2010 in Review
December 2009
Last Christmas found us at the in-laws for a few days. Everyone had so many obligations that we only could stay for about five days. Lucky for us, Santa brought snow on Christmas eve! The white stuff came down for about ten hours leaving about eight to ten inches in most areas with drifts by the house and in other areas up to two and a half feet deep. And for some unknown reason, I was out in the snow barbecuing ribs. Don't ask.
For some reason, Grandma decided at about ten o'clock in the evening that she had to drain some water out of the pool. The pump had been running most of the day because the temperatures were well below freezing. She finally got the ice on the valve broken down so she could move the valve. When she went back to turn the pump on after draining some water, the housing on the pump ruptured and water was spraying eight feet in the air. It would have been funnier if I didn't have to run out in the snow and try to fix it. Once I resolved that the pump was beyond repair, I had to wade through the snow (two to three foot drifts) in my running shoes to the electrical box to turn off the power to the pump. Lets review. Snow on ground, probably melting into my shoes, hands are cold and wet from the water, and I'm going to play with electricity. Okay, no I did not fly through the air when I flipped the switch but what was I thinking? After an hour of duct taping towels around the exposed pipes, we managed to prevent further damage to the pool system.
The dogs had an absolute ball running through the snow. Molly stands about a foot tall at the shoulder and she was bouncing all over the yard. Moose just had fun chasing the other dogs around the yard. While the dogs had fun, driving was another issue. Thankfully we had completed all of our shopping the day before and didn't have to venture out except the convenience store a mile away for little things and gas. The snow wasn't going anywhere for a while and there was more in the forecast. We ended up shoveling about a third of grandma's driveway the day after Christmas and that took about four hours. She really has too much driveway.
January 2010
I spent the majority of my time in January working on a friends website and trying to extricate myself from the Air Force. After more than 21 years, the powers that be decided that I needed to be medically retired. I'm convinced that my time in Afghanistan living close to the burn pit did me absolutely no good. We'll see if the burn pits of Iraq and Afghanistan become Vietnam era Agent Orange in terms of military medical nightmares. While I wasn't overjoyed about getting out, it was time to find a new career path.
Ruth embarked on another volunteer project to sew up dolls. What she didn't bargain for was the timeframe they were going to impose. She ended up spending almost every hour during five days cutting, sewing, stuffing, sewing some more, cutting more, stuffing, sewing, etc. She even enlisted the rest of the family in the stuffing part. In the end, the church was ecstatic to get the dolls in such a short time frame. Funny thing was she had volunteered for the job two months earlier. Doh! When she wasn't volunteering the rest of her free time to Casey's scout troop as their treasurer, steering committee co-chairperson and public service slave, she managed to start learning how to build web pages and write database code. Now if she could only volunteer for a job that pays some bills.
February
I finally started terminal leave from the Air Force early in February. I really wanted to stay for four more years, but it was time to try something different. I got a job working for a defense contractor as their IT guy. Most of the folks I work with were part of the lasst squadron I was in before I retired. The job is located in San Antonio and forces me to travel to Iraq about once a quarter. My office heads up our Iraq flight training programs which keeps about thirty folks in Iraq teaching primary ground, simulator and flight training in two different locations.
Oh yeah, I turned another year older, yay me....
Ruth's dad, Walt, was admitted to the hospital for a heart problem around the middle of the month. Things were looking grim so Ruth travel home to see her dad and be with her mom. After a week or so, things were looking up so she came home. Within a few days, things started to go bad so she went home again.
March
Walt passed away in early March. He had had a rough time over the last decade since he suffered a couple of strong strokes. He had been pretty much confined to a wheelchair since the strokes as he was paralyzed on his right side. Communications with Walt had been tough because he had lost much of his speaking ability from the stroke. We spent a lot of time trying to play twenty questions everytime he wanted something.
I brought the kids up for Walt's memorial service which was well done and brought lots of folks together we had not seen in a few years. Walt's brother, Jim, is a Roman Catholic priest and presided over the excellent service. A friend of Walt's delivered an excellent eulogy.
He will be greatly missed.
Casey and Ruth spent four days in Big Bend National and State parks over spring break with the Boy Scouts. They climbed a few hills, slept in tents, went canoeing, and had fun. Well, until it started raining.
