Looking Amazing!

 

Here people are "looking amazing" during out exploration of the "Mountain to the Sea" trail Amber and I found earlier this year while the boys were being Grease Monkeys.  We had wanted to take the whole family for a while and today was the day.  Lance and Titus are missing from the photo because they came prepared to go fishing and went off the main trail about half-way through to do so.  We caught up with them on our return trip, they however caught nothing.

It was a really beautiful trail with lots of elevation changes and different trees showing off an awesome variety of colors.  We'll have to come back again.

Warbirds with Eugene and Friends

(Written by Jared)

"Warbirds over Monroe" is the Historical Airshow that comes to Monroe, NC every year. The airshow didn't happen in 2020 (for obvious reasons) but it was back this year! What made this year even more special was William, a good friend of mine, was able to come with us this year!

After getting our front row seats (advantage of coming early) we explored the different planes. IT WAS COLD!!! We all were shivering, except William who came perfectly prepared with his layers, scarf, and hat.

This year there were different planes from last time. The majority of planes were trainer versions of the Douglas Dauntless Dive Bomber, and A TON of P-51 Mustangs. William and I being WW2 lovers, this was very special. One disappointment was the "Memphis Belle" B-17 Bomber was not there this year. The Bomber was too expensive to keep with the airshow, but we were glad to hear that it is safe and sound in a museum.

I was also able to purchase sketches of General Patton and Field Marshal Rommel, two of the best Field Commanders in history! It was a great find!

As we walked around looking at the different planes, a squad of German Soldiers (reenactors) walked towards us. William and I walked over to them. As a joke, I said, "Is the Third Reich planning on expanding anytime soon?" Without hesitation, one of the soldiers responded "Well, Czechoslovakia went pretty well." And another chimed in, "I think Poland is next." We all had a good laugh and then started talking about the different clothing and equipment they were featuring. We were even able to take pictures with the "German Officer" who let us hold his MP40 Sub Machine Gun.

We turned to our right and saw a whole camp of different WWII, Vietnam, and even Modern reenactors. The first camp was a WWII American camp. They had a lot of small arms, and a WWII Jeep with a .50 caliber machine gun! We were even able to go onto the bed and touch the gun! One of the reenactors gave us strips of cloth to help camouflage the tent. One of the other tents was a Vietnam era camp. Interesting thing about this was the weapons were disguised airsoft guns! They said it was a lot cheaper than getting the real ones! The other camps included the German and British camps.

By that point we needed to run back to our seats, and we had root beer and food waiting for us when the airshow began!

The first planes were solo flights of the heavier planes. All of these were propeller, and the sound was deafening! Hearing all those engines with the low passes was an indescribable experience. Next was the only jet plane there, a soviet jet that was MUCH FASTER but much less exciting. There's just something about propeller planes that will always be special. While the jet engine was in the air, the WWII planes also took off. It was so much fun watching all the Mustangs flying together.

The next 3 performances were the best! The first one was a stunt helicopter, the same from the previous show and just as impressive! The second was a group of synchronized stunt planes. Each pass they made, they created a different shape. The third and final was the stunt plane with a smoke trail. What we weren't expecting was the ROCKET CAR to come out onto the runway! The plane and rocket car had two races, each one taking a victory. The stunt plane finished it off by flying upside down through a streamer!

The final performance was the warbirds' strafing runs. ALL the warbirds made passes and TNT already on the ground made it look like they were dropping bombs! Finally they all grouped together for the missing man flight formation. As the crowd remained deathly silent, all the planes flew in formation, then one of them flew into the distance, commemorating all the brave airmen who didn't come home.

And then, THE WALL OF FIRE!!! Lance was prepared this time, as last time he was in the bathroom when it happened and the blast almost knocked over his porta-potty. The blast was EVEN BIGGER this year! It felt like we were having our faces burnt off!

With that, the airshow was over. As we all drove home we related our favorite experiences; one thing we all agreed on, we need to go back!

They Won the Pennant!

Well, okay not actually the Pennant.... but Titus' team did go undefeated and they were the best team in their age group in the Cary Rec League.

