RAGNAR....complete!

...189 miles and 30 hours later, Team Slow n' Steady completed the Ragnar Relay Northwest Passage.

http://www.ragnarrelay.com/northwestpassage/index.php

With an average pace of 9:31...we weren't last!

Nikki's Mom being her best cheerleader, as always!

RAGNAR RELAY this FRIDAY AND SATURDAY

Ragnar was a 9th century Norse King. He was a pirate, a raider, a conqueror, an explorer, and a wild man.

It is in his spirit that 152 Teams will complete the Ragnar Relay Northwest Passage this Friday and Saturday, July 25th and 26th. Blaine to Langley...8:00am Friday to 3:00pm Saturday.

12 people, 2 min-vans, 30 hours and 187 miles.

Come cheer us on! We'll be running through Oak Harbor between 6am and 8am on Saturday morning. Nikki will be leaving Crescent Harbor Elementary for her last leg around 6:20am, and arriving at North Whidbey Middle School around 7:00am.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July from Whidbey Island!

We enjoyed the Keeva's tidelands and gorgeous beach home in Freeland during the day....

And AMAZED Maya with her first fireworks show that night.

Here's Your Happy News of the Week: Italy's Skeletons Come to VAQ-140

Everyone remember this?

NY Times Headline, February 4th, 1998:

20 Die in Italy As U.S. Jet Cuts A Ski Lift Cable

See the article here:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A00E4D8163DF937A35751C0A96E958260

The very same jet that cut a gondola cable in Cavalese, Italy, sending 20 people to their messy deaths, is now assigned to VAQ-140. Our sincere hope is that Michael is not part of any further incidents with the cursed Prowler. Wish him luck.

You can see the entire series of stories, including the court martial of the pilot and his navigator; as well as the relieving of their Commanding Officer when he ordered evidence of the incident destroyed, here:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/skiing/index.html?offset=0&s=newest&query=CAVALESE+%28ITALY%29&field=geo&match=exact

All that the Navy has to offer in May of 2008...

The Officers' Spouses Club held a fundraiser: "A Night at the Movies"

VAQ-140 went as "Average Joes" from the movie Dodgeball....and auctioned off a SuperBowl party to raise money:

The Navy sent one of the guys in Michael's squadron to Thailand for a month, and we offered to watch his dog, Tex, a four-year-old boxer. Tex is the dream-dog that we hope Maya will someday turn out to be: loving, polite, gentle and very nice. Tex even puts up with Maya:

Michael is currently in Las Vegas, helping the Air Force with something. All we know is what can be deduced from the bank statments we get at home: ESPN Zone anyone?

Dining Out with a bunch of people who don't know how to make it hurt:

VAQ-140 Held a Dining Out (History is here: http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq89-1.htm ) which was our first squadron activity. After many stories about shenanigans of past-Dinings-Out, our expectations were high: A rule-book that included not leaving the room (even to pee) without permission from the Commanding Officer and no blow-up dolls allowed in the dining room (but the cocktail room is ok) left us terrified of re-living the tortures of being a freshman in band. Michael is after all the new guy.

But, we were sadly mistaken. The most exciting part of the evening was a guy without his shirt parading the beef before dinner.....WEAK.

After only a few trips to the grog (the toilet bowl filled with all-kee-hol) we decided that the only people getting us drunk were....well, each other.

Hats off to the one wife, who shall remain nameless, who was drunk when she got there....but otherwise...a few suggestions:

• If everyone is awake, still clothed, and not destroying something...nobody is drunk enough.
• Making fun of someone for being in band isn't creative. Do you really think we've never been made fun of for being in band before? Repeat after me..."This one time, at band camp...."
• Shots of whiskey hurt going down...but its Tequila that really makes the difference

Michael Graduates VAQ-129

Michael finished his final events at training squadron VAQ-129. He received his orders to report to the VAQ-140 Patriots in the next few days. (They don't have a website, sorry.) Soon after, Michael's helmet will be painted and taped in the style of Evel Knievel.

VAQ-140 is part of Carrier Air Wing Seven, which is based out of NAS Oceana, Virginia. (VAQ-140 is stationed in Whidbey Island, so we will not be moving anywhere.) Carrier Air Wing Seven is based on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower: http://www.eisenhower.navy.mil/

Right now, VAQ-140 is tentatively scheduled to deploy in early 2009. Michael will be in and around Oceana during the summer and fall of 2008 for work-ups.

USS Dwight D. Eisenhower

Happy Birthday to Michael!!!

