Color Guard Duty

Last night Mark was able to do Color Guard Duty. His first time ever! The official Color Guard members happened to be in Fairbanks for a competition, so volunteers were needed to take care of the responsibility at Eagle River High School.

This picture was taken in the ROTC room before the event. Mark was having fun with the "rifle".
One last chance to practice before the big event!

Marching in.

Presenting Colors.

Marching out.

The debrief.

I find it interesting that these four Cadets spent about 3 hours of practicing for 3-4 minutes of Color Guard Duty. They did a great job! Mark is now hoping to be on the Color Guard team for the Rondy parade in Feb!

Thanksgiving

Last night Jeff told Grandpa that he wanted to wake to the smell of bacon......so, Grandpa made breakfast this morning!! It snowed a couple of inches overnight, so everything looked nice and white! Great for sledding down our street, shoveling snow, etc....We had a wonderful dinner with everyone pitching in to get it ready.

Grandma helping to cleanup after the be feast! Grandpa taking it easy after dinner....I think the tryptophan has started it way thru his system!

Making the trek back up the hill after a fun sled ride down!

On their way again!

George is removing snow from the truck so he can move it, then on to shoveling the driveway!

Mark doing what he does best!!

We have so many things to be grateful for. Our family, friends, our faith and belief in God, those military personnel that are serving, good health, a beautiful place to live.

Kids at the Special Olympics!

Emily and Jeff, Courtney and Alex went with us adults to watch the Special Olympics.....The kids were not that interested in watching bowling, but the arcade games were quite interesting!

Alex out hunting!

Sarah and friend Tammi checking out the games and such on my iPhone.

Jeff and Courtney hunting!

Seems like Emily is just watching all the hunting going on!

David and Special Olympics

On Saturday Nov 7, the Tacoma area Special Olympics had a bowling tournament. David participated in a Doubles Tourney.

Here is David bowling......

And Here is the proof that David did throw a strike!!!!!

David is helping his team mate Mike make his way to the front so that they can get their Bronze medals!

David and his Bronze!

Grandkids

This last weekend I had the opportunity to go visit Matt, Annette, Tristan and Ian in St Joseph MI. I flew from Anchorage to Chicago on Thrusday, and rented a car for the drive to St Joseph. On Friday it was raining, so we went out for lunch, took a quick look around town, then headed back to Matt and Annette's place. I got to feed Ian and then let him have his nap on my chest! I was in heaven! Nothing like having a newborn sleeping on your chest!

On Saturday, the rain had stopped, the was peeking thru the clouds, and the wind was howling....maybe because it was Halloween.....so another lunch date out, walked thru downtown, took some pictures of Lake Michigan, and back to Matt and Annette's. More napping on my chest.......MORE HEAVEN!!!

Sunday I had to head back to Chicago for my flight back to Anchorage. The weather was gorgeous!

Here are some pictures of the visit.


Comiskey Park in Chicago.

The light house on Lake Michigan near Silver Beach in down town St Joseph

Tristan was a bat for Halloween!

Mommies Boy!!!

Matt being a good Dad!

Mark is now a Cadet Staff Sgt

Here are a few photos of Mark with his new rank.

S Sgt Curtis

A few weeks ago the JROTC posted serveral staff positions available. Mark looked them over and decided that he was only going to apply for one of them. NCO Flag Detail. After a few agonizing weeks of waiting, the results were shared with the cadets. Mark has JROTC during the last period of the day, his friend Rivera, has it 1st period. Since the Chief only announced the positions for those in each class, Rivera did not hear Mark'a name, so he assumed that Mark did not get the NCO spot. Of course, Rivera shared this info with Mark. Mark was bummed for the rest of the day. Then comes time to go to JROTC.......He finds out during class that he DID get the NCO Flag Detail spot!!! He was so excited!! He is now SSGT Curtis! Way to go Mark!

Ian Matthew Curtis

On Wednesday, Sept 23, Annette and Matt's second son was born! He weighed in at 7lbs. 3oz. and is 20 inches long.

