One of the days we asked my Dad to go to the best bbq spot in Ames (that I forget the name and right now I’m too lazy to google ). Afterwards he suggested going to this butterfly spot.

We were able to take advantage of a lounge at the Detroit airport with one of my credit card rewards and that got us some nice breakfast, coffee, and a place to relax since we had some time before our flight.

Owen always does a great job with traveling, he knows what to expect and brings his travel must haves- headphones, Nintendo Switch, and an iPad loaded with shows.

We made it to California the night before Josh, my parents, and Jon & Miyuki so we ended up staying at The Grant Hotel (I had a free reward night so figured we should go somewhere nice). The hotel was nice and most importantly the bed was comfortable! The next morning we got breakfast at the hotel, grabbed a coffee for me at Blue Bottle and then went to meet up with everyone.

The first day, we went to a briefing where they explained what the recruits went through during bootcamp, shared some history, and talked about what they could or could not do during the next couple of days.

Afterwards, we were able to go down and see them marching, before they released them to see their family for the day. It was pretty sunny out, so here’s a pic where we are squinty or just not looking at the camera.

A couple more pictures from being there. The ceremony was very cool to see.

The morning of the ceremony, since the time zone change was in my favor, I woke up around 5AM and had text Josh I could take him whenever if he wanted to leave early. This ended up being a mistake, because I thought we would get there in plenty of time, but we ended up being stuck in traffic for about 3hours, because the base was searching every car that came through and created a hold up. When we got to the base, last minute I told him and Owen they should just get out and walk because they would probably beat me going through the car search, so they did and were able to arrive to their seats right as it began. I ended up being 45 minutes late, because a car in the lane I was getting searched in had brought a gun on the base, so they made all of the cars back up and go to another lane while they figured out what to do with him. This wasn’t a quick process. However, I made it before the end and was able to see him officially graduate. Later on I saw the guy that held everyone up, so my guess is he had a permit and just didn’t realize you can’t bring a gun on a base - not the brightest move.

It was cool to get to see my nephew graduate bootcamp, and to have my uncle there who saw me graduate from bootcamp 20 years ago.

It was also nice to have one on one time with Owen and get to have him experience this with me.

Levi was especially happy to have me home.

/pi

We also took a walk around my neighborhood since it was still warm out for this time of year.

Drove about an hour to Frankenmuth, where she had lunch with Rachel and Owen. Levi was sleeping hard when we arrived, so I just hung out with him so he could get his nap. He woke up right about the time they were done, so we walked to the toffee shop in town.

Went to church on Sunday morning. Then Rachel and my mom had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant. I took her to a veteran owned winery, which turned into an adventure since the location close by closed about 2 minutes before we got there. We ended up in Port Huron.

Finally Owen and I took her to the airport and ended up getting to walk her to the gate since Detroit allows a limited amount of non flyers to come in. It felt like the 90s, when my uncle would visit and we all got to go to the gate with him.

I would like to say we all had great sleep from Levi sleeping when he was supposed to, but there were a couple of all nighters. Ha.

We also stopped by our local antique shop, where you can look at stuff and the farm animals.

Put up our Christmas tree.

This morning I enjoyed coffee from my Donald Duck mug, read Genesis for my 2 year bible plan I recently started, and caught up on my RSS feeds. I recently rediscovered comics since I can add them to my reading feeds and enjoy catching up with Baby Blues & Calvin and Hobbes. Last night we decided to put up the Christmas tree (but wait to add the ornaments). We tried 3 spots before settling where it is.

I forgot to get a photo of them while they were white, but here’s as I was stripping the paint off:

After:

Wallpaper = It’s currently setup to rotate through pictures, this one landed on my dog.

BusyCal widget - I like that it shows me a 3 day view.

Notable apps:

Swarm, I mean who does check ins anymore ? Me. For now. Will probably delete in a month, but reminds me of when social media was fun.

Hipstamatic, for the same reason above about how it’s kind of like when social media was fun. Nobody follows me, so I’m not worried about making a perfect picture.

Arc Browser, this one took me a while to get. I first tried when I was doing college classes and for that I didn’t really enjoy it. Now that I’m done with that and most my internet stuff is for fun, I like the simplicity of it.

Controller, my house is setup for Apple HomeKit and this app makes it even better. I can do stuff the regular Home app can’t.

This week, Dave D. went over Luke

Luke 9:43-45 CSB

And they were all astonished at the greatness of God. While everyone was amazed at all the things he was doing, he told his disciples, [44] "Let these words sink in: The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men." [45] But they did not understand this statement; it was concealed from them so that they could not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.

Here’s some of his takeaways I liked enough to write down:

• Jesus is the only one who can make us right with God.

• You can’t find salvation in politics (president election is in two days, so some people need this reminder 😂)

• Suffering has the potential to remind us to keep our eyes on Jesus.

  (These ones had to do with the timing of God)

• Sometimes God is protecting us from knowing things that would overwhelm us.

• Sometimes you only gain clarity with time.

Another Halloween for the boys. This year they both started off being Stitch, but last minute decided he liked Owen’s old Buzz Lightyear costume. Armada definitely knows how to do trick or treating. When we first moved here and our neighbor told us to expect 600+ kids, I thought he was exaggerating. He was not. So many kids and so much candy to go around from everyone in town.

Owen filled his bag up in about twenty minutes after just going down our street. Levi was loving the inflatable shark costumes, thinking it was baby shark.

I love that this is my backyard right now. Especially this time of year before it’s completely dead, you can still see the colors and you get to peek into the woods and see the sunrise.

I still can’t believe they didn’t put the main bedroom on this side of the house though 🤔both boys get to wake up to an excellent view and we are looking into our neighbors driveway 😂

Update 10/29/2024

Had a BBQ chicken version for lunch. 👍👍

There were these ones from my 2008 deployment. My dad got to ride back on what they call a tiger cruise from Hawaii to Everett, Washington. I don’t remember too much about that time, because it was the end of a deployment and I was probably ready to be off the ship, but it would be great to go back to Hawaii with him sometime and NOT take a boat ride :)

Then in 2009, while he was visiting we went on a seaplane tour of the Seattle area.

I wish I had kept up with it. It would be nice to look back now and see what I was thinking and doing during my last year in the Navy or my first time going on a date with my wife. So, this is my attempt at starting something now. I might blog a lot (like too much, where it’s more like a one-way Twitter), or I might blog once a year. I don’t really know yet.

Currently, I’ve been married for almost five years, have two sons, a red toy poodle, and a cat. I’ve had the same job since 2010, first working out of an office in Iowa and now working remotely in Michigan.