A Grand Day at a Grand Dam

Since we are not taking any big trips this summer, such as Cali or Utah, Ben and I decided to take the kids on mini trips around the area. Our first stop was the mighty Grand Coulee Dam. The biggest in North America and it is right in our back yard! So my friend, Monica, and her four kiddos who are visiting from Texas came along for the adventure.

 We loaded up on the tour bus. Things have changed since I went as a kid with my family and Grandpa Ralph and Grandma Anna. No purses, bags, only a camera and wallet allowed. You go through metal detectors and there are armed guards everywhere!!

 We got out of the bus twice. Once to see the one of the turbine rooms. HUGE!! Then once on top of the dam. Our bus had to wait for an armed escort before we could go on top of the dam and get out.

 The view was amazing. Ike said, "Best water slide ever!!"

 This is how tiny we are compared to the top of the dam.

 After the tour we went to a beach just down the road. It was a fantastic beach!! Crystal clear waters, went in slow, but not too slow. Floating platform for the kids to climb up and dive off.

 Maria!

 Anna headed back to the water. She loves being in the water, much easier to get around and good exercise for her leg.

 The platform. Even Maria swam out and was diving out with the big boys.

 After swimming for about 4 1/2 hours of swimming, yes they had that much fun, we went back to the dam for some dinner and to wait for the laser light show. We only had about an hour to wait because they played so long at the beach.

 And as usual, with most of my posts, I leave you with an un-explainable picture. Have fun!

Continuing Anna

Last Monday Anna went in for her last surgery. It took all of a 15 minutes. The Dr took out four pins. This is her before surgery. She is not nervous at all.

 After the surgery. She does great. She does not get sick at all. When Ben and I went back to recovery she was somewhat awake and in a fairly pleasant mood. She loved getting a bag of goldfish crackers all to herself and some tasty apple juice. By the time she was done with her snack she was ready to head home. She went for surgery at 7:30 am and was home by 9 am.

 Her cute little foot. Nice to see it again. Latter on that afternoon she took a shower, sitting on the shower floor. She says it felt good to play in water again.

 My sister Linda, just happen to have a child size walker from when her daughter broke her leg. Anna has been practicing walking with this. Thank you so much Lou for letting us borrow it. Anna is not thrilled with learning to walk again. Having her leg in a cast for over 2 months has left the muscles and tendons are very stiff.

Daniel performed the surgery for us. We figured two weeks of medical school was enough for a simple procedure

As for this character.....
.

He is trying out for a part in the remake of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I will let you guess which one he is.

Anna

Anna loves to take pictures. I never know what will be waiting for me when I get my camera back. These are just a few of the hundreds I have. This first one cracks me up.

Daniel's take on his trip

Daniel had a dorm room he shared with one other boy. They did not see much of each other though. They were in different groups and the left the room at 7 am and did not get back until 10:30 or later each night.

 He also took a picture of his desk.....

 The view outside his window.....

 Their bathroom. I am pretty sure it was not this clean by the end of the course.

 The closet.....

 Their tv. Yes, the room came with a tv.

 On Saturday they had a free afternoon. Uncle Ricky snatched Daniel up and they went and visited Grandma Anna. They had Subway sandwiches and played three games of Rummicub. Grandma Anna kindly let Daniel win three times in a row. She is so competitive, I am sure this was driving her nuts. That is love.

 They they went across the street to a baby christening. There was a mariachi band there. Ricky and Grandma Anna thought it would be a blast to have Daniel have a picture with them, but then they thought, "Hey!! Lets have him pretend to be playing the violin as well!!" Well the nice girl playing the violin was not quite as thrilled at this idea, but did want to pass up a chance to make a fun of a gringo. In the picture below you can see her talking to Daniel she is saying, " You better not drop that violin!"

 I think this could be considered cultural enrichment.

 On Sunday the whole NYLF group went to Universal Studios!! Where with enough money you can buy your dreams.

 This picture is dedicated to Aunt Katie. She is a huge Scooby Doo fan so Daniel was excited to get a picture with the Mystery Machine. It does smell of dog and weed, just as well always suspected.

 Just like at the start of many of his favorite movies.

 This is Marco........................................................polo. Okay, his last name is not polo but I just cannot say Marco without Polo. Apparently he spent a lot of the program on the floor.

 Daniel playing with the camera

 He took some great pictures from the plane. Mt. Olympia

 The plateaus of the middle of Washington.

I edited out a lot of the pictures because they were blurry, black, and of people he did not even know. He did take a lot of pictures of skyscrapers because they were just so huge. You see in Spokane our skyscrapers area  whopping 14 floors high. Woo Whoo!!
He made some good friends there and is keeping in contact with a few of them. There were kids from all over the world there. He was the only one from Washington that he knows of. Wow!

Daniel's Travels

Daniel was invited to attend a National Youth Leadership Convention on Medicine at UCLA. Since 1999 there have only been 6 students from Ferris High School that have been invited to go. We were all pretty excited. Then he got a scholarship for the program to boot! He had to fly down there with a flight change (I was extremely nervous) but he did great. Uncle Ricky picked him up at the airport and got him settled in to his dorm room. Daniel took copious pictures of the dorm room. I will share those with the other photos he got on his camera. These pictures are ones that they sent me every day showing me what my "scholar" was doing that day.

This is Daniel's class. There were 220 students and they were broken up into groups of roughly twenty students each.

They had a talent night. Each group put on a show. His group did a skit to the song, "The Creep".  If you care to watch the actual video you can find it on youtube.

The last night they had a formal Gala event.

One of the many activities was the dissection of a pigs heart. They also got to go to USC hospital. Visited the morgue and did the round in the pediatric burn unit.

Here is some more of the kids. Daniel is second from the right n a grey dress shirt. Dress there was business formal to business casual.

I am not sure what is going on in this picture.

Here is more from their skit to The Creep. This kid is demonstration The Creep.

Here is another batch of kids from the Formal Gala.He came home safe and sound. We were very relieved to see him walk back down the arrivals walkway. He looked tired and a wee bit tan. He made a few good friends had a great time and really wants to go do this again. I told him to start saving. :)

Fourth of July, 2012

Fourth of July started out normal enough for us.....

 Maria found a kitten.

 Ike caught several fish and even was able to keep a few to eat.

 Then things started to go awry. No, it was not the fact that Daniel is grilling. He does that a lot and does it rather well. It was what he was grilling. Let's just say my mom is no longer allowed to choose the meat served at these shin digs. We had turkey burgers. Now I know that the turkey was orginally slated to be our national bird, but it is not. Do you wanna know why? Because it tastes fowl. HA HA HA. Did ya see that? I made a funny. But back to more serious matters now. How in the world did we end up eating turkey burgers for fourth of july? This question has still remained un-answered.

 Look at the look of disappointment on this precious little girls face.

 Ike was hoping his turkey burger would taste a bit better with some lead in it.

 Jakey just wanted to shoot something.

 For the holiday I took a hair do tip from my good friend, Jamie Christensen, and did the girls hair up like a star with red, white, and blue hair bands.

 Luckily blowing things up made us all feel much better. The boys staged some tank battle for the girlies to watch.

 Daniel and Ike were in charge of the show. Oh yes, they look so pleased. The look on Ike's face says it all.

 This left grandpa having to guard his home with the only thing he had within an arms reach, a butterfly net. But it was a very sturdy butterfly net and we all felt much safer.

Uh......ya. I will let you come up with a story for this last picture. Please feel free to share it in the comment area.