Pumpkin Particulars

What a fun time of year Halloween is!!! Tonight we turned pumpkins in to Jack-O-Lanterns, and had a great time doing it. Justin's girlfriend, Bailey, also came over, and we carved one for her, too. To the right here, the whole family (except for me; I'm behind that bright flash you see reflected in the glass) is on the porch by our three Jack-O-Lanterns: Michelle, Mark, Brianna, Justin, Bailey, Steven, Andrew and Christopher.

Steven designed a pumpkin that Andrew and Mark had a good time turning in to a "puking pumpkin." Justin and Bailey, music majors that they are, gave their pumpkin a note for a nose. Christopher carved a pumpkin with his favorite character (of his own creation) on it.

Last year, it was FREEZING on Halloween. Though we started the season with a record-early snowfall on October 10th, since then it has warmed considerably. This Halloween promises to be pretty nice, with lows not going any lower than the low-to-mid 30s. Saweet!!! Enjoy additional photos below, and on Facebook or on Flickr (many more photos to be posted as the week progresses, I'm sure).

Mark, Steven and Andrew by their "puking pumpkin."

Justin and Bailey with their music-nose pumpkin.

Our three Jack-O-Lanterns in the dark (thank goodness for tripods!!!).

Camping in the Cold

Last night Mark and I went camping with the 11-year-old Boy Scouts, and we had a great time! We honestly expected it to be A LOT colder, but the low last night got down only to about 28. We were prepared for COLD, and so as a result, most of us were actually too layered and too hot - go figure!

The Scouts, as part of their First Class rank requirements, were required to cook three meals for their troop and for the dads. Not only did we SURVIVE the cooking, it was actually all pretty good! Thanks, Scout leaders, for suggesting a good menu! We had tin foil dinners of meat and veggies Friday night, pancakes and sausage for breakfast Saturday morning, and sandwiches for lunch just before heading home. Yummy!

To the right here, you see that Mark chose to wear part of camp on his face. He wanted to make an overnighter look like we'd been out in the woods all week, I guess! And then below, check out the group photo of everyone on the campout. Check out all 31 of the photos I took either here on Facebook, or here on Flickr.

Stroll Down Memory Lane

I will be making a slide show with pictures and video of Justin for the Open House we will be having for him next month, as he prepares to leave on a mission to Tulsa, Oklahoma. In preparation for that, Michelle and I have been scanning old photos of Justin (and family). To the left here is a photo of our kids taken in August of 2001 - more than seven years ago. Ain't they cute???!!! :-)

I have posted all of these photos in various albums in my Facebook account, as well as on Flickr.com. To view all 103 pictures scanned to date (there will certainly be more coming!), please click here. The file names include the approximate date each photo was taken.

Steven, Bear, Soccer

Just catching up on some posts here. By the title of this posting, you could infer that Steven is a bear, playing soccer, or that he was playing bears in soccer, or that... (nevermind).

Steven moved up to Bear Scouts last month, and to the right is a picture of Steven with his Bear book and neckerchief.

Below is a picture of Steven playing soccer in a game two weeks ago, when the temps were still pretty nice. Also below is a picture of how Steven was dressed for soccer last Saturday. When Christopher and he got to the soccer pitch, it was a balmy 29 degrees outside. I'm so sorry I missed that game!!! :-)

So here we are on another Saturday, getting ready for more soccer. The weather has warmed considerably; it's a toasty 49 degrees outside right now.

Private Christopher J. Goodale, E-2

December 4, 2008 Update to this Posting: Previously, I had indicated Private Goodale's rank as "E-1." Actually... because Christopher is an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America, he is automatically an E-2. Normally, that rank advancement comes only after four months of active duty service. So, COOL... all that hard work earning his Eagle paid off (literally, as E-2s do actually get paid more)!!! :-)

It's official now (in reference to an earlier posting): Today Christopher was sworn in to the Army National Guard. He's a member of the Idaho National Guard, and his first weekend of service is coming up in next month, when he will ride in a Blackhawk helicopter up to Payette for some training. His recruiter, Sergeant Stace (pictured below) said that it's just not fair; he had to be deployed to Iraq to get his first ride aboard a Blackhawk, and here Christopher's getting that experience his first weekend!