Beach Lake Trails XC Jamboree

Every year there is a cross country jamboree at a local park. The elementary schools invite their students to participate. Emily wanted to enter this year, so we filled out the paperwork, etc.....K-3 kids ran .7 miles, while the 4-6 kids ran 1.2 miles. According to Emily, the path/trail is hilly and because it had been raining the day before, lots of puddles and mud. The race was done by gender and grade. So the girls, grades 4-6, raced last. Emily was at the back of the large group of girls at the beginning of the race, but was able to make up lots of ground and finished in the middle of the crowd.

And the race begins!!!!

The home stretch......

A medal winner!!!

It was a very cold day, temps in the low 40's at race time. I am impressed that Emily wanted to participate and finished the race! GO EMILY!!!!!

Stuff!

A lot has been going on over the last month......School has started, the Alaska cruise season has ended, the leaves have changed colors, and snow is falling in the mountains and getting closer to our house.

George has been very busy with both Alaska Airlines, and driving motorcoaches for Holland America/Princess. It willb e nice to slow down for a little while and regroup!

Mark is back into the swing of things at school. He is hoping to become the NCO Flag Detail in ROTC. A couple of weeks ago we went to an SLS Banquet. Awards and ribbons were handed out to those that participated and earned other awards. Mark recieved 2 ribbons. It was impressive to watch the precision that each of the cadets showed as they were called forward to recieve their award or ribbon.

Jeff is working hard on getting his grades where they need to be. He likes being in 8th grade! Much better than 7th!

Emily is very busy. She has joined a running club that goes thru the end of Sept, she will be participating in a cross-country run sponsered by her school, she got her ears pierced.

I am glad that the cruise season is over! I will probably miss it in about a month, but right now, the break is good! I really enjoy driving those motorcoaches around! Not at all like driving a school bus.

We are looking forward Matt and Annette's new baby to arrive on Wednesday. I am sure Annette is ready for her back to stop hurting! His name will be Ian ___?___ Curtis. They are waiting until they see him to come up with a middle name. I can hardly wait to see him. I will be making a trip to their home in Michigan at the end of October. Love being the Grandma!

School

School started on Wednesday of this week. Emily could hardly contain herself, she was so excited for school.....Jeff will never admit it, but I personally think he was also excited for school....Mark is happy to be back at school because that means JROTC. The other is just stuff you have to put up with to get to do JROTC!! Now, me on the other hand, I was ready for the kids to go back to school, but I was not ready to start driving school bus again! My summer has gone by way to fast. I did not even come close to doing all the things I wanted and needed to get done. Oh well, maybe with my mornings free, I can get some of those things done!

Matt, Annette and Tristan

Annette's Mom, Grandfather, Aunt, and Uncle came to Alaska at the begining of August. Lori (Annette's mom) very thoughtfully took pictures of Matt, Annette, and Tristan and then brought copies of them to us! Below are a few of those pictures. Tristan is growing into a very cute little boy! Annette is looking very good! Their 2nd child is due at the end of Sept.

Mark is now 16

Yesterday was Mark's 16th birthday. I have mixed emotions about it! I don't like my kids to grow up, I want them stay little.......but on the other hand, Mark is becoming a very nice young man. Someone fun to hang out with. The dilema of parenthood.....

Yesterday we also activated school registrations for Jeff and Emily. Jeff is in 8th grade, and is only a few months away from being old enough to get his learners permit. That is a major reality check! Emily is going to be in 5th grade. WOW!

Mark's school registration was this morning. 10th grade. Eagle River HS does yearbooks in an interesting way. They don't hand the yearbooks at the end of the school year, but do give out autograph pages. Then at the beginning of the school year hand out the yearbook for the previous school year. This way the book has ALL of the school year activities, including graduation, in it. Kinda interesting!

Halibut Fishing Trip - Homer, AK

Jeff, Emily and I had a great fishing trip in Homer! We fished with Grandma and Grandpa and came home with 4 nice ones. Jeff had the biggest - 40lbs, Emily's fish was around 30lbs and I caught 2 that were around 15lbs each. Lot's of meat for the freezer!

