Jack is Back!

Well, Jack is back from his nine-day mission trip with St. Ambrose Catholic Church of Woodbury. Their group of teenagers went to the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana to work with the community. They did some really extensive, hard labor in the neighborhoods there - cleaning, painting and repairing... and lots of interaction with the kids. Jack was known for his piggy back rides with the little kids... he gave lots of them every day!

They got to see some beautiful parts of the country along the way, including the Badlands of South Dakota and Mount Rushmore...

We will post more when Jack writes his "report"... but by far the highlight for Mom and Dad was when one of the parents on the trip took us aside, unsolicited, and said that he had never seen any teenager with the work ethic that Jack has. He was the example that everyone had to keep up with when it came to hard work and lots of it... we are very proud of our Jack!!!

The Great Minnesota Air Show!

"The Great Minnesota Airshow" was held in St. Cloud, Minnesota this weekend - about 1.5 hours northwest of the Twin Cities. The show featured the Blue Angels, some great aerobatic flying and tons of static displays. By far the most amazing show was put on by the U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor (above) - doing things that an airplane just should not be able to do!

Here is Luke in front of the Marine Corps' new V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft, being used heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here is a brand new CH-6OS Knighthawk helicopter, a new variant of what I used to fly in the fleet.

Even the U.S. Navy has tractors in Minnesota!!!

Jack Heads to Montana!

Jack (3rd row, 4th from left) left today for his 9-day mission trip with St. Ambrose Catholic Church. The group of high school kids is driving to the Crow Indian Reservation in south-central Montana. They will work with kids at the Reservation, and will be working and sleeping in some fairly primitive conditions - and no electronics at all (games, cell phones, TV) for a whole week!)

• We are proud of Jack as he heads off to a week of service!

Learn more about the Crow Reservation HERE.

New York City!

We spent a few wonderful days and nights in the Big Apple - just the two of us! I had to give a presentation on our company's R&D projects at the Medical Device and Manufacturing - East show on Manhattan, so Laura came along, too! She was last there as a midshipman on a YP Cruise from the Naval Academy... and I was last there for just a day, to board the SS United States when I was 7!

Times Square is a menagerie of people, stores and messages... here is one about Iran's president that we can all agree with!

This is the new High Line in the Lower West Side... the High Line is a re-purposed railway that runs for a long ways from north to south, 3o feet above the NYC streets - with gardens, benches and places to sun bathe!

The highlight of our visit was a show on Broadway... we were able to get great same-day discount tickets to Billy Elliott - what an awesome show!

Laura went to see the exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and walk the Garment District, Rockefeller Center, and many other Manhattan neighborhoods.

We made it to "Ground Zero" to pay our respects, and to see the progress being made on the memorial to 9/11. It is hard to see much of anything, but one really gets a sense for how much work is going into the project that will be complete by 2014.

Here we are on our last day, in Central Park near the "Boat House" restaurant. We took a rickshaw ride throught he park, with our young guide TJ, from Tajikistan.

Morning on the St. Croix

We discovered a beautiful time to get out on the St. Croix River in the early summer... very early on Sunday morning! It was beautiful - water like glass, herons and eagles everywhere, fog in the low-lying areas... just spectacular.




We came across some big turtles near the launch at St. Croix Bluffs Park. They were already basking in the early morning sun and didn't seem too bothered by a passing motorboat.



Here is my crew, contemplating the day after the arduous passage from St. Croix Bluffs to the docks at the town of Afton - where we stopped for coffee and a snack.