To the right here, Christopher is being sworn in by Captain Gray. This took place after a full day of poking and prodding, medical exams and processing. I'll have to look up the swearing in ceremony oath; there are some pretty powerful words in there, that I think it would do EVERY American good to swear to!!!

Christopher will have Guard weekends every month through June of next year, then on June 30th he reports for Basic Training in Fort Benning, Georgia. Some 38 weeks later, he will have also finished his advanced training on Apache helicopter electronics systems repair.

God bless our great military, and Private Goodale as a part of it!!!

Early Winter? Late Spring? Fall?

October 10th. And it snowed today. It was very wet snow and immediately melted, but it was fun to see snow falling. I took the picture at the left from our front porch, and it shows how confused our weather is right now.

Check out the flowers in bloom, the fall leaves in the background, and the snowflakes in the foreground.

Just exactly what time of year is it??? :-)

National Guard Gains a Great Soldier

It's not official yet, but it's pretty close. Today Christopher is submitting all of his paperwork to join the Army National Guard. He's joining their "College First" recruitment program, and is not supposed to get deployed until two years of college are complete. They will also grant him a deferment to serve a church mission, as his older brother Justin is starting next month.

Christopher is interested in a career in helicopter aviation, whether that be as pilot, mechanic, or whatever. He is a straight-A student most of the time (and certainly ALL of the time when he wants to be), and excels in all of his classes; he does very well in his Auto Tech class, and loves working on cars, lawn mowers... anything mechanical.

But above all else, Christopher is intensely patriotic. He loves his country, and no matter what conflicts we're in... no matter who is Commander in Chief... no matter what the risks... Christopher wants to serve his country. He will be with a unit of the Idaho National Guard, and his first weekend exercises could be as early as next month. He will go through Basic Training as soon as he graduates high school in May, and then will go through his AIT for his specific MOS. Man... the military is full of TLAs!!!

As you can imagine, Michelle and I have discussed this at length with Christopher. We've spoken with many soldiers. We've analyzed all options. Nervous that Army National Guard would certainly result in an eventual deployment to Iraq, we brought this up with Christopher. His reaction? "So... there are bad people out there that need to be dealt with and ideals that need to be fought for; somebody has to do it."

We are very proud of Christopher for all of his ambitions, his desire to serve, and to always strive to do the right thing. We'll keep you posted, and probably most importantly, we'll be sure to post a picture of him when he's all handsome in uniform. :-)

Well Gall-eeeee!!!

UPDATE: Surgery + 3 hours. Brianna is home now and resting comfortably. Even in the recovery room before she left, color started returning to her face once we put her phone back in her hand so she could resume text messaging. The nursing staff was impressed that she could text with one hand, without looking, on 8 milligrams of morphine. My daughter has SKILLS, baby!!! :-)

By the way, the official name of the procedure she had done today was a Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy. There's a mouthful!

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Most of you are aware that Brianna has had some pretty bad abdominal problems this past month, has been in the E.R. a couple of times, and so on. Tests revealed that her gall bladder hasn't been functioning properly, and that it needed to come out.

I am SOOOOOO grateful that I got home from my 25-day trip to Asia in time for my little princess's surgery. Michelle and I are at the hospital now, and the surgeon just came out to give us the post-surgical consultation. The surgery went very well, and gall-darn it, Brianna is now short one gall bladder. He also poked around and checked out her appendix; it looked completely normal, so it stayed.

The doctor anticipates that she'll be in a bit of pain this weekend, and she has a prescription for some narcotics to get her through it. She may be able to go back to school on Monday. When I told the surgeon that she has an AP Bio mid-term on Tuesday, he volunteered to take it for her. Brianna will be happy about that!!! :-)

Unfortunately, even though the surgeon's hi-def view through the laproscope was very clear, the pictures it took were not, so I do not have any lovely gall bladder pictures to post. Sorry to disappoint.....

