloodied more bodies and sacked more guys than any other person during neighborhood football games.  During P.E. at school I always got picked first, always.  I was anything but dainty and petite growing up.  Until high school I could run faster and bench press more than any guy in my school.  I was built to play ball.  Oh how I loved to play football!  My life came to an end when my mother told me I was not allowed to sign up for 7th grade football.  According to her, ladies don't play tackle football with the boys.  I was crushed, I was anything but a lady, I was a brawny, quick, shifty awesome football player.  Can you blame me?  I had spent every year of my life up to that point shoveling hog manure, picking rock and bucking hay bales.  I was born, bread and raised to be tuff and play ball.  

With the passing of time I have come to realize my mother was right.  Dang it, I am a lady.  And I actually like it.

BUT this lady bore 4 sons. Ahhhh yaaaa!!!!!

So I live it up, vicariously through them.  It may be flag, but I'm crazy in the bleachers clenching my fists with every play and cheering on MY BOY like it's nobody's business.

And so I give you Mr. Three Finger Stance Himself, my firstborn son, Adam.  The kid is awesome.  He plays both ways because he is just that awesome. 

Adam is on the left in the red shorts.  So Mr. Defense in black is 50 lbs. bigger, not a problem.  Adam worked this kid over.

Arms everywhere.

Oh wait, that's not ADAM with the flag AGAIN?  Oh, ya I guess it is.  Shocker.

Look at this shot  He is about to eat this QB for lunch.  We call this wicked intimidation in other words, incomplete pass.  Ahh Yaaa!

The other team began to fear this lineman.

Who's that that came from clear across the other side of the field to make a play, ah yes, my firstborn once again.

Workn' it...

Ya, you're toast.  That blazin' kid in red is about to smash you.

Who's got the flag this time?  Big D himself.  Adam you rock my world!!!

Okay, watching Adam play has got to be one of the funnest things I have ever done in my ENTIRE life.  Things will change when the pads go on and my baby comes home beat up, but if it's the other kid that gets beat up... well I just might have to encourage the sport a little.

Go Red!!!!!!!!

Lake Lemolo

Jonathan has had Scott Rigdon's boat out on loan and wanted to get one more trip out of it before returning it so a fishing he did go!  I LOVE fishing.  I really do, and wanted to go with him but yesterday I just had that feeling of fall in the air, pears that were perfectly yellow, piles and piles of dirty clothes (from being neglected as I have been a slave to pears for the past 10 days), and a kitchen that was buried in canning jar rings, water bath canners, cookie sheets with jars of sticky pears needing to be washed, labeled,  and put away.  There were no clean white shirts for the Sabbath (it takes 5 of those around here), no milk in the fridge and so much work to be done, so he took the three big ones and I kept the little one and we divided and conquered.  I would dare say my tasks for the day were easier than his.  However, with much love and a lot of patience he managed to fish all afternoon with three hooligans on boat in the middle of Lake Lemolo.  And they even caught a few!

Matthew literally threw in his line as soon as they got to the lake and that very instant he caught a 15" rainbow trout.  Way to go Idaho!

Adam's "whopper" as he calls it was the largest rainbow trout.

That's my husband, fishing until it is dark and trying to load the boat by the light of the moon.  The boys with the catches of the day.  Jonathan was the only one to catch a brown trout.

Adam

Matthew

Andrew didn't catch a fish, but he was a proud part of the brotherhood.

Every Fiber of My Being Ain't Cliche This Time

I love the man that I married to the very inner core of my being. Though the following pictures might cause one to think otherwise, I went through hell for him.  It may have been majestic hell, but it was nothing short of it.  

The story.

Jonathan is a man of ambition.  Far more ambition than I will every acquire in this life.  He wants to do and see things.  Gain life's experiences that are to be had.  I on the other hand, find life's richest joys holding still, sitting with my feet on the ground watching grass grow.  This isn't even a small exaggeration.

When we moved to Oregon Jonathan became aware that in a day's flight his little Cessna could carry him from the lowest place on earth to the highest place in the lower 48 states within a single day.  Come on now isn't that cool?  To do both in one day.  Who would dare to leave this life behind without seeing dirt really far down and dirt really high up all before you brush your teeth and tuck yourself back in bed.  And so he set off to run a 13 hour flight and see both.

The original plan was for Jonathan and his good buddy, and fellow pilot, Craig Vana to make the flight together but the day before the planned trip Craig was not longer able to make the flight.  I was adamant that he didn't fly solo.  He tried a few other buds but NO ONE could go with him so who was the sitting duck, me.  8:00 p.m. the night before the flight I called my sister in Redding and begged her to watch my children ALL day so I could make sure Jonathan didn't die on this flight.  I don't know what I was thinking.  A lot of help I was going to be.  She obliged and I dropped everything, put the kids in the car and reached Redding by 11:00 p.m. the night before the flight.

