No Rose Bowl This year.

The civil war is over and the Beavers lost. Our defense could not stop the Oregon running game. As usual the Pac-10 officials were horrible, but you cannot blame them for the game. We just could not stop the run and lost the game. Our offense looked ok even without Quizz. We still gained over 400 yards of offense. So there is very little chance for a Rose Bowl this year. Unless UCLA somehow beats USC next weekend. We still get to go bowling so there is still one more game.
GO BEAVERS!!

Civil War

The Beavers and the ducks will be playing the Civil War at Reeser Stadium in Corvallis on Saturday, November 29th, 2008. Thats TOMORROW! It starts at 4 pm and is being shown on Versus. Don't forget to watch and cheer on the Beavers.

GO BEAVERS!!!

Who needs TV when you have kids for entertainment!

Our kids are always doing something for entertainment. At least for our entertainment. It was Sarahs turn today. Here is some pictures of her morning explorations.
She dropped her milk today, and it rolled under the bar stools.

She decided she needed to crawl under one to get it back. Here she is after she retrieved it. She is just realizing that she may be stuck.

"Oh well, I got my milk" she says.

Whoops, there it goes again!

Now what? Daddy, don't just take pictures. Get me out.

(For the record, I did release her from her little self-imposed prison shortly after taking these pictures. No children were harmed in the composition of this blog.)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day is coming to a close. I have a cold and do not feel that well right now, but as I think about the last year, I remember that I have a lot to be thankful for. The first thing that comes to mind, even though its been 3 years, is the fact that I did not have to work today as I did at my previous job for 12 year. In fact, I have taken the entire week off and a couple days next week, just because I can.
Every morning I try to start my day by reading God's word. I have read through the entire bible once over this last year. The reading, church messages and bible studies have helped me grow closer to God and helped my faith and understanding grow greatly. This just continues to increase my thankfulness for my God and Savior, Jesus Christ. On this same note, I am thankful for the church that we are a part of. Through the teachings and fellowship there, I am greatly blessed.

As always I am thankful for the wonderful wife that God has blessed me with. She is a great blessing to me and I thank God that he gave her to me, even when I was not following Him.

I am also very thankful for the 3 beautiful daughters that God has entrusted me to raise. I sometimes wonder if I am doing it right, but I know that if I follow God's plan and bring them up in Gods way, then God will take care of the rest. Its hard to believe he would entrust these 3 precious lives to someone like me, but I know that He knows best. So if He thinks I am capable of training them, I will have to trust in Him to guide me.

The other things I can think of, are just things. Like our home, my job, and our car. These are all just material things that God has blessed us with. Things that other people may not have. So I know we must not take these things for granted as they are just things and can be taken away. But God has blessed us even beyond that. He has given us things that are not even needed. Things like my woodworking tools. Just stuff that I enjoy using in my free time. There are lots of other things as well.

The important thing to remember is that God is in control and loves us greatly and has made a way for us to be with Him eternally, once all these things are gone. So even if you don't feel well or have a lot of stuff, you have plenty to be thankful for.

13 years and counting!

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. It does not seem like it is possible for it to be that long, but it has been. Yes, our anniversary is the day after my birthday. You may think that we did this so that I would not forget it. However that is not the case. We got married in November because it was not fire season and we thought that I would always be home this time of year. Little did we know that the next year, I was put in charge of managing the Christmas tree shipping yard that Miller Timber harvested for Holiday tree farms. That meant that for the next 10 years I worked 7 days a week, dark to dark, in November and December. So until I got this new job in 2006, I was never home on my anniversary and we could never go do anything on it. That has all changed now. This year I am even taking the week off. That covers my birthday, our anniversary and thanksgiving.
I thank God daily for giving me a wonderful godly woman as a wife. Even though it did not start out that way, God had a plan and it all came together. She is always concerned with doing life the way God intended and in every way strives to be a godly wife. It always encourages me to try to be a better, more godly husband and father. She has blessed me with 3 beautiful daughters and is training them to be godly women. I love her very much and am looking forward to what God has for us for the next 50+ years of our marriage. I just pray that we can continue to grow closer to one another and to God together.

My Birthday Present

I am 39 years old today. Sometimes it seems like that is not possible because it was not that long ago I was in high school and college. Yet at the same time, when I think about all the things that I've done and has happened since then, high school and college seem like they happened so long ago. I have now lived on the west side of the cascades longer than I lived on the east side. I always think of myself as someone from the east side of the mountains, but I have been on the wet side longer. For my birthday this year, my wonderful wife decided to get me a present that would remind me I am still a kid. She got me a great gift! I now have my very own Vertol helicopter!!!!
For those of you that do not know what this is, here are a couple of pictures.A vertol is a Boeing made, heavy lift helicopter. I have worked with these a lot on wildfires, but have never been able to fly on one. I have always really liked this kind of helicopter a lot!

Okay, I'm sure your wondering where Brooke got the several million dollars to buy me one of these and how I am going to fly it since I do not have a pilots license or have ever even flown an airplane let alone a helicopter. Here is the vertol that Brooke actually got me.Here I am just taking off (above) and then hovering about 3 ft off the ground.(below)

It is a really cool remote control helicopter. It took a few minutes of practice, but I can fly it almost as long as the rechargable batteries will last. It is a lot of fun. It was a little less expensive than the real thing.Here I am on an early flight about to crash into the ceiling.

