It was a Chuck filled weekend

The Manhattan Project was not intended to create nuclear weapons, it was meant to recreate the destructive power in a Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick. They didn't even come close.

Chuck Norris was the official mascot for Test Pilot School class 09A. This is a picture of Chuck Norris on their board in the workroom made out of reflective tape.

Chuck Norris was placed on their patches. Here is a link to the patches.

http://www.esnacko.com/p-1354-test-pilot-school-edwards-afb.aspx

This weekend, Heather and I and most of my family were able to go Edwards Air Force Base to celebrate my brother-in-laws graduation from Test Pilot School. It was an amazing experience to be able to see the military way of graduation. At the ceremony, there were 18 graduates with surrounded by a few hundred family and friends. The ceremony had a lot of toasts, a moment of silence for MIA-POW soldiers, and a speech from Capt. Gregory C. Johnson (Ray-J). He is the father of one of the graduates and the pilot of the space shuttle mission that went to the Hubble telescope a few months ago. THE GUY WENT TO SPACE!!! WOW! We were surrounded by some very powerful people in the military and some of the greatest engineers and pilots in the Air Force. We are honored to have a brother-in-law that will be ranked with men like Buzz Aldrin and Chuck Yeager. We were able to have a family gathering in the morning

where we could play with simulators, experience super expensive and fancy NVG

(Night vision goggles) and walk around the "static" airplanes. Those are planes that

we could walk around, sit in, and experience. They are the planes that Joel flies on

a regular basis. Enjoy the pictures.

This is a picture of Heather and I in front of the F-35. The plane is still in its testing phase. We had our dinner and graduation ceremony in the F-35 hangar. It is an amazing plane and will revolutionize the way of fighter aircraft.

This is my niece Katie. Here she is sitting in the cockpit of a T-38. She has full control of that stick and surely means business.

This is me sitting in a F-15 cockpit with my brother-in-law Joel telling me about the plane. I didn't really fit in the cockpit but it was cool to see.

This is Heather sitting in the F-15 cockpit. This was a first for her and

she enjoyed herself.

Congrats Joel.

One last Chuck Norris FACT

When Chuck Norris does pushups, he doesn't push himself up, he pushes the world down

When Chuck Norris looks in the mirror, it breaks because it is smart enough to know not to get in the middle of Chuck Norris and Chuck Norris

Big Sisters are Great!

This weekend Lorraine, my sister, flew down from Boise to visit us. This was monumental as she left her husband and children behind to come help me paint. We love all the colors of our house except one room upstairs that is so so so blue. We tested some colors out in anticipation of her arrival.

Not only did she help paint, she helped us choose a much better color...it looks like the room is full of chocolate milk! YUMMY! Lorraine did a great job painting and giving us pointers. We enjoyed a trip to the temple together and saw "New Moon" together. I got to show her our new walking trail too. It was fun trying to host her since she's hosted me on so many visits for years now. I'm so thankful for her patience and her willingness to leave her family behind to come down. If you're lucky enough to be close by, you may benefit from her teachings of fudge making. Todd and I scored big this weekend with her visit! Thanks for coming Lorraine!

Little bird . . . Big bird!

Many of you may find this slightly disturbing...

So this year, I got to cook the bird. I have to say that when I pulled it out of the wrapper, I was grossed out by its skin and the thought of what it really was (or used to be). My mind shifted to the "threat" Todd made several times about Birdi, before we were married. Todd said he thought he'd find Birdi more useful in his belly than in the cage. I thought, "This bird was a distant cousin of my PET!" Well, as I prepared to refocus on the turkey, I looked over and saw Birdi, stepping out for a closer view.... I'm not sure if he was mourning this fellow's fate, or rather, naively checking out my morning project. Either way, I laughed and had to grab the camera. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Half of Horne for a Day

Once upon a decade or so ago, six girls met in their new dorm in Horne Hall, of Heritage Halls. The six would then embark on their college endeavors at BYU together. (Since way back then, we didn't have digital cameras, I took a picture of my picture from my scrapbook to show the "back then" shot.) Two of us were from Vegas, two were from Boise and two were kind of from Texas. We have not ALL been together since then.