Thanks for keeping Brianna in your thoughts and prayers!!!

Brianna before being wheeled off to surgery. The hospital gave her a cute little teddy bear; it was laying in her hospital bed when we walked in to the room. Is that sweet, or what? I wonder if they do this for adult patients, as well.

Brianna in the recovery room, after the surgery. Doesn't she look just super happy? :-)

"Sometimes Eric" Needs Help

Earlier today in Tokyo I felt equal parts of humanity and shame, and in the end, humility. After 25 days of being away from home, I was singularly focused: HOME, and how badly I wanted to get there. So at about 12:40pm, I purchased my Narita Express train ticket, to take me from Tokyo to the airport, to head home. My train departed at 1:03pm. So at about 12:45pm, as I was one-track-mindedly (if that's a valid expression) dashing to the platform to catch my train, the scene only briefly caught my eye...

I brushed it off. "Wanna get home!" I thought. But as I passed the scene and looked back, I stopped. I was tempted to go on. Even took a step in advance. Then stopped again. So I backtracked and did what I was ashamed I hadn't done from the start.

The scene was a mid-to-late-20s white guy, sitting (more like laying) on his luggage on the station floor at the bottom of the escalator, a Tokyo Station Security guy trying to communicate with him. As I approached, in Japanese then English, I said, "Everything OK?" The Security guy looked at me like, "Thank you!" As I looked in to the white guy's eyes, from what little first aid training I've had, I could tell he was in shock.

Come to find out, while riding down the escalator, somebody had apparently pushed him, and he had gone end-over-end down the escalator. He was wincing in pain from his left shoulder, and as I pulled the guy's collared shirt away, his shoulder and chest had HUGE scratch marks on them, some of them bleeding slightly, and his shoulder was already swelling. More Security personnel showed up, trying to help the guy. They were trying to get him to the station's first aid center, and here the Security folks and I, with me as interpreter, are trying to negotiate with the guy, to get him to seek help.

As it turns out, he was singularly focused, too: he wanted to get home (boy... I've been that way before: sick and just wanting to get home!). I had the guy lay back a bit, and I could tell that he was coming out of shock. He looked at me with out-of-focus eyes and kept asking, "Where did you come from? What are you doing?" He was blown away that somebody was helping.

I told the Security folks, "Go get a wheel chair, and as we start moving, maybe I can negotiate with him to get help at the first aid center." They did, but as we were waiting for it, although the guy was in intense pain, I could see that he was coming out of shock, and becoming more coherent. He started pleading with me that he just wanted to get home. And I found out that he was on the same train I was on, to head to the airport. So I asked the Security personnel to get his luggage, and wheel him down to the platform, that I'd look after him on the train. He was in car #4; my seat was in car #6. I asked the Security personnel to call ahead to the airport, and arrange for a wheel chair and assistance there. They said they would do that.

I had to get off at Terminal Two for my flight, he was getting off at Terminal One, the next stop after mine. I went back to his car to check on him before I got off the train, and although he was in a great deal of pain, he was no longer in shock; he was even alert enough to crack jokes. He told me, "Dude... you were like an angel sent to me; I can't thank you enough." I told him not to worry about it; I was just doing what I would want done to me if I were in the same position.

Through it all, I found out he was heading home to Atlanta. When I asked him his name, he said, "Sometimes they call me Eric." A somewhat strange response, but I'll go with it.

But in the end I was greatly humbled, and shocked at my first reaction to just walk past a guy in need. So I guess what I'm saying is, be on the lookout for "Sometimes Eric" - he may need your help. So now matter how busy you are, help "Sometimes Eric" and don't pass him by. I'll do my best to take my own advice.

I hope you made it home safely, Sometimes Eric!!!