Happy Indepence Day Weekend!

We are careening into a really busy section of the summer.  And the boys are having fun with it!

This week's weather has been awesome, cool nights, warm days.  During the week I put nearly 200 miles on the motorcycle, quite a bit of it for work.  I almost froze the other morning when I went to Holland for a 7:30 AM meeting, 40 miles in 50 degree weather, chilly to be sure, but by the time I left,  I knew it was the right thing to do.

It's Saturday morning and everyone's still abed.  I love the house at this time, it's quiet and cool and the coffee is fresh and hot.  I'm living the dream, to be sure.

Today's Birthday Shout Out is for our country, the good ole US of A.  As usual, let's start with the baby shot, the original 13 colonies. And an adolescent shot, gaining the Louisiana Purchase and the current version.  All kidding aside, let's all do our best to celebrate our freedoms and honor our veterans that have fought and died for those freedoms. 

There's another Birthday Shout Out that should be mentioned.  As many of you know, I have the same birth date as our country and since I am at the keyboard, I can control the shot's that are used, so here's my own shout out.

One of my all time favorites, is this one, Jack, Dave and me as  little guy.  I try to maintain that zest for life.  Though a full set of teeth, for now, has changed my looks a bit.

 








Here's a shot from my wedding day.  Wow, we were so young!  My hair isn't that color any more, that's for sure.

Here I am, monitoring the shotgun rifle range at an outing in 2008. 

I must admit, it's feels weird to toot my own horn and so I'll leave you with this; Take yourself serious enough to be a good member of society, but remember to have fun along the way!










Have an awesome 4th and please forgive the ramblings of a 53 year old kid.
Pat

Wednesday is Humpday!

Nearly to the holiday weekend.  Ahh!

Work has been insane, really challenging  and not slowing down for any rest any time soon.

The boy scouts finished up the project for Josh's Eagle project.  As I mentioned it's at Equest Therapeutic riding academy.  It was a shelter, now it's a resting place for the riders.  We tore off the entire roof and replaced it, replaced have the wood on the back wall, built benches and then filled it with horse friendly mulch.  Rumor has it that if a horse walks in mulch that's got some black walnut in it and it gets wedged in the hoof, it can kill the horse.  Who'd a thunk?  Anyway, it's all done!




Have a great day!
Pat

Sunday is drawing to a close

This marks the end of our lazy weekend.  Today was a pretty easy day, went to church, took a nap, Holly went to work and the boys and I went shopping for a bit and then had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, we like it, Holly's not such a big fan.

It rained off and on most of the day and so the shiny motorcycle stayed in the garage.

It's also Cousin John's birthday today.  Happy Birthday John!  I have a few shots so here you go.

It's been confirmed that John's the baby in this shot.

This is the Clark, Sipley and Young shot, with Nancy held by John Young, then Herb, John Sipley holding Maureen, Keith, then David and yours truly down in front.

Here's John and perhaps me having some ice cream or pie or probably both for me.

At my Mom's funeral, David, me, John Young and John Sipley.

John and his lovely family, showing that indeed, he turned out pretty well.

I hope that you have a great year John!

















Have a great day!
Pat

Saturday isn't very restful!

You know, when I was younger, it seemed like Saturday's were a way of catching up on a few chores and resting a bit.  Not so much anymore.

Let's see, it started with Bean wanting to get up way before the rest of us, so I crawled downstairs and took her out and fed her and kept her active for a few hours til everyone else got up.

We did some work on the boys prerequisites for some merit badge work.  They go to summer camp on July 4th and each boy is working on 5 merit badges.  With some dedication and hard work, I think that they both have a chance of returning from summer camp as Life Scouts, just one step short of Eagle.  I am really proud of them.

Speaking of Eagle Scouts, to get there you need to do an "Eagle Project".  It's complicated but the intention is for the Eagle candidate to develop a project for a local non-profit, get donations to finance it, round up volunteers and then get it done.  The volunteers are usually the scouts and parents in the boys troop.  Today we had a chance to help Josh finish up his project.  Pretty cool.  Coolest of all, it was for the Equest Center, where Spencer used to be a student in the therapeutic riding program.  We worked most of the afternoon finishing up a place for the students to sit and rest while taking a break from riding.  It's in one of the pastures.

