The first picture is a chess board that our friend David made for me for my birthday, using a marble chessboard Faith got for me in Mexico.  The chess pieces Faith got for me for my birthday, they're really nice chess pieces from Italy.  The next picture is from the end of our coast trip, playing disc golf in Yakima.  Not much is going on, but I wanted to share that on Monday I was offered a 120 day detail to a Fire Management Officer position in Kettle Falls, which is about an hour east of Republic. I told the district ranger there that I wanted to apply for the detail, but I didn't want to move over there for 4 months, he said I could drive over every day and he'd give me a government rig to drive over in.  So, April 21 I'll start driving over to do that job for 4 months.  It should be pretty interesting, my friend Shane works over there, and I worked for Shane back when I worked in Sisters.   That's about it, the boys have spring break next week, I'm taking most of the week off and hopefully we'll have some good adventures to write about that don't involve Simon falling in a creek, which is what happened last weekend.

We've been cooking a big Sunday dinner, ususally ham lately.  Last night while we were eating I suggested we could maybe get a turkey one time.  Dylan said "Like Thanksgiving!"  Simon said "Actually they ate ham at Thanksgiving."  I said "You mean at the very first Thanksgiving?"  and Simon said "Yeah.  Really."  I said "Hmmm, what makes you say that?"  and Simon replied "Because I don't like turkey but I like ham." 

Best (sort of) Family Trip Ever!

Well, for some reason, my computer, freezes every time I try to load a picture from my phone.  My comma button on the keyboard is broken as well...so excuse the elipse use in lieu of commas.  Anyway...on with the best (sort of) family trip ever!  It's (sort of) becuae Faith went to Portland this weekend for work...to buy the years line of clothes for the store she works at.  Me and the boys went to the coast in Long Beach...in south western Washington to meet my friends Mark and Christina and their two kids...William and Weatherly.  We left Republic after school last Thursday and drove to Yakima and stayed in a hotel there...then got up the next morning and drove the rest of the way to Long Beach.  Mark and family were still about an hour out when we got there...so me and the boys found a beach so they could experience the ocean for the first time.  The wind was blowing like crazy and there were huge waves...Dylan kept facing the wind and yelling "I'm the king of the world!" and "Freedom!"  I have no idea when he saw Titanic or Braveheart.  We wandered along the beach looking for sea shells and sand dollars...I found a live sand dollar...but we left it there.  The kids filled their pockets with every seashell fragment they found...as well as picking up every piece of drift wood asking if they could keep it.  After and hour we headed to the hotel to meet Mark and family.  They've got a friend that owns a condo at this hotel...so we got to stay there free.  We hung out for a bit and caught up...then headed to dinner at a place that a huge seafood menu...but informed us that no place in town serves fresh seafood...it's all shipped in. For a town on the coast that seemed pretty stupid to me...but who can turn down all you can eat fish and chips for $11?  We left and went back to the condo and let the kids run around for awhile while we planned Saturdays activities.  We woke up and had breakfast...then rode bikes into town and wandered around for a bit before going to race go karts! (picture Simon and Dylan sitting in go karts now..because I can't upload the picture or video.)  My go kart broke down...started up again at full throttle with no brakes...broke down...started at full throttle again...then broke down...so I quit.  The boys had so much fun...despite the fact that it started pouring down rain right when we started racing.  We finished up and started walking to our picnic spot...but decided it was raining so hard we would put the kids in the truck and Mark and I would ride bikes back to the hotel (he had drove into town earlier to stage food then jogged back to the hotel).  After lunch we went to a Lewis and Clark interpretive center and wandered around it was also an old army fort.  Long Beach is where Clark first saw the pacific ocean and the interpretive center catalogued their whole trip with exhibits about their journal entries...it was really cool.  Simon decided he would rather be at the hotel watching TV...so he pouted with his arms folded most of the time...but I got him out of it at the end and we did some of the fun activities they had there...like seeing how many wooden blocks we could load in a miniature canoe before it tipped over...sighting an old musket at pictures of animals 100 yards away...and getting imprints of animal tracks on the map they gave us.  It was super fun.  After that we went out to the old army fort... where you could run around inside the old bunkers and we all played army for awhile with the kids.  After that it was dinner time and we went to the resteraunt on the resort we were staying at.  I had "Devils on Horseback" which is scallops wrapped in bacon..and is freaking awesome!  We went back to the room and had cake (it was Marks birthday...which is why we went down there).  The next day we went and bought some stuff from a little museum for the boys...Dylan got a drum and two wooden knives...Simon got 3 geodes to break open and two wooden knives.  Then we played mini golf..then went to Fort Columbia...another old army fort where we again played army in the old concrete bunkers...which was also tons of fun.  We parted ways with the Ballaris' after that and headed to Yakima again...went swimming for a while in the pool..then ordered pizza and watched Tangled then went to bed.  Woke up this morning and got some breakfast then went swimming again then went and played frisbee golf.  We were going to go out to lunch at Red Robin but I realized I needed to pick the dogs up by 5 from the boarder...so we had to skedaddle and drive exactly the speed limit very quickly to get back to Republic in time.  It was a great weekend...Dylans favorite things were frisbee golf and go karts...and Simons favorite thing was the whole weekend.  We were going to go Mt. St. Helens on the way there and on the way back...but the the mountain was all socked in with clouds both ways so we didn't want to go up there and not be able to see anything.  Sorry for no pictures...I'll get it figured out and try to add them soon.  Hope everybody's doing well!