What the cadets have been up to.

Here's Andy awaiting another O-flight, his fifth maybe?  Or he might just be looking cool standing in front of it.  But that yellow vest indicates he's been busy keeping the tarmac a safe place.

Abi with a couple of extras hanging out in our kitchen.  They are either done or getting ready to go present the colors at a truck pull.  Would somebody close those cupboard doors?

Abi is donning her dress blues here waiting in line to ride the farris wheel.

something must have been funny

Don't they look so sharp?

The Color guard has been able to perform for a crowd several times this summer.  Here's Andy taking a self portrait of his "gobsmackingly" good looks.  The celebrity status is going to their heads!  The practice in front of a crowd has been great though because they want to go to competition in the spring.

More hanging out in my kitchen with the doors open!

Mama's Tech Seargents

The boys were promoted recently.  They are now both Tech Seargents, which means they are the second highest ranking cadets now.  Wow.  Here's a picture.  Abi is standing by-all in uniform.

Last Saturday we toured Eppley Airport and got to go up into the control tower.  Then we went to another radar facility nearby that handles regional aircraft control.  It was very impressive!  Aircraft control is a big subject.

Nebraska History on a shoestring......

These are my trailblazers reading their Trailblazers. So yeah, I got my state history course from a friend's castoffs! And they're reading too, double whammy! Thanks friend, those came in handy this year. Isn't that great? I spent nothing! FREE, it's a good thing! ......those "early settlers" on the cover look a little like neanderthals though, guess I let that one slip by me.....

GUEST DOG

Last week we had our cousins staying with us. This dog is my cousin Michael's dog. His name is Briar and he and Hank had a really good time wrestling.

ART

We recently got some really nice colored pencils so I am trying them out. About a month ago I got a big set of drawing pencils with a wide range of hardnesses, so I have been drawing a lot. The color did not come through very well with this scan. We will have to work on that.

A LITTLE CARVING

I got the idea to carve this whale when I watched the movie Moby Dick. For those of you that haven't watched it, it is really spooky, too spooky for the average person. But the white whale is really animated, I liked that part.

WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING

Lately I have been drawing a lot. I usually don't use colored pencils. This is a picture of Teddy Roosevelt looking over the Grand Canyon. I recently read a book about him. It's a pretty good sketch, but I don't think it really looks like him. My mom really likes this picture and she thought it would make a good post. For a long time I was mostly drawing airplanes but now I am stuck on drawing faces of famous people like presidents and composers.

A REALLY NEAT SQUIRT GUN

The other day we went to our new house. We were digging through the trash. Then I saw some thing! I pulled it out and it was a homemade squirt gun! It has a wood handle with a hole drilled through it with a syringe through it. I tried it and it works!

A HOME MADE BASKETBALL HOOP

Recently I was bored so I made a basketball hoop out of a bucket and a ladder and practiced with a soccer ball. Then my brother went to our new house and brought home a basketball. It is a junky old basketball that I pulled the skin off of. I started with the bucket sitting on top of the ladder but it kept falling off. So then I tied it on with a rope, it didn't fall off anymore. It works OK, but a real hoop would work much better.

MINIATURE PLANES

I like to make miniature planes. Here are some pictures of some of the planes that I have made. The big one is a B-17. The gray one is a Messerschmitt ME 262. The tan one is a Messerschmitt BF 109 and the last one is a P 51 Mustang. To make them I used popcicle sticks and square dowels.

THE ANNOYING BLUE CHAIR

Once upon a time, there was a chair. It was a rickety old blue chair, the color of a robin's egg. Then one day a boy put his foot up upon it and it fell apart. You see there were only four rungs when there should have been eight. This chair was free, it came from grandma's house. Mom loved this chair, such a pretty blue. So the boy decided to fix it. He found a piece of wood, but the piece of wood was square. So what does he do? He takes a knife and carves and carves. And finally,he took a belt sander to them. He made two new rungs as good as new, well almost. Now once we glue them in, the chair will be usable once again in the land of sugar and spice!

THE FREE ONLINE TYPING COURSE

I have been using a free online typing course. I like typing on that better than the electric typewriter. I was using type it.

My next post will be a short story, stay tuned.......

ANDY'S WILD LOOK

Let me explain this picture. We were working at the house and I had been wearing a stocking cap all day and I needed a haircut really bad! Plus, I needed a shower. I was burning lath and got soot around my eyes. I have since had a haircut and a shower!

THE ROYAL GORGE

Last week we were in Colorado and while we were in Colorado we went to a place called the Royal Gorge. There is a suspension bridge over the gorge. We drove over that. We also went down to the bottom of the gorge. We went down in an incline railway. It was neat. There were animals there too. There were buffalo, elk, and big horn sheep in a fenced in area for you to look at. Another thing we did there was ride a cable car over the gorge.

MY BEST GOOSE HUNT EVER

The other day I went goose hunting with dad and a man we know. It was his blind. There were four of us all together. We got twelve. The limit is three per person. We could have shot 200! There were so many! Dad and I were tired after we got home because we left at 5:00 AM, but we were up all night! I was so anxious that I kept getting up and I kept mom and dad awake all night. I have a clock in my room but it had not been reset from when the ice storm turned it off! I also had the best donut I had ever tasted that morning. It had just been made and glazed. It was still warm.

AN ADDITION TO MY COLLECTION

In a post I did before I put a picture of my skull collection. Recently my dad found me a cat skull at our new place in the country. My skull collection is growing.

PASSING A TEST

A couple of weeks ago I took the Hunter's safety test. I only got three wrong. I was glad I passed it! It was easy. Here is a picture of me holding my "Hunter Education Graduate" card.

MY NEW BOW

Last week we went to Cabelas and bought a new bow for me. I'm going to owe dad for a long time, but it really improved my shooting. I sold my rifle to Abi for part of the money. My new bow is a Diamond Edge, by Bowtech, not available at your local Wal-mart. As you can see by the picture, I aimed at the pink dot and hit the pink dot! I had a chance to try this "out in the field" a couple nights ago, but no deer came along.

SHOOTING TOO GOOD

This can get expensive. $8 per arrow.

MY SKULL COLLECTION

Once my dad, my brothers , and I were blood-trailing a deer and found a deer skull. And that was the beginning of my skull collection. A couple days ago we were out scouting and found a huge cow skull to add to my collection. It is the biggest one in the picture. The smallest one is a beaver and the other three are all deer. I used to have a bird skull. I think they are a neat thing to collect.