Hello Mr. President

With the arrival of George W.(dubaya) to Salt Lake City I got an up close look at the President's entourage. These are the support helicopters that arrived the day before he did. His helicopter arrived just before his arrival in a C-5 cargo jet( the largest cargo carrier the military has). His trip was short but you can't believe all that has to be in place before he arrives. These helicopters arrived in formation the Saturday before he arrived. They are H-53s or sometimes called Jolly Green Giants. They are huge and are a smaller version of what the President flies on. Sometimes I just love my job.

The boys

Where is it? Is it coming? I think I hear it. Wait for it, wait for it . . .

YES! Wahoo!

Gone already?

A bad day for birds

On the right is a picture of a dead hawk in the back of a operations truck retrieved from the runway just yesterday. It had a tussle with an airplane and the airplane won. The bird activity as been high the last few weeks. After this bird strike incident I was forced to shoot for the first time a bird (top picture) that would not leave the flight path of aircraft arriving at Salt Lake International airport. This bird is called a Western Grebe. And later that night when I was performing a runway inspection I found one more dead bird that lost its fight with a commercial aircraft. These are just some of the entertaining things that I get to do while the children are home flooding the bathroom with Rozanne. Most of the time the birds stay out of the way but yesterday was just a bad day for the birds.

AAARRGH!

So, today there was some sunshine and Easton was taking a nap, Logan and Lauren were playing outside, so I went to sit on the porch and read a book. Lauren went in to go to the bathroom, and I of course warned her to be SO quiet so she wouldn't wake up Easton. She came back out a few minutes later and said he was still asleep. Great! So, I read some more. Then the clouds came, and I decided to move into the Living Room to read. I heard water running and got upset because I knew Lauren had left the water on after washing her hands. What a waste of water! Then, I got more upset, much more upset when I saw that the sink was full . . . she hadn't just left the water running, she had plugged the sink first! That's when I hit livid. I spent the next 20 minutes mopping up the floor and cleaning out the cupboard. Oh, and Lauren got a spanking (or 2) and got sent to the playroom where she was screaming her brains out. Then I went downstairs to the laundry room to put all the wet towels in the washer. Then I checked the unfinished room under the bathroom to see if the ceiling was wet. There was water everywhere! AAARRGH! So, I spent the next hour mopping and wiping and emptying cardboard boxes that were now soggy (the contents of the boxes were surprisingly not too wet . . . the cardboard was so absorbant). Anyway, I have a 4-year-old for sale.

If you look at the top right of the picture you can see a small dry area of cement

Here is the luggage that was in that room . . . drying outside

Pre-School

So, today was Lauren's pretend birthday. She woke up coughing and crying and I told her that she wouldn't get to go to pre-school because she was sick. This brought on more tears, because it was her pretend birthday! She had to go to school and take her chocolate cupcakes! So, we called the teacher and she said it was okay. I went to pre-school, too, and enjoyed it so much I might just go back! Lauren loves it and I'm so lucky to send her to a great place for pre-school. We had a good day, and Lauren feels much better.

Landon, Lauren, Tyler, Miss Stephanie & Eliza pretending to be horses

Tyler, Lauren & Eliza with their cupcakes -- anyone who knows Lauren knows that she LOVES chocolate!

May Day?

One day while my mom and I were driving on Sunset Blvd. we saw a huge pole with colored streamers flowing down from the top. I asked my mom why they were there, when they hadn't been there before. She said that it was May Day. I've seen those streamers many times in May, but today I miss them. Today I woke up, looked out the window, and what did I see . . . ?

Happy May Day!