Saturday morning Jonathan was up early and flew to Redding to pick me up.  And so the adventure began.  The flight route was Grants Pass to Redding, Redding to Carson City, Carson City to Death Valley, Death Valley to Bishop, Bishop to Redding, Redding to Grants Pass.

Let me explain a little about flying.  There is something wonderful that happens the higher you fly.  The turbulence settles down when you get over about 10,000 feet.  This is a great cruising altitude.  The only problem is that when you go higher than that to keep things smooth you run low on one basic element, oxygen.  I get really motion sick so Jonathan was trying his best to keep us high and smooth.  We did fine for a bit but then the yawns kicked in.  I could not stop yawning no matter how hard I tried.  I checked my oxygen levels with a pulse oximeter and was a bit low so we dropped in altitude and enjoyed the bumpy ride.

Besides needing a nap mid-air, Redding to Carson City wasn't bad.  We landed fine in Carson City to fuel up.  As I was standing outside the plane while Jonathan was fueling I took a good look at this 60 year old plane and told Jonathan his plane was a piece of junk.  It really is.  Insulted, he looked at me and said, "She may be molting, but she is still a majestic bird."  So I jumped back in Madame Molt and we took off again.

Death Valley, the world's lowest point, might as well be near the earth's core.  It is SO HOT and so WICKED TURBULENT flying into that place I barfed my sweet heart out.  I was very thankful Jonathan swiped a few barf bags from the hospital because they were used multiple times on this flight.  The best part of throwing up in turbulence is that as you press your face against the bag to create a seal each time the plane is bucked up and down the barf splashes back into your face.  There is a repeated motion of heave and splash back, heave and splash back.  Mmmmm, one to remember.

We landed.  It is so hot in Death Valley if you sit down on a toilet right after it has been flushed your backside gets steamed from the water that rushes in.  That was one of the weirdest sensations I have every experienced.  Maybe I should have titled this post, "What Happens in Death Valley Stays in Death Valley."  We had a hamburger and I bought mint gum to ease the nausea for the next leg and we took off.  Death Valley has a really short runway and no place to get gas.  If you are fully loaded with gas you can't get enough lift to take off so we had to fly with limited gas to get off the ground.  Settles the mind doesn't it?

Next venue was Mt. Whitney.  The highest altitude in the continental U.S.  This leg really was beautiful.  The sun was nestled in the clouds, the mountains were majestic, the plane was cool as we climbed higher and higher and my nerves flying over those peaks were hammered.  When I saw the altimeter get to 13,000 feet the fear of low oxygen, mountain updrafts and downdrafts, and dying was more than I could take.  I started throwing up again.  And what does the pilot do now?  He lets the plane fly itself and takes pictures of me throwing up.  Some things are meant for viewing on home computers only.  I spared you the action shots and share only the enlarged barf bag.

 I was so done flying at this point I wanted to cry.  We made it over the mountain peaks but now we REALLY needed gas.  The turbulence had settled but I sat for the next 45 minutes watching the fuel needle bounce on one very specific letter of the alphabet, "E".  I wasn't okay with that.  Jonathan was 100% confident we would be fine but all I saw was a white needle not just pointing to, but touching that big "E".  White knuckled I sat.  You know, enjoying the scenery.  

Unthwarted by the "E" we made it to Bishop.  I got out of the plane laid down on the asphalt runway and fell asleep.  Jonathan fueled up and chatted for awhile with some German tourists watching little planes take off and land.  I had to get back in that heap of tin once more.  Only one more leg, 3 more hours and I'd be DONE.  I would have rather delivered triplets in a covered wagon but I got back in.  Because the Lord loves me the stretch back to Redding was fairly smooth, flat land.  No mountain peaks and drafts, no extreme temps, just normal flying.  Believe it or not I didn't throw up on this stretch.

We landed in Redding as the full moon was shining.  Done.  Never again.

He better know how much I love him. 

Sun shining bright

Tahoe

Mt. Whitney

Carson City

I still like him.

The snack of champion pilots.

Can't remember the name of this crater.

Death Valley, very exciting.

Yes, the bag.

Lowest place on earth.

So happy to be there.

Negative altimeter reading.

Mt. Whitney

If you throw up enough the smiles return.

The full moon that shone the way home.

Flying above the clouds... AKA "yawning" altitude.

Nothing but mountain peaks to fly over.  Settles the nerves.

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