Titus played Cary Rec this Fall and it was an awesome experience; great kids, great coaching and most importantly it finally got Titus back on a baseball field (first time since fall 2019).  He played primarily catcher because frankly he was the best.  However, on the last game of the year, as a sign of appreciation for playing catcher so much, Coach had Titus play pitcher and short stop.  Chris and Lance think he's a natural short stop, next time around we just have to it keep to ourselves he's also a great catcher (wink, wink).

All About Amber

Amber has wanted to ride horses well..... for as long as she knew they were horses not big dogs.  The desire to ride horses seems to be in a girls DNA and Amber is no exception.  Therefore, Amber decided to stop dance and give riding a try.  

Her first lesson was on October 9th (early B-Day present).  She rode a horse named Willie and she rode western.  It was a rainy day but that didn't phase her at all she was all excitement and has been every lesson since.

She has been learning to cook lately as well and one of her first projects was a fall favorite - Pumpkin Pie.  However, on her birthday the cooking was all left to us.  Her favorite breakfast restaurant closed, so we did our best to recreate the pancakes they make at home on her birthday.

 

Then later in the evening we had Holly, Mary and Frank over for the required Spice Cake, Birthday Cake.

The final part of her birthday celebration came today when we went to the NC Zoo with friends.  Amber loves going to the zoo and its always even better with friends.

All in all, I think she had a marvelous birthday celebration this year.  Amber is growing more beautiful inside and out each and every year and we all cherish her.

Dancing in the Rain

 ....and every other kind of weather.

It is really nice now that Lance can drive Jared and himself to Tuesday night dance, and it gives them a sense of freedom/independence as well.  

Tonight we all got to go dancing as it was the Harvest Dance at The Barn.  The kids had a marvelous time as usual, staying till the very last dance.  So thankful they have all learned to enjoy dancing.

Vrooom Vroooom

This weekend was the boys annual trip up to the Virginia International Raceway for the Michelin GT Challenge Series; an event they all look forward to each year.  Thankfully, its only a two hour drive from our house, which makes a nice day trip.  Due to the Le Mans moving their date, the event took place in October instead of August this year. This was a happy change as the weather was much cooler, though it started a bit wet.

Each boy has a type of car they prefer.  Lance is there to drool over all the Porsches.

Jared prefers to oogle the Corvettes with his father.  It was an incredibly exciting year for them as this was the first year they revealed the C8.R (see at top of page).  However, he is also very partial to the Lambroghinis.

Titus on the other hand is usually there for American Muscle, but there weren't any this year so he focused on Acura.

In the end, Corvette was the winner of the day in the GTLM class and Porsche blew out the GTD class.

Amber and I also look forward to this day, as special day of girl time.  We watched girl movies and did girl stuff.  Great day for the whole family.

End of a Season

Sometimes baseball is a dirty business, both literally and figuratively.  This is Lance's second year playing for Canes. This summer didn't start out as well as the previous year but that all changed when he spent a week playing on a select team in the PBR 17U National Showcase outside Atlanta, Georgia.  Here he was reunited with the team mates he loved best from Captials last year and in the process earned the respect of his teammates from the current year that were on the team as well.  The National coach and assistant coach absolutely loved Lance, his attitude, skill and versatility.  As a bonus we actually got to watch him play, as it was all televised.

Once the summer season ended, he was invited to play in two fall showcase events with the National team and one last Scout Cast yesterday.  Then it was lights out on Lance's travel ball career.

Its a bitter sweet time.  I think Chris will really miss being his concierge service on the road.  However, as he works and we pray, we know that even greater baseball experiences await him in the future.

HH Fall 2021

This is the beauty that makes us return time and time again.  I believe this is our sixth trip with the kids to the island.  We do things pretty much the same every trip because frankly we like it that way, so rather than a day by day post I'm going to let everyone tell in their own words their favorite parts of vacation.

Lance said, "I liked it when Titus caught the shark (the largest they'd ever caught on the island) and seeing the shark feeding frenzy."  I like watching him fish alone and with his siblings.  He even let me take a turn for a while, much to the amusement of the rest of the family (like when I casted wrong once).

Chris said, "I like the kids finding the sand dollars and playing bocce ball." We had picked up the game from Miss Beth this week.