Patience pays off

Ok, so I bought this Plumeria start in Hawaii 3 years ago. It was a very ugly, stick looking thing that stuck out of the soil in the pot that I had planted it in. It didn't have any leaves, and sometimes had this clear liguid oozing out of it. But I stuck with it......after about 6 months it got a few leaves, then within a couple of monthes, the leaves would fall off. I was getting discouraged. Then, about 2 years ago, the leaves were not falling off, they kept growing and getting bigger. Wahoo!

This past June I noticed this growth in the middle of the stalk. It looked like broccolli was growing! So, I did some checking online and found out that those would soon be flowers!!!!!!!! Boy was I excited.

So here are a couple of pictures of the flowers, taken this morning. I will be enjoying my Hawaii flowers for some time to come, there are lots of buds still growing!

Mark at SLS

Day 1
Starting on the bus was very relaxed. I knew little of what was in store for me. The group commander (C/ Lt. Col. Bruza) is riding on the same bus as us (1st Squadron). We stopped at gas station just before we left Palmer, AK. It was our last bit of civilization. The next stop was at a glacier overlook about 15 min before we got to the camp. When we got to the overlook, Sgt.Bowmen (one of the instructors a.k.a. Codrea) was waiting for with his "shadow". They are both in the Air Force.
Nearing the camp my heart started to race. We stopped and we were told to get off. we fell in to formation and walked into the camp. We where told when addressing a codrea member to start with a reporting statement. For me I would say "Sir/Mam Cadet Curtis report". We were told hydrate A LOT! We then went to tent city to set up tents. I had fire watch at 3am-4am.


Day 2
Fire watch was cold. then getting up at 6am to do an hour of PT was brutal. so many cadets thought there was no PT at all. I could tell they were lying. Later on in the day Air Force medics came to the camp to show us some stuff. then we headed off to the top of Alaskcom hill to eat MRE's for lunch. When we got back we had 10 cadets or so go with the medics fo set up a helicopter crash site drill. After the drill we had a team building exercise. we had to run up the road, get a log and carry it back. There were 3 logs and a set of 5 small logs that needed to be carried back. each flight would carry 1 log back except one flight would carry 5 logs back. 1st squadron worked together to end up beating the other 2 flights. C and D flight had to serve us dinner that night. I had KP (kitchen prep) that night. I was told that I had it then told I don't have it and this kept repeating alot. And another fire watch on top of that.

Day 3
This day started much like yesterday. PT followed by an outstanding breakfast made by Mrs.P and her staff. then broke into 3 groups. Group 1 went off to shooting pellet rifles, Group 2 went to do archery and group 3 went to repel off a cliff. I was in group 3. Rappelling was a little nerve racking standing at the edge of the cliff but actually doing it was very easy. Then the Black Hawks came. It was insane! There was 1 Black Hawk and 1 K-Pox (a variation of a Black Hawk). I was unable to get any pics inside because my battery died on my camera. After the rides we relaxed a while and then went back to our groups. I went off to shoot pellet rifles then archery. we were taught by 2 national guard soldiers on how to make an MRE improvised explosive. I got mild hypothermia that night to. we also had a midnight fun run to.

Day 4 This day was like any other in the morning. then we broke off into out SPIKE NIGHT camps. there were 3 camps. Fish camp which was only 2 miles out of the main camp. Scenic overlook which was on the side of Alaskcom hill. And RAMBO camp which was the hardest camp and the farthest camp. They went up the side of Gunsight Mt. we made a single person shelter when we got to fish camp and then started a fire and had our MRE's to eat.


Day 5
We left our camp and went back to the main camp to start breaking it down in prep to leave. That night we had a flag burning ceremony. We learned the proper way to dispose of flags in a dignified manner. I burned 3 American flags and 1 Marine flag. Later we started "hell night" I stayed up only till 1am.
Day 6
We got up and did the PT test which was easy. ever one completed the test and got the PT ribbon. We then had breakfast and broke down the rest of camp and then left. we got to the Eagle River camp grounds at around 2pm and then went rafting down it. That took and hour for each group to do. rafting was more fun than I thought it would be. then I finally went home!!!