Casey and Jennifer celebrated another birthday in March, Casey turned 13 and Jennifer finally made it to 18! Casey had all of his friends over to have an Airsoft war in our backyard. Airsoft guns shoot little plastic BB type projectiles. I hope they are bioderadeable as they are all over my yard. What a mess. We went out to dinner for both of their birthdays. Then she blew us off to be with her firends. Sheesh, kids.
The rest of our month was spent in the backyard. Last year's weather and rainfall killed off most of my grass and introduced about twenty types of weeds to my yard. I, being of the lazy persuasion, procrastinated on dealing with the weeds until they got about waist high. We spent many days and many hours and many trashbags ridding the yard of weeds. I've decided I want a professional yard service for Christmas.
Jennifer's Venture Crew group were the hosts for the annual Venture Crew Culinary Challenge. It was a two day campout complete with tents and different crews cooking up fancy food on the campfire. Because they were the hosts this year, they were unable to compete. But she had fun with the bugs.
Kaitlin's sorority, Gamma Phi Beta, had a very nice catered lunch for the parents at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. We got the opportunity to meet some of Kate's sorority sisters and had a good time.
April
Well, April finally rolled around and I retired. We had my mother-in-law come down to join us along with my good friend Matt Mantei, who recently moved to Ohio, folks from work and some of the folks from the squadron. I brought in a large amount of food from the local barbecue joint and ended up taking most of it home since most of the squadron was gone cross country. That's okay because I like barbecue. The ceremony felt anti-climatic as I'd been working at my new job for two months, but it went well. I'm pretty sure I hit all the required items, wife, kids, other family, friends, and former co-workers.
Casey went on a campout where he was able to earn a few Boy Scout merit badges. He was happy to earn the fishing merit badge where he caught fish and learned how to filet them. And he didn't go to McDonald's for it.
May
Casey participated in the Olympic Development Program for water polo at the University of Texas in Austin. He's been playing water polo for about a year and really enjoys it. The ODP selects kids that show talent and are invited to participate in camps and training programs to build their skills. Loosely translated, it's an opportunity for me, dad, to spend more money on something else other than himself.
Jennifer marked her senior year with her fourth choir banquet. Her high school has a very large choir program with seven choirs, ranging from freshman boys and girls to a competition choir and finally a show choir. Every year they have a series of choir shows at the school and a banquet at the local country club. It's usually a grand event with good food and fun for the kids.
Ruth got picked up to coach the local swim team for the second year. Last year her team won first place at the championships. While she may not have had the team with the fastest swimmers, her tweaking of the swimmers in the events garnered the point totals to take home the championship. We're hoping for a repeat. Oh yeah, it makes some money!!
June
Yippiee!! Jennifer finally figured out how to get out of high school. She graduated summa cum laude with a grade average of 102 on a 100 point scale. That must be based on some new math. Anyway, she's chosen to wander away from the nest and go to school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the Louisiana State University. Now, if she could only figure out how to get scholarships to support her education.
Ruth did it again. She worked her magic on the event planning and took home her second straight team championship for the local swim team. When she wasn't coaching the team, she was giving swim lessons in our pool.
July
Well, I got my first taste of the defense contractor travel to the desert. I have to say I prefer getting there on my own airplane, but the job pays well for the travel time even if it takes four to five days to get from home to the work location. And then there's the free food and board. It was good to see our operations over there and get a handle on what we do and where we do it. But then again, it's the desert. Nothing quite like a helicopter ride in body armor with bags on your lap on a 120 degree day.
Casey moved up to Life Scout. He's well on his way to Eagle Scout, just needs to find a worthwhile project to work on. He enjoyed a weekend fishing trip with one of his friends.
Well, now comes the fun stuff. We spent the weekend in Baton Rouge at a new freshman and parent orientation. Jennifer got a taste of dorm life and the dining halls and she had fun. She got a chance to meet a bunch of folks and make some new friends. We got the opportunity to see the campus and figure out where she was going to live since she applied for the dorms entirely too late to ever hope of getting in. I then learned what the fall semester was going to cost. I've bought cars that cost less than that!