 
Titus said," I liked playing bocce ball, eating food, catching a shark and going to the beach three times a day and going deep."  Titus was the first to find the sand dollars this time and then they kept finding them all week.  It had been a long time since we found sand dollars there.  One day the kids completely buried him the sand, much to his amusement (see video).  He brought his remote control paper airplane to the park, which was great entertainment, that is till it got stuck on the roof of a building.  Thanks to a team effort (including Miss Beth loaning us the the tools) we successful retrieved the plane without harm to the plane or the persons involved in the rescue.

Jared said, "I liked building my tank battle sandcastle, legendary golf and bocce ball."  I enjoyed our walk and talks along the beach and the humor he instigated back at the condo with the bottle blowing game (see video here). I also enjoyed watching him play "Marvin" with all the kids on the Pirate Ship.

Holly said, "I liked seeing the starfish, visiting maverick, seeing the Milky Way and the shooting stars."  Holly and I even created a new song to go with playing Jenga, dance and all...."Tumble, Baby...Tumble Baby".

Amber said, "My favorite parts were going to Beth's,  the Beach, finding sandollars, seeing the Milky Way and finding the sand flea and starfish."  I enjoyed helping her find the Sand Flea (a type of crab).  When I was little it was one of my main occupations at the beach, brought back some good memories. 

We had a lot of fun seeing lots of different animals this time.

This trip we noticed that all the cute little sandpipers runaway on one leg and Titus and Amber tried to befriend them.  

Thankfully there were NO stinging jellies this fall but were a lot of stingrays, possibly due to the exceptionally calm ocean or the fishing trollers that were right off the coast. 

We walked farther down the beach than ever before, a full mile from the walkway. All in all, another awesome and renewing vacation on the island.  Can't wait to come back!

Grease Monkeys

Lance and Titus signed up for "Small Engine Repair Crash Course" about an hour north of our home (a rather pretty area). The course went from Monday to Wednesday, 9am-3pm each day.  This class was right up the boys alley, with Lance's interest in cars and Titus' interest in taking ALL things apart and learning how they work. 

The class was held at a mom's house in her garage where tables were set up for the 20 students.  The first day they learned all the terminology they needed; such as....what fuel was, what its density was, how bad ethanol really was and why from a physics standpoint for engines and the environment.  Then they started taking apart (in pairs) a small lawn mower engine, cleaning it and preparing for day two.

The second day they completely took the engine apart, and cleaned it.  Titus (youngest student) was told by the teacher he couldn't answer any more Q&A, because he was the only one willing and eager to answer. :-)

The final day, was the test....could they now put their engines back together without the instructor's help?  Success or failure was determined when they tried to start their engines.  Amber and I were present for this part of the class.  It appeared one of the hardest obstacles to overcome was pulling the draw string hard enough.  

Click here for video:

Amber came with the first day and we went had a girl day, going out to lunch and running some errands in the area before picking up the boys.

The second day she stayed home and I came back after dropping them off but that was a lot of driving.

Therefore, day three we had another "Girl Day" this time we explored and had fun.  I had spotted what looked like an interesting artist area to investigate.  In our travels we found a replacement mug for Lance's broken one, some homemade hot sauce for Dad and cookies for everyone.  Then we hiked part of the "Mountains to the Sea" trail.  Its a beautiful trail, we will have to bring the whole family back to hike sometime

Steel Commanders

    Today, September 4th, 2021, will be forever remembered as the first time we've seen military tanks in person!

    I being an avid lover of WW2 history, I've always wanted to see tanks in real life. I knew there were tank museums around the world, one of the largest and most famous being THE Tank Museum in England, but I never came across any near by. That is until we talked with a hobby shop owner and he told us that a tank museum in Virginia was having their last flamethrower demonstration on the 4th of September! As soon as I got home I googled the museum's name, The AAF Tank Museum, and found out they were less than 1hr and 45min away! And when Mom said we could go, I nearly lost my mind!

    Fast forward to today, we drove up to the museum with our neighbor and some friends who were meeting us there. Pulling up to it, we were immediately met with an M113 Armored Personal Carrier. After we parked and went to the restroom, the moment came. We walked down a short hallway and came into Room 1 of 3.