Right before my mission, I saw Dawn Marie and Courtney on my way out of town. They had made me breakfast before I drove to Montana to spend a few weeks with my parents. We have only been together a few times since.
This weekend, Dawn and her husband flew down to Vegas and the three of us were reunited again! It's amazing what time and life experiences will do to a person. It was sure fun catching up. We're hoping that next time it will be ALL 6 of us, gathering together. Anyone who's had a freshman experience like mine can relate to why after 10 years you'd be willing to see those people again. Yeah for modern technology allowing us those opportunities!

Halloween 2009

After we went to Nelson Nevada, we called my dad and he came over to help with a pigeon problem. We had some pigeons that were beginning to nest on our roof. It is next to our master bath and we could hear to "cooing" in the mornings when we were getting ready. So I used to hose, 2 rakes, my hands and some ingenuity to take care of them. I was able to put some chicken wire up there and no pigeons yet. After that, we decided to carve our pumpkin. I selfishly carved it and had Heather watch and take a couple of pictures.

Here I am at the top of the house working on the pigeons. It was not a pretty site up there or on the ground after I used to hose to get the bird poo off. Enjoy your dinner!

This is me carving the pumpkin. We went to an authentic pumpkin patch, you know the ones in a casino parking lot where you walk in and pick a pumpkin. but there is hay that you are walking on.

This is the final creation.

This is us outside of the house Halloween night. We had a good number of trick-or-treaters. Some chumps even came back twice.

Nelson Nevada

Well Heather had the day off from school and I didn't have to work so we decided to have some fun. Earlier in the week, we had planned on going camping but it got too cold so I changed plans. I regularly change plans so Heather said ok and I told her we were going to go a ghost town. I was trying to find a ghost town close to Vegas to experience around the Halloween time. So I found Nelson Nevada. It was not easy to get information about the location, but there sure were a lot of pictures. I got directions and we headed out. Roxquie had no clue where Nelson Nevada was so we took off a State Highway that was marked. Eventually we arrived in the town of Nelson Nevada. Not much to see. There was of course a trailer park and some old run down homes. But not the ghost town that I had expected. Once we got to Nelson, we saw this walking across the road.

Now having been born and raised in Nevada I have seen plenty of these in stores, but I think this was the first time I saw one walking across the street. I spotted it and turned around and told Heather to open her door. This is what she found. Throughout our travels we actually "ran" over 4 or 5. No tarantulas were injured in the driving or the picture taking.
Then we took a dirt road that I had read about that lead us to the Colorado River. We were on the road for about 30 minutes only to find that once we got to the water, there was a paved road that went to the same spot. It was a beautiful spot and Heather even picked up some shells.
Eventually we passed through Nelson and came to the ghost town. Basically, it was a collection of old junk. Not much to see.
This was Heather standing in front of one of the ghost town buildings. Actually, someone lives there and it is a little still. Kind of lame.
We scouted around and actually found what we think is an old mine. It was kind of cool. Unfortunately it had been tagged up. But just looking down it was the scariest thing we saw in the ghost town.

A lil' bit of Bono / A lil' bit of Fergie

This is what the stage looked like with the lights on. We were a good ways up but there isn't a bad seat in the arena, especially with this stage. It was circular and had moving walkways. Bono would walk around the stage. It was amazing. It was referred to multiple times as a space ship. I wonder why.
This is during one of the black eyed peas songs. They are a band that has a wide range of music. They were a wonderful opening act that we would enjoy seeing again. They gave mad props to U2 and thanked them for allowing them to tour with U2.
This is U2. Bono is on the huge screen.

Last Friday night we were able to go to the U2 concert. The opening act were the Black Eyed Peas. Both performances were absolutely wonderful. The concert was held at the Silver Bowl. We got there a little early because I am a Moulton and found our seat. By the end of the concert, we were squished between some very interesting people. The bass was like nothing I had ever felt before. Going to a U2 concert was something that I have wanted to do for ever and no I can mark it off of my bucket list. But next time a concert comes to town, I will add it again to the bucket list. I was extremely happy that Heather was able to come willingly with me and that she even enjoyed it. Enjoy the pictures/videos. U2 also made mention of Bill Clinton being in the audience (which he was) and when I went to work the next day, some customers were complaining about their golf the day before because they were stuck behind Bill Clinton and The Edge and the secret service was everywhere. I am going to work on getting them to come to Royal Links next time.

Check out the LVRJ article for more info on the concert.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/u2-fans-get-360-degrees-of-rock-65892377.html

This was what the screen changed into. It was crazy.