Today, March 4th 2008, is the first time that Michael DIDN'T figure out what he was getting for his birthday before he actually got his gift.....

Michael received "Quarter" of Beef, (That's 1/4 of a cow, about 125lbs of meat.) The beef came from Three Sisters Cattle Co. here on Whidbey Island:

http://www.3sistersbeef.com/

Three Sisters is an AWESOME place, they have grass fed & hormone free beef, free range eggs, and lots of other fun stuff.

The oldest sister assured us it would fit in the freezer...as long as we didn't have anything else in there.

Michael opening his gift. (He originally thought he was getting a Keg-O-Rater since Nikki told him his gift was in the kitchen.)

Nikki's first creation with the new beef: Rib-eye steak with blu cheese, arugula and thyme.

(Eat me, Bobby Flay!)

Michael enjoying his birthday dinner

Cracked-out icing cupcake with Green & Yellow candles to celebrate (or in Michael's case mourn) the retirement of Brett Favre

Henry helping Michael re-arrange the beef:

Maya got some love too...$2 "dog bones" from Three Sisters:

Gimme gimme....

Yummmmmy!

...nothing...

We haven't done anything really exciting since Christmas. Sorry. Check back later.

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We started off our festivities by spending the weekend in downtown Seattle. We stayed at the Westin, enjoying their "Heavenly" beds, excellent views, and close proximity to Pacific Place and the Pike Place Market. We received a$100 gift card to Pacific Place with our room...which of course was an excuse to do lots of shopping.

We need a bed like this at home...

The Seattle Space Needle from our room.

Our Christmas tradition (2 whole years now) is to eat ourselves silly at the Melting Pot. Last year we ate at the one in Pensacola, and this year, the one on Mercer Street in Seattle. Every course is fondue; and it's excellent: http://www.meltingpot.com/ They have restaurants in most big cities.

Seattle Center was decorated beautifully, including an old-fashioned Christmas Village:

On Christmas Eve we decided that we really needed to find some snow! We drove 2 1/2 hours Northeast to Mt.Baker with some of our friends to go skiing. We found plenty of snow...

The winding road up the mountain

Michael taking a break:

Next year's Christmas picture, I'm sure...

Jen and Kerry (Jen's on the snowboard.)

Our first Christmas in the new house... Stockings belonging to the four-legged furries of the house all stuffed by Santa and ready for the destroying.

We didn't have too many Christmas ornaments, so we just started sticking eveyone's Christmas cards in the tree. It worked out really well, especially since a lot of people sent pictures...our tree was full of our friends and family. (Note to Christmas letter writers...this doesn't work so well with letters...please send pictures next year.)

Maya waiting patiently to see what Santa brought:

Mmmmmmmm....yummy! A huge doggie bone!

Maya will be enjoying this for a while....(she didn't pay much attention to her new collar and doggie shampoo)



The kitties got play cubes...

...and LOTS of catnip toys.

Henry enjoying his cube:

Our friend Terica hand-made excellent Christmas stockings for us. The best part about this was the gifts her and husband Brett gave us WITH the stockings. Brett makes some EXCELLENT smoked salmon, and they gave us season passes to thier tour boat, Deception Pass Tours: www.deceptionpasstours.com (Please note, if you visit anytime this year, you'll most likely be going on the boat with us!)

After the kitties had their fill of catnip, they decided that taking a Christmas nap by the fireplace was in order:

The carnage of too much wrapping paper:

The rest of Christmas will of course include Renee's Papita, some slow roasted prime rib and a movie or two.

Merry Christmas to everyone! We miss you all and look forward to visiting and hosting you over the coming year.

Maya and her bad day...

Maya isn't feeling so well. She's sad, hungry and in a lot of pain from being spayed yesterday. Her mom and dad, however, have no sympathy. She's frickin' hilarious in the stupid collar-thingy.

Thanksgiving...Minnesota Style

We spent Thanksgiving in Minnesota with Nikki's family. We got to shoot some guns, and see an Ice-house parade (yes, you can only do that in Minnesota.)

Nikki shooting some sort of gun.

These little girls were dressed as different kinds of fish for the Aitkin Ice House Parade. (For those of who don't know what an Ice-House is, they're the little shack like things people set up on the ice to keep warm as they fish during the winter.)

The Aitkin Fire Department Search and Rescue guys had a "Winter" hot-tub going. They sloshed water all over the street and ruined the candy-getting for all the kids around us.

Nikki really didn't know what this meant until her sister explained it to her. Obviously, we don't ice-fish.

How NOT to take a Christmas picture with your dog...

We tried....but Maya was having none of it.