Helen discovering

Helen's first look at her crib mobile
Sleeping like an angel on her play mat
Her first real encounter with our cat Tigger
Too much celebrating!! Our Angels just won the AL West Title and I'm pooped out from all the celebrating. Go Angels. Win the series just like you did when my brother was born 6 years ago.
My shoes are so pretty, they make me feel like dancing.

Holcomb Valley Rendezvous

Miles ready for battle inside the fort

Is he a friendly Indian or is Joe about to be scalped?
Tom stands guard over the camp
Miles and Tom on guard duty
Fellow colonial playing the dulcimer
The Randall and Glauser families
Our camp
Helen sits on Grammy PJ's lap for her first ladies tea
I need to be rocked Abigail
Sara and Laurel at ladies tea
What a beautiful lady
See Nana this sweater looks great on me
Catching a snooze with Uncle Joe
Relaxing with Daddy under the pines
Friend McKenzie just loves Helen
Miles petting the donkeys

This past Labor Day weekend, we left our current lives and traveled back in time to live as the colonials did over 200 years ago. Nestled in the beautiful pine trees near Big Bear we embarked on Helen's first rendezvous at Holcomb Valley. The weather was beautiful, the company great, and a good time was had by all. Helen has now been officially baptised into our re-enactment world, and boy she did it with a lot of style too.

Don't say Magma...

In the hills north of Fillmore, there resides a dragon. Sleeping underground, he puffs his smoke as he slumbers. Soon he will awaken and ravage the world...



Okay, well not really. In my sector is an ancient landslide area. Out of fissures in the ground emit toxic gasses and high heat. Worried people wanted to make sure it wouldn't cause a fire, so we have investigated several times.


Yesterday we escorted USFS and USGS geologists back up to the site. They wanted to gather more detailed temperature readings and capture some of the smoke to determine just exactly was occurring underground. We had a nice breeze that kept the toxic smoke at bay. For the first time the scientists could actually approach the vents, instead of having to tell us what to do. We protected them and monitored the area while they did their measurements.


Here one of the geologists is capturing the smoke out of a vent. The temperature in that vent 12 inches deep was 977 degrees F! Hence our worry about burning the grass. One of my guys cooked his feet a bit inside his fire boots!


My new firefighters on my crew. The copter came out to take some aerial picture of the steep hill we were on. Despite the oddity and weirdness of the job, they are still happy. I have the best crew! Waaay down the hill in the right corner of the screen behind that hill is our house and the town of Fillmore.

Milestones in Life

No pun intended. Today, August 27th, 2008 was a milestone in a couple lives. And trying for the others.

Today was Miles' first day of Kindergarten. YUP, real 5-day a week school. He is attending St. Sebastian School in Santa Paula, in a combined K & 1st grade class. Here he is in his classroom just after finding his own seat. A bit nervous...


But he was helped by his name on the door. (His teacher has an un-pronounceable last name, hence the "Mrs R". She's not CIA).
Daddy tried to forestall problems by escorting Miles in, but Mommy found a parking spot and came to watch:
Yes, those are real tears as her (older) baby goes off to school.

Now, it didn't help that today was Sara's 35th birthday. This marks 50% of her life that she has been with Tom. Probably the real reason for the tears. But anyway, we went to a local coffee shop. Grandma Janet was there (the one not in the picture, sorry Janet) and a couple friends. They commiserated and then sang Happy Birthday to Sara.
Janet brought her new puppy over to visit with Helen. The puppy has bitten everything in the entire world, including wrought iron furniture, but did not nip Helen. Smart dog, wants to live...

But too bad for Helen, she still got a bath, which she was NOT happy about.
So, that was our day, how was yours?

New Team 7 Member

The newest and cutest member of Daddy's command team.

Cute Pics of Helen and Miles

Helen's first feel of the sand
I just love the bubble drool
Pretty girl in the dress Grammy PJ gave me
I like sitting so high on daddy's shoulders

Cuddles with my big brother

Achtung!

Young Leutnant Miles was on his first U-boot patrol off Gibraltar when he spotted the plum of plums. Quickly he communicated his find to Captain Daddy:



Why, it was none the less than the HMS Illustrious, a very prestigious Aircraft Carrier. Obviously the Brits thought highly of her, as she was escorted by 2 battleships and about a dozen destroyers. Seems she had only joined the fleet in the Med 4 months ago. Now, Admiral Donitz had strict orders for all U-boots to run and hide from strong enemy forces, but was known to turn a blind eye (and open the cognac) when a particularly good ship was sunk.

Well, cunning Capitan Daddy ordered complete silence in the boat and the attack commenced. Apparently, the Brits were asleep at the wheel, as the u-boot slipped by only 30 feet under the lead destroyer's keel. This set up the perfect shot on the carrier.

Knowing he would only have one shot before the swarm of destroyers raced in with vengeance in their hearts, Capitan Glauser determined to fire all 4 forward torpedoes at this juicy target. Although never mentioned in official documents, there had been some "problems" with these low-bid torpedoes.

Being a Kind and Generous Capitan (and tired of 5-year old pestering), he decided to let young Miles take the shot. From only 800 meters away, Miles pressed the "salvo" button:

Direct hit! 3 of 4 torpedoes slam into the side of the Britisher's newest and greatest carrier. Horrendously crippled, within the hour she sinks to her watery grave.

Her escorting destroyers, embarrassed beyond belief to be caught with their pants down, ruthlessly* pounded the last known location of the impertinent submarine. But did our heros survive?

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Of course. Leutnant Miles is now an 'old salt' as the U-boot sails off into the sunset.




*In a little-known fact of history, during WW2 no-one named Ruth was allowed to serve in any combat unit, being it land, sea, or air.

Helen's New Tricks

Ta Dah!!! Look at me and how strong I am.
And for my newest trick, I love to stick out my tongue


Just hanging out with my dolly. Twins in pink.

Miles' New Shoes

The other day, Miles decided he wanted to be taller, so he invented his own platform shoes from some packing material. Pretty clever.

Meeting the San Diego Cousins

Aunt Christine and Helen
Cousin Logan
Cousin Zoe I need a nap ho hum
Logan, Zoe, and Miles vie for the guacamole and the Trouble championship title.
Uncle Guy and Helen
Last weekend the San Diego Cousins came up for a short but great visit. The kids all had fun playing in Uncle David and Aunt Jean's fountain and hot tub. Of course, everyone couldn't wait to hold Helen.
Stay tuned for more posts late this weekend.