August
School started up for Jenny a little early this year. LSU has their Greeek rush the week before school starts, so off we went with car loads of Jenny's stuff to put in her apartment to visit LSU again. It turned out that everything started at about the same time so it was a little tough getting to everything but it all worked out. Mind you, Louisiana in August is a lovely time of year; high 80s to low 90s with 275% humidity!! Oh, and Jenny's apartment is on the third floor, no elevator. Did I mention I was another year older?
September
Well, this was fun month. Where to start... Let's see, one of my driving children, name withheld to protect her identity, decided to drive to the grocery store to get some cold medicine to make her feel better. Unfortunately, she misjudged a turn and hit a truck coming the opposite direction. You should have heard the phone call I got. She was hysterical and the horn was going off constantly in the background. "How do I shut the horn off??" She was so disconnected from paying attention that there wasn't anything I could do to help. Oh yeah, no one was hurt except for her pride and slightly clean driving record. The insurance company wrote that one off as a total loss.
Two weeks later, I get a call from the wife. My other driving child, name withheld yada yada yada, decided to destroy the left side of her car against a parked truck. It wasn't a pretty sight.
Let's see, what came next? About two or three days later, I got a call at work about a flood in the house. "Where do I turn the water off??" Water all over the floor in the kitchen, laundry room and garage. Turns out the water heater in the garage gave out and dumped it's contents whereever it could. By the time I got home, she had gotten someone to turn the water off for her. You know how difficult it is to lift a 130 pound round water heater up two feet? There's nothing to grab on to.
Next was the call from the wife about the truck not wanting to turn. Turns out the power steering unit gave out and luckily she was able to get it into a parking lot. I've decided not to answer my phone anymore.
We raced out to Louisiana at the end of the month to get Jennifer a car to drive. Turns out it was the LSU-Tennessee game day. As we waited for Jennifer to leave the game, we sat in the parking lot listening to the fiasco, uh, football game on the radio. What a messy ending. Anyway, had dinner with Jenny and her friend, Alex (short for Alexandra), went back to Jenny's apartment so Mom could help Jenny clean her room! Everyone's idea of fun on a Saturday night.
October
October found me back in the desert supporting our employees working there. Two weeks of fun in the sun! Did I mention the free food? I've determined I really don't like the helicopter rides anymore.
I finally got Kaitlin to take some sage advice. She went to the job fair at the school and talked up potential employers about intern jobs. She was offered interviews from three different companies for IT work. In the end, she took the first job because they wanted her to start quickly where the rest were hunting for summer interns. So she started working for a software company located between the home and school for about 20 hours a week. It's a great experience for her that will pay dividends once she finishes school. Plus it pays rather well.
November
Ruth's mom, sister and her husband all came down to visit for Kaitlin's birthday. Okay, it sounds good but her sister had a conference to attend so everyone came with her. They were there for Kaitlin's birthday so we all went out to eat. Oh, Kaitlin turned 21 this year.
Kaitlin also started her second term as the President of the University of Texas at San Antonio Pan-Hellenic Council. She gets to deal with all the sorority issues and work with the school and other councils to help improve the school. She enjoys the job immensely and keeps quite busy with her sorority, Gamma Phi Beta, and other school events. Translate that to I see her about two or three times a week, usually as she is running out the door.
Jennifer came home for Thanksgiving. We had to go to Dallas with Casey on Saturday after Thanksgiving for another Olympic Development Program session. There, that wallet is almost empty.
December
We've been busy so far this month. I took off to the Bay Area in California for a week in early December for a training course on computers. The weather was damp early on but cleared up nicely at the end of the week. I managed to get done a day early so I took off to Sacramento to visit Mrs. C and Jacquie and Jim. It was great to get up there and see our old family friends.
I no sooner got home then Ruth and Casey took off to Colorado Springs for a four day water polo camp at the US Olympic Training Center. He was one of 120 kids from across the nation selected to attend and received instruction from Olympic team coaches. He had a great time and really enjoyed the food. Apparently they have some really good cooks there and served up all of his favorites. The day they got back we start the drive to Grandma's for the holiday vacation.
So brings the end of my diatribe. I hope this holiday season is a good one for everyone out there. Next year, I'll try harder to keep up with this throughout the year so we have more pictures to share.
