You Can Do Anything....When You're Awesome

So the weeks are quickly slipping by until we go to San Diego. Two weeks from today we will be sitting enjoying ourselves. Three weeks and Zach will be home having already emptied the fridge. This week is his "finals" week. He has finals in Drill (today), Martial Arts Tuesday, Physical fitness Wednesday, written test on Marine history and orders on Thursday, Friday they do repelling from a 6 stroy tower and on Saturday the company Cmmdr's inspection. Sunday they head back to camp pendleton for the Crucible. Their ultmiate test. Well we bought our tickets so everything better go as planned. Amazingly enough we got tickets still for $185 a person. Basically Friday will be the last letter I write to boot camp. That letter will be there for him when he is done with the Crucible and is actually called a Marine.

Here are the Graduation events they have: http://www.mccsmcrd.com/Graduation/Graduation_Events.aspx

Here's a small photogallery that shows pics of a few of the eventshttp://www.usmcgradsandiego.org/photoGallery/

So Karen has been swamped this week at work and worked late every night. That stresses her out of course, particularly as it heads into the busy time and she wants everything cleaned up before we leave on vacation. She might be working late for the next couple of weeks. Karen got her promotion....again. I'm very proud of her. Her rise has been phenominal if you consider the "standard" career path here at NM. I'm sure it will continue. However Karen is a perfectionsist and can remember nearly everything she sees and hears. Her work ethic is beyond extreme. So naturally she'll succeed in any work environment. Of course being that kind of person there can be a certain amount of frustration that comes when she doesn't achieve perfection but she is the only one who notices. I now consider myself one step closer to the time I can retire and just be a staff minister. I just need Karen to get that promotion to director and we're good to go.

Ike had his lil crew of folk over Friday night again. At least they went to a movie with a slightly larger crew of girls. I think 4 to 7 ratio probably was ideal. That kept them out of the way for a bit. I bought a big Kerosene heater for the garage. It needs a few hours to get the place heated up but once it does it works ok. I think a couple of electric heaters with fans as assists will make the Garage inhabitable for the teenagers. It has just become so much more pleasant not having their music and spills and stickyness and loudness in the house.

Katie headed to Madison on Friday night to hang out with her cousin. She went with him to the Badger game on Saturday which was her first one. Although the Badgers really didn't deserve to win, they did and the game was exciting.

Karen went to her family cookie day at Kelly's. They made lots of cookies. I just came later with Ike and snitched some cookie dough, some lunch, and then went with all the manly men to watch Bond. Nothing perks up a Saturday afternoon than some random violence. Good movie though. I like the edgier Bond. We returned to Kelly's to check in on that cookie baking and yes indeed the cookie dough was still good...yet the evil looks from Karen indicated that it would soon go bad. I played with emma and lilly for a bit and watched the badger game. Then I had to take Ike to work. Then I went home to do my homework. I had a couple hours of peace and then Kt got home from the game, Karen got home from cookies and then I had to go get Ike from work.
Sunday we had a thanksgiving Potluck at church. OMG the food was so awesome. Too bad we couldn't stay because Kt had her CC banquet where we had a brunch. It was not the same as the food our people put out at Victory. It was another full Sunday too. I hope we can find some place soon to move to soon.

Look at the Turkey Marines..ok they're not Marines but hey did look like they were in formation.

After all that food I tackled some long overdue chores. The garage door has been being opened manually for awhile now because the bracket that the door opener connects to broke. Additionally a roller broke making the manual opening difficult as well. The weather strip at the bottom was dried out and almost gone. So I found a new reinforced bracket for heavy garage doors, I got a new roller and weatherstripping. Now the door opens all nice and smooth and quiet and seals up nice when its closed.

This week on the agenda is the dismantling of the old Big screen. It is pretty much unusable and is just taking space. So I'm going to take it out of the basement but it won't go up the stairs whole. It barely made it in. After that is out of the basement I will rearrange the furniture a bit to create more room. I am also adding a 6 foot wall by my computers and isolating my "office" from the main room a bit. That way my computers are protected from shenanigans in the basement. After some deep cleaning of the floors and basement and a couple layers of wax life should be nice down there.

Last night we saw Bolt. Funny movie. Its redonculous.

I know you are all awaiting news of the Fruit fly percentage. I would say its now at 92% removed. It would seem like they were mounting an offensive buildup of troops again but I fought back in a series of attacks they were not expecting. The battle wages on for total domination.

So happy Thanksgiving everyone. I can't think of a better way to say it than with cake.