After that we came home, did some more work on prerequisites.  No kidding, as I am helping Ian, I almost fell asleep, it's pretty exciting stuff.

Dinner was grilled pork tenderloins and grilled fresh pineapple with a side of rice.  Thanks to Holly for doing most of the prep. 

Poor Holly is in a many day in a row run and we're throwing in singing on Sunday too!  She'll be exhausted most of the first half of next week.

I'm not sure why, but Bean seems to be pretty tired out too.  She stayed home.  But it was pretty hot.  She's a pretty interesting dog, very trainable.  She's starting to ring a bell when she wants to go outside, much better than trying to figure out which look is which.  Thanks Tom and Reen for that bit of wisdom.

To finish the day out I washed and waxed the Honda.  It's the first time since I got the bike that I washed it and it was due, I have gotten caught in the rain several times and that's always a mess.   I really like the new ride and feel blessed to have it, but I realized today that I have a lot more chrome than I used to have.  The picture is the way that I like to ride it, stripped down to just the drivers seat and a chrome plate so that my briefcase can't muck up the finish on the fender.

Have a great day, I just did!
Pat

Finally Friday!

Busy week, but it ended really well.  I had a meeting with a customer that rides a motorcycle and so I rode down and we headed out from there to a little Greek sandwich shop where I got a black and white, which is half gyro and half chicken rolled into a whole wheat pita.  Very good.  Best of all, I went to a business meeting on the bike and I think it's really cool to get paid while I am riding.


Tonight we had a fire out back and that was fun.  Holly found these marshmallows that were 4X normal size.  We decided that though they were really cool looking, they don't cook that great.  But we had to try them.  The new firepit worked really well.

Here's three members of the team that went to Haiti; Amy, Morgan and Kerry.  We were bombing through Port Au Prince.  I think we were near the airport, but I'm not sure.







Have a great day
Pat

Topical Tuesday

I kind of like the idea of making up titles for these.  It's fun but not usually too relevant to the actual content.  Probably because I title them and then start typing.  Kind of like setting out to write a book and the first thing you write is the title.

I got some feedback on the photo of Grandpa Young, the one where they were by the S. L. Young and Sons Truck.  John Sipley wouldn't admit to being the baby, but did recognize his dad.  Since he's the oldest of our generation, I don't see how it could be anyone else.  Oh well.

Here's a shot of Spencer while riding the ferry over to North Manatou Island.  I think the little nipper looks rather stoic!  Hard to see, but he's soaking wet.

Here's Ian hiking next to Josh.  Not sure which scout is double over, but they all survived so it's all good. 

On the second day the boys found; "an awesome climbing tree" and they scurried up.  In this tree we have, Owen, Kevin, Josh, Ian, Jon and Shaun.  When the parent with the great camera came up to take the picture they thought that they were busted and were surprised when he took a few shots and walked away.  Boys will be boys.






Have a great day!
Pat

Happy Monday?

What's up?  Work was especially work like today.  I had a customer visit this afternoon and took the company vehicle, an awesome Ford Taurus Station wagon.  As Ian would say, Noice!  Except the air conditioner isn't working, the brakes are shot and it pulls to the left, but it's better than using my car.

As I mentioned the other day, Tom and Reen stopped by on their way up north.  I heard on the radio how people in and around Chicago look at Michigan, and I quote; "Chicago's favorite state park is filling up again on most weekends, so you may want to consider our second favorite state park for your next outdoor adventure, Michigan.  Anyway, here's a shot of them on their visit.  Looking good guys!


Speaking of Chicago, while I was there I was having dinner at an upscale place and the wine steward came by and we were kidding around and he mentioned that he'd seen how to open a bottle of wine with out a corkscrew.  I went to Youtube and found many clips, here's one that was the most tasteful.  Open a bottle of wine with your shoe.  

Have a great day!

Pat