    If you were to walk into a warehouse full of gold that was all yours, you can imagine your reaction. Now replace the gold with over a hundred tanks and artillery, hundreds of small arms and machine guns, and literally tens of thousands of WW2 insignia, unit badges and photos...and have the same reaction. That was me. It was extremely hard to follow the "don't raise your voice" rule at that moment. I stood gaping, looking back and forth from a German Pak 40 Anti-tank gun, 3 US M3 "Long Tom" Howitzers, a US M18 Hellcat, and the other tanks to our left that, at the time, were to far away to be recognized accurately.

    Room 1 consisted of full sized dioramas of tanks and large artillery pieces, including the ones stated above, a Soviet T-72, a US Cobra Helicopter, an RC Tank arena, some '50s Cadillacs, photos from WW2, two or three M113s, an M3 Bradly Fighting Vehicle Simulator Turret that we could all go inside, and many other dioramas from various wars. 

    Room 2 was what I dubbed the "Hall of Tanks." It was lined on both sides with DOZENS of tanks, trucks/armored cars, and self-propelled guns. Some of my favorites were the German Panzer Mark IV, The only US Sherman M4A3E8 "Easy Eight" with an M2 bulldozer still in existence, a large 6in Self-Propelled Howitzer with a squirrel on the barrel😂, ALL of the over 10 M48 or M60 Patton Main Battle Tanks, a WW2 Soviet T34/85, and literally everything else in that room! This is also where we got to meet the "Bicycle Man," we guess he is a Vietnam Vet. He rides around in his 3 wheeled bicycle announcing when events are taking place, and also having fun directing us on how to pose for a silly photo!

    The flamethrower demonstration was coming up, but we had time to explore the smaller Room 3 before hand. This room had a WWI French FT17 Tank! Also in the room were M3 Bradlies, M113s, Jeep Willies, and other Cold War era vehicles. There was also a 14 or 16in shell in the room you could sit on, so we obviously had some fun with that!

    Finally, the moment had come...FLAMETHROWERS! This was done outside of Room 2. My first surprise was the 3 zones of viewing, warm, hot, and melt. I went into the hot zone and Titus and our friend were crazy enough to go into the melt zone. After the "If you get hurt it's not our fault" speech, the gentleman told us about the 2 flamethrowers showcased. One was WW2 era and the other was from Vietnam. He then told us that they would only be on 70% power, which I thought was strange at first, seeing the movies (which usually exaggerate everything) showed them being rather small. He then said, "Hey people in the melt zone, last warning. Bye!" And the flamethrowers were aimed at their target, a mannequin in a 'house' with a pink umbrella, cabinets, a few chairs and other items.

    If you've ever stood next to a bonfire, you know how hot it is. Now multiply that by 2 (if not more) and have that suddenly thrusted at your exposed face and eyes in a split second. And at the same time, a 20 foot tall fireball turns the 'house' into a smoldering ruin with just a few "only 70%" bursts. I've never been so scared in my life! I couldn't talk for a good 2-3 minutes after that😂! After the canisters ran out, we all got to take photos with the flamethrowers before heading back inside.

    There was one part of the museum that we had yet to explore, the uniform rooms. These rooms were full of authentic uniforms, boots, hats, helmets, insignia, badges, etc., from WW2. They even had a real uniform of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in one of the rooms! A startling moment came for us when we walked into a room filled with Swastikas. In the back was a diorama with authentic Schutzstaffel (S.S.) Officers' uniforms and clothing of Concentration Camp inmates. There was also a collection of a Brigadier General's complete collection of uniforms!

    The final room was the hand-held weapons room. This room had all of the major small arms from WW2, and even some from other wars in the 20th Century! My favorites were the M1A1 Thompson "Tommy" Submachinegun, the German Panzerschreck (their version of the Bazooka), the M1 Garand, and the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR gun.

    Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. We toured the gift shop (with prices that were actually just as good as online shopping🤔) and headed out. As we left, I looked over my shoulder at the smoke from the 2:45pm flamethrower demonstration, which was underway, and my favorite band's new single came up on my playlist... Sabaton's Steel Commanders!

Flers–Courcelette showed the way

Evolution leading to El-Alamein until today

We're the first ones into the fray

Steel Commanders

Rule the battlefield-

Spearhead Flanders

Tankers leading the-

Storm of panzers

Battle calling the-

Steel Commanders!

Written by Jared A. Otto