Summertime

Summertime and the living is easy . . . . . Simon, one of the most easy going cats you'll ever meet, was more than willing to act as pillow for Pat.


John & Lindsey arrived in town a few days before Memorial weekend. Lindsey had a presentation to give in Chicago over Memorial weekend itself so they headed out Thursday and returned the following Monday. Then we could get to the fun of baseball games and pond swimming. Below are shots of Noah (in red) and Seth (in black).

Lindsey taking a shot as Noah rounds home plate.
John, Lindsey & Audrey catching up.
Pat (in yellow), Jeff (in gray) and John watching Seth at bat. Lawson has a wonderful ball park and both boys were playing at almost the same time at back to back diamonds.
Jessie (Audrey's friend), Audrey & Lindsey watching Noah.
Lindsey 'takes' her hello hug from Seth!
Nice swing Noah!!
Seth stretching in outfield.
Great smile!!
Seth warming up before going to bat.
Seth, Noah & Lindsey chillin' by the dugout
Jeff & Pat watching
Lindsey & John
Dexter finds he can see farther by jumping up onto the arbor benches.
Pat, John & Lindsey used old pool decking and built a dock onto our pond. One beautiful summer evening we took our three dogs along with John & Lindsey's black lab, Amadeus, for a swim.
Amadeus waiting for Packer to bring the stick to him
Lindsey & Pat 'testing' the dock
Come on boys - I'll take it from here . . . . .
Teamwork!
Notice Chief, our irish setter, is no where to be seen - he doesn't care for water.
Who wants to go first??
The pond at evening.
On Friday we took a drive to St. Louis for a day trip and took John & Lindsey to the arch. It was John's first time seeing it.
Pat & myself
I'm sure this shot has been taken numerous times but it is still spectacular!

St. Louis has a development called New Town. If you've seen 'The Truman Show' it will remind you of the town. It is a fascinating idea with all types of different house styles & sizes. The yards are small but there are corner stores, a small 'downtown' area with restaurants and lots of public recreation areas. Each house has a large front porch with the idea of neighbors chatting and people walking in the evening. I love my country home but I also love the creativity involved in this. Lee's Summit has a similar development. Here is a shot of the canal and the bridge crossing it.
We toured a few of the houses - some are quite large and there is a lot of variety.
I've got a few videos to upload - I'll post those next!

A Great Saturday!

For once we had good weather for a fly-in!! Light breeze and not a cloud in the sky. Atchison's Amelia Earhart airport had their annual fly-in and we went with our Pilot's For Christ group. Joy, Katie and Caleb were able to join us which added a lot to the fun.

The crowd was bit light. A lot of our smaller airports are struggling to survive - so if your local airport has a day where folks go to the trouble of cleaning, fueling and flying their planes and/or cars in - take an afternoon and join them. They love to talk about their planes and you can usually find a vet or two with quite a story to tell.

Rolled the super clean Stinson out about 8 a.m.

The floods we've had have wiped out initial crops. Hopefully the farmers will have time recover and replant. All the fields in this picture were under water for some time.

Here is our little base at the fly-in. I hadn't noticed the drooping sign on the table. The Dr. Pepper tent came in very handy in the sun.

Typical fly-in scene

You see all kinds of aircraft from all kinds of time frames.

and usually there are some pretty neat cars to look at too!

Fluids are always important even if they are easily half your body weight.

Sometimes it is hard to stay awake - what with it being your nap time, the droning airplanes, the soft breeze and Mom's arms.

Lots of questions for Papa - I love the 'little girl' stance.

Membership has its privileges and when you are a grandchild of Papa O'Donnell's that means getting to actually sit in the super cool airplanes.

One of the best times of the day was when Katie Beth managed to get a ride from Atchison, KS to Cameron, MO. Joy was nice enough to meet us in Cameron so Katie could take a ride in Papa's plane. Katie B was one happy little girl even if we had to pad the headset.

Papa banking on take-off didn't faze her.

She spent the first half of the trip watching out her window. It was a little bumpy so she had to hold onto her headset and stabilize herself with her nose.

Pretty soon she started singing - Twinkle, twinkle litte star, of course. I couldn't help but join in.

We were having a great time!!

Papa was even having a great time and invited Katie to join us up front and to fly the plane.

She did a great job. We got such a kick out of her putting her hand out the open window and giggling when the wind hit it. Once she was shown how to turn the plane, pull back to go up and push forward to go down she was a pro. She had a ball and none of the movements seemed to bother her. Her headset was in the way so that had to go. She kept looking at Papa and grinning every time she tried something. We may have an aerobatic pilot on our hands!!

After arriving home, helping the neighbors round up some stray cattle and unloading the car Pat took the hot dogs up to the pond for a quick cooling swim. They came back some pretty happy dogs and when you are surrounded by happy dogs not much can spoil your day. Hope you have a great weekend and remember to thank a vet!

Noah's Crossing Over Ceremony

A few weeks ago Noah had his crossing over ceremony in scouts. The wind was so bad I didn't bother doing a video. The flags kept falling over and here Noah is getting down from the stage after he and Seth stood them up for the second or third time. Bonnie was in town and was able to come to the ceremony. Missouri treated her better than L.A. where it rained every day she visited!!

Dad & Seth are comfy under the shade trees.

Noah was easy to pick out in his red vest. He has worked so hard for all of his badges, patches and beads. He knows what each one is for!


Seth was on hand to help Mom help the scout leader.

Noah made it off the bridge's rather high step with his Elvis collar up to receive his new scarf.

A proud group of scouts ready to tackle the challenges of the next level - at least until they got off the stage and turned into your standard group of six and seven year olds.
Congratulations Noah - job well done!!

Seth & Noah's programs

A few weeks ago Noah and Seth had their school programs - Noah's was on Monday and Seth's was on Tuesday. Both the boys did great and it was so much fun to watch the programs. We'll start with Noah's:

The program was a tribute to a gentleman who wrote a LOT of songs for kids.

Noah did a great job of getting all the movements that went with the songs

This is a cute video of kids having a good time

Look along the back row - see the kid looking over his shoulder and the panel out of line?? Moments before there was an additional young man on that row until he took a step back and we all heard the thud! You will also notice the tremendous compassion of his classmates! Fortunately he wasn't hurt and scrambled back up to sing like a canary.

This is the last song and you tell the relief among the kids. They were pretty proud of themselves and rightly so!

We were in the front row so Audrey and her friend, Kelsey, got to sit on the floor in front of us.

Tuesday night was Seth's program and it was based on the westward movement.

The hat and boots Seth got for his trip to Texas worked out great for his performance.
There were a number of songs, most of which blocked Seth as you will see in the following video. But since they were building a fire I could get this shot.

Seth had plenty of hand movements to memorize too!

Here is a short video of the performance - the kids all did a great job. There were some great voices in the group.

Here is Seth with his friend, Seth Arbuckle.