Australian Exchange

Last week Jess passed his drivers test! He just needs to wait until his 16th birthday on the 26th before he can start driving. We are all ready...

The same day he passed his test, we also welcomed Ben to stay with us for a couple of weeks. He is an Australian exhange student that we are hosting. He only got to go to school for one day with Jess, the rest of the time he was sightseeing with the other Australians or sightseeing with us. We took him to the Seattle Waterfront, shopping, a rock club, and are going to a UW basketball game tonight. They have also had just a lot of time to hang out with Jess's friends and play video games. He is fitting right in with the Jess and his buddies.

737 celebration

I had a crazy day today. At work, we had a big party to celebrate going to a rate of 35 airplanes per month. I volunteered 2 of my teams to speak at the ceremony and share some our accomplishments. One of the team leaders got sick so I ended up having to be the speaker. We have 3 different shifts and 3 different celebrations so I ended up getting up at 2:30 am to be ready for the 3rd shift party at 4am. The 1st shift one was as 9am and the 2nd shift was at 5pm. Then I had to run the boy scouts parent meeting at 7pm. It was a long day.... I am tired but I am not sure why I am not in bed yet.

After the 1st shift celebration, they let the media talk to me and ask probing questions..... Speaking from a script was much easier. I talked to a few newspapers and channel 4 news.
Here are some links I found...some quoting me
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2017205845_boeing11.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-10/boeing-will-build-max-model-alongside-current-737-jet-in-efficiency-drive.html
http://renton.komonews.com/news/business/707255-boeing-celebrates-737-success-party
http://www.seattlepi.com/business/boeing/article/Boeing-building-737s-at-record-rate-2456444.php#photo-2018808

Bloggin

I haven't done this for a while and I am reevaluating if I will continue. It is a nice log of what we are doing in our lives but I am also spending time on putting it all into pictures on flickr. I am not sure if I need to do both.

Anyways... I will catch up on what has happened lately. Meg always has to work the week between xmas and new years and I always get it off so we do a boys only road trip. This time we ended up going around the Olympic Peninsula. Started with 1 night at the beach house with Gerrit and nephews. The next night was at a rented forest service cabin by Brinnon. 1907 log cabin without electricity and piped in water. We did some hiking in the rain and saw some waterfalls.
The third night was in another forest service cabin near Sequim. This time we had electricity but no water at all. We went to the Olympic Game Farm and then went and saw a movie.

The next day we started driving big time. Jess did almost all the driving because he is getting ready to take his drivers test. We started by going up to Hurricane Ridge. It was so windy and cold that we didn't last long. Ended up at Rialto Beach around 2pm and saw some huge waves crashing against the logs. It seemed like a lot of fun to be on the ocean during a storm so we went over to the La Push resort to find a room. The power was out and that made us rethink our plans. Ended up driving a couple more hours to Ocean Shores where we finally got to sleep in a room with a shower.

We then drove back to the beach house and spent the weekend with my parents and Meg. The boys ended up lighting off some fireworks on New Years Eve.

Other things happening. We got a new computer!!! the old one was so slow that there were a lot of things it just couldn't do.
On Friday, we will be getting an Australian exchange student to stay with us for a couple of weeks. Also on Friday, Jess will be taking his driving test. If he passes, he still won't get his license until his birthday on the 26th.
Travel plans coming up.... Meg and I will go to the Canadian Okanagon for a wine testing weekend in February. and the big trip... we booked a big house on the Mexican Yucatan peninsula for 10 Nylands during Spring Break. Meg and I are also planning on a fall trip to Italy for our 20th Anniversary but nothing has been booked yet.