To me the real Vertol helicopter is an amazing feat of engineering and design. They made a dual rotored helicopter fly with the rotors turning in opposite directions and during flight they twist and turn at unbelievable rates and never hit each other. This little remote control helicopter is also quite an amazing piece of technology and engineering. They got enough electronics and power into this tiny piece of styrofoam that it will fly and you can control it. It is a lot of fun. Thanks to my family for such a great present.

Blogging, Facebook,! Whats next?

I finally gave in and started a facebook page. There is a link to it on the right side of my blog. If things like this keep up, I will be spending all my free time doing things on the computer just to keep it all updated. That won't leave much time for other things that do not involve going blind from staring at a bright screen and getting carpel tunnel from typing all the time. Oh well, thats the price we have to pay to keep in touch and keep everyone up on whats going on in out lives. I can only imagine how people kept informed and in touch back before all this technology. We are all pretty spoiled being able to talk to someone around the world instantly with just the push of a button.

Emma, The next Nascar Champ!

The Awana grand prix was today. Last night, and this morning, Emma and I put the finishing touches on her car. The last time she entered this event, she got a second place for the design of her car but did not win too many of her races.

This is Emma with her car just after checking it in. We had to add a little weight to it to get it up to the required 5 oz.

This is the lineup of cars. Emmas is the 5th one up from the bottom on the right. The red and white number 7.

This was what the Emmas first 4 races looked like. There was actually 4 cars on the track for every race! She dominated all 4 of her heats in the first round. There was no other cars even close to hers. After round 1, they took the top 8 cars and each one raced 4 more times to determine the winner.

These were a little closer. She obviously won this one.

This one was a little closer, but a win none the less!

She won this one too!

Yet another win!

Yep, she won all 8 races she was in and took 1st place! She was so excited.

Here are the top 4 racers. Yep, girls won the top 4 spots!
Emma told us this morning before we left for the races that she thought she was going to win. We being the loving parents that we are and not wanting her to be disappointed and sad if she did not win, told here that she should not go into it thinking that she was going to win, but she should just go to have fun and enjoy herself no matter how she did. Maybe she knew what she was talking about! Is she ready for Nascar now?

Discouraged but thankful

The hunting season is over. The Gawkers won! Not only did I not get to shoot a deer or an elk, I did even see a live elk or deer during the season. I did see a dead doe that someone had shot and killed and then just left it there. That kinda makes me mad, but nothing I can do about it. It probably ran off the road after they shot it and they thought they missed, then it died about 200 feet off the road on a nice trail. This was probably my most discouraging hunting season ever. Not because I did not get anything, that has happened a lot. But because I put in a lot of effort this year and did not even see anything. In past years that I did not fill my tag, I did not put much effort into finding a deer, so it did not bother me that my tag was unused. This year, I hunted a lot. Not just road hunting either. I was out in the timber and brush, hunting. I found lots of sign where the animals had been. But never got to even see them. The last day of the season did get my hopes up one time. I was hiking back to the truck after a couple of hours of hiking and looking in some plantations and timber, and I heard something creeping in the brush about 100 feet away. So I very slowly and quietly started stalking it through the woods. It was moving away from me. It would got a little ways and then stop for a minute and then move again. I followed it for about 20 minutes, getting ever closer to the unidentified creeper. Then I finally got sight of it about 50 yards away. It was a guy out in the woods picking mushrooms! He had parked beside my pickup, and then went crawling through the woods picking mushrooms! Why you would do this when there are people with guns all over the area I do not know. But thats what he was doing. So much for hunting there. I moved on. Then darkness soon came, signaling the end of deer season for 2008, and I still have 2 unused tags in my pocket. This is the type of year that makes me wonder why I bother to hunt. I wonder if it is worth the time and money. But I am sure by the next hunting season, I will have forgotten this year and have a new batch of unfounded optimism that will drive me out looking for those Gawkers again.

Now if you read my first blog about Gawkers way back before hunting season, you may remember that I said in that blog that God would provide for our family one way or another. He does not fail! As the season came to an end, and I was feeling sorry for myself, my brother in law called and said he got a deer and needed someplace to store it because his freezer was not big enough. We said that we could store it, since I did not get anything there is plenty of room in our freezer. Then, today, when he called to let us know when he would be bringing it up to put it in the freezer, he said that he did not want it all and we could have what was left if we wanted it. Of course we said yes and he delivered the front half of his deer to me at I-5 and I spent the evening after the girls went to bed, cutting it up.

So God did provide some meat for our family just like I said he would. Just not the way I thought he would.

If you ask Brooke what animal this was, she will probably tell you it was "one of those 4 legged doedeerbullcowbuckelk things!" She just doesn't understand the difference! This was a buck deer for those interested. It was not a big one, but it is meat in the freezer.

Baby got book

A friend showed me this really funny video and I had to share it. Its even more funny if you know the words to to original song. Enjoy.