My odd-year update (sort of)

Thought I'd change the picture on the top of my blog to reflect the weeds growing around me.  The new pic is from Tensley's baptism, September 2015.  We left and came back to Colorado Springs. All the kids know how to ride bikes now (that's obviously important to any update on this blog). We take occassional family bike rides and they are all getting better at navigating traffic and building their leg muscles.  The boys played a fall season of football, Connor is now in middle school navigating girls and multiple classes.  Orson made his first pinewood derby car but we are still a couple weeks away from the race.  Our pop-up broke on our way back from Virginia. I tried selling it as-is on Craigs with no luck.  I am gonna look into making a utility trailer out of it.  Connor has been camping with the scouts, so at least one of us has been.  The 3 oldest kids just started soccer for the spring. Looking forward to seeing their skills mature.  Sarah has a YMCA membership and the boys did basketball with them and Addie has been doing dance classes.  This fall Sar has already started pre-gaming her career/work options as Addie will be in kindergarten.  That will add a different dynamic to this family that isn't ready for all our kids to be in school.

Wow!

First off, wow time flies! Connor turns ten this coming November.

Secondly, wow the blogger world has been unblocked at work! I am busy enough  on a day to day basis that I don't access it outside of work and now that I can access it at work, for now I should be able to while I pull crew duties.

I have missed following what others are doing via the blog world.  I noticed though that a similar trend is happening with others; that of allowing blogs to fall by the wayside.  No matter. I will try and update.  Baby steps at first of course, but it would be nice to update it with some sort of record of the existence of our lives for the past 18 or so months.

Connor's Baptism

So Connor had a good baptism day.  As a new father, I didn't know what I was doing, where I was going, or when to do what action.  As a stake function, there were six candidates there to be baptized, with only Connor from the 15th ward.  We were very fortunate to have four or more dedicated picture takers and I am very grateful for all of them.  The water was warm for us (Connor), yet the building as a whole, and especially the locker room was quite cold.  Connor didn't stop shaking until after his suit was back on.  It it also quite small in our stake center.  As a stake function, with the potential to have multiple baptisms, one would think a slightly bigger changing room would be appropriate on the male side considering you will always have at least one out of the two using that side guaranteed.
Our primary presidency didn't clue us in or talk to us about anything.  They didn't tell us to plan anything for the schedule, or even tell us we have the option to fill out the ward part with whatever we wanted.  We were told it was ok to sing from the bishopric, but that was it.  The confirmation went well.  I was nervous words wouldn't come, but Father blessed me with a lack of 'stupor of thought'.  I am quite grateful for all my brothers, Larry and all the rest of the family.  My nerves would have been much worse without them there.
Connor beamed all day.  The day was about him and he enjoyed every minute of it.  I am so grateful cousins of his could come out to make his day special.  He enjoyed spending time with them and seeing them and his aunts and uncles and his grandparents there to watch him get baptized and confirmed.  Overall it was a lovely experience and I am so blessed to have shared it with my family.
Cameron Drommond and his lovely family went out of their way to support me as well.  They were out in the Springs visiting family, but I was so grateful that they could come spend time with us. Thanks Bam!
Thanks a ton for everyone coming out! Tiffany and Danelle, we missed you.  We know you wanted to come, but completely understand the constraints and limitations and difficulties of it all! Thanks for letting your husbands come out!

Google Earth tour of my run

       
   

Blog Splitting

I am going to try and split my blog into two.  I have been using the blog for personal and family and I feel that it could be better for people (the whole 4- people/groups that actually read it) if they knew which one was family and which one was ranting.  So I am keeping this one for the family side of the house.

My new blog for stupid stuff is : http://dallske.blogspot.com/

Schwack

I haven't written on the blog for awhile and I felt like I should, not for your benefit, mostly my own. I don't really have much on my mind. My 'shoot-from-the-hip' plan here was more hopeful that thoughts would come once the fingers tickled the plastic keyboard interface buttons.

Things have picked up quite a bit at work for me. We are kind of preparing for a sort of inspection so I am learning my respective roles regarding that, which are more than plenty. During our national financial crisis' one plan read that DoD personnel would lose their pensions, which was the first time I felt vulnerable regarding my job since I joined the Air Force. I really need to get my house in order financially, only it gets harder and harder the longer you wait.
An Air Force Reservist died yesterday driving home from work. The irony is she died by the hand of someone who gets paid to 'protect and serve'. It was blatant disregard for traffic laws so he will most likely get at minimum manslaughter and serve some time. It was a sad day for the entire Colorado Air Force community.

I got on my bike after a near-3 month fast. It felt good and I was in better biking shape than I thought I would be, probably because of the cabin mostly.

We have had a really wet summer. The heat of the late morning, early afternoon sucks up all the mountain water and brings it over the Springs and dumps it which has been nice for cooling down the house and for keeping our watering costs low.

I now work with a friend I met in Vandenberg who came to 11 SWS with me. We both work in the training shop teaching the MMO position. He wants to be a full-time pastor/minister here in the Springs at the church he attends. He is the first person I have met who wants to get out of his full-time job in the AF for something like that. I commend him for such a challenging goal. He seems to have 'caught fire' ever since he got to Colorado and it seems to have made his life better overall and that makes me happy for him.

Life is interesting in that from one perspective, life changes very slowly, in gradients, day by day. Even week to week, month to month, year to year the changes can be subtle. But when you look back, significant things happen over the course of several months or even a couple years that you don't realize happen until you have that 20/20 retrospective vision.

I am trying to make the jump, or rather, the slow and careful creep back into school. I thought it be wise to pursue something I am now getting experience in. Computer systems are a big part of the job, yet so is space. Right now space interests me more so I am thinking of that a bit more. I really have less than two years left but the transfer evaluation is still undergoing to see specifically how many credits I need.

That's it for now. I won't bore you or disinterest you with whining of conservatism vs. liberalism whether in religion or politics. Nor will I do the same to you regarding how horrible Colorado Springs drivers are. Seriously, its like they all learned to drive yesterday, then they go to bed and their brains forget everything they went through while driving the day before. They also seem to have some sort of idea in their tiny little brains that makes them think they are the only car out there and the only car that matters. Sorry, I said I wouldn't whine about it. I'm out.

Family Bike Ride

So we've been biking as a family twice now and have failed to successfully take pictures. Before I forgot, I got Sarah to grab her phone really quickly and take a quick picture. The two boys are somewhere out of the picture. It's pretty fun. In our busy rural city we have found a nice little 'trail' that is wide and paved and long. We go up it from the middle, then turn around and go all the way down it. The first time I had Tensley in front of me and Addie sat in her carseat, in the trailer. Both times the girls did great. The boys do great too, and Sarah now knows she doesn't want a fixie :)