And it's burn burn...the house of fire...the house of fire

Here is the line of trucks on their way in. The gentleman walking in front is Captain Leavitt. He is the lead instructor for the cadet program.

The group of cadets learning on this controlled burn were first year and second year cadets (Connor is a first year). There are 4 different training stations in area. This was just 16 from the Battle Ground station

Portland and Cowlitz County had firefighters there to see a demonstration of a specific piece of firefighting equipment that I will mention later. I loved the bell on the front of the Portand pumper

The Fire Chief (and Battle Ground Mayor) is giving instruction of lead Cadet Miller.

Connor and Cadet Jones were in Company 6. Each company had 2-3 cadets and firefighter. Connor and Cadet Jones were one of two companies with only 2 cadets. Their firefighters nickname was Rooster.

Connor turned around cause he felt the presence of his father's watchful eye.

When the cadets are in full gear with masks on it is hard to identify who's who. The best and sometimes only way is their name on the back of their helmet. The firefighters have their names on the bottom of their jackets.

Here lie the spare tanks and packs…which ironically were never touched. The cadets got to lay the tarp and unload the truck of all the spare tanks. Then after the fire was they put them all back into the truck.



This is Connor up on the roof with Rooster. He was teaching/showing them about roof vents and allowing the smoke to leave the attics. Connor's company was the only cadets that went on the roof.

These little contraptions are a early fire fighting pieces. If the Captain arrives at a burn before the trucks he can throw one of these exhaust emitters to help minimize the flames prior to the firefighters arriving. This is what the Portland and Cowlitz County firefighters came to see. You pull the pin, throw it in a sealed house and it spins emitting a retardant. They learned in the demo that day that the flame reduces, but the heat increases. The Portland group was happy because worked mostly at the docks and shipyards with barges that were easily sealed. The Cowlitz people said that it would benefit outlying areas. COST - $1000 each.



Each Company had 5-6 different stations that they trained at. Connor was happy because he got to spend the most time in the burning house



This is last minute instruction before going in the burning house.

In they GO!




(out of order). This is Connor with a drywall hook – to expose the flame in the wall.


The Fire Chief let me and a couple of the other parents actually step just inside the house and see what was happening. This picture TOTALLY captures what I could see, a big glow and silhouettes of the cadets and fireman.

After Connor and Cadet Jones had 4 trips in the house, they were pooped. When you see Connor you will have to ask him to tell you exactly what took place in the house. How the flame acted and looked, what he had to do spraying the house, and how things worked



The recovery



After all the 'training' was over – it was time to let the house go. FYI - house on fire, no burning bush.


Connor and I about 25 feet in front of the house. It was HOT. It hurt to have any exposed directly to the heat. I had to tuck my hand between Connor and I for the picture. He said the turnouts that he wears protect them from the dry heat, but not a wet heat (like steam) he didn't feel the heat.

A couple of pics of the burning house…yes, this is wood.

The house is almost gone…






The tail end….



There was some cool colored flames – various wire created different colors. The blue flame is from copper wire

Three pictures from across the way with heat distortions…I thought they looked pretty cool

At the end was clean up …back at the station they have to take out all the hose and clean it up and scrub it down.

It was cool to be there and Connor had a ball.

Simple Gorge-eous

Each year our management group goes off-site to set goals for the coming year. For the past 7-8 years, those trips have been to the coast (Lincoln City where he spent a couple of Taylor family reunion days). This year was a little different – we went up the gorge and stayed in Cascade Locks just by Bridge of the Gods.

We arrived earlier than when we could check into our hotel. We spent the first few hours "working in a van down by the river".

This was a display of arrow heads they had in one of the restaurants called Char-burger. After examining them with my masterful expert arrow head eye I realized a majority of their arrow heads were fake. This was one of about 25-30 display cases of arrow heads in the two Char-burger joints were visited

Two of the three people here were carved out of wood and one is my boss and his bark is worse than his bite, he is well rooted. He's a little sappy and easy to stump. Really, he's knot a bad boss. Shoot, he lets me leaf when I want and branch out doing the things I want to do. If you think he's pretty neat you should see his family tree...

Above and below is the view from my bosses window. Up the river above and down river with a picture of the Bridge of the Gods below.

The food was fantastic – some of the best ‘sushi’ I have eaten anywhere. I had sashimi (raw fish no rice). The tuna was very tasty and I could cut it by just pinching it with my chopsticks.

Above is a piece of squid and below is shrimp, two types of tuna and a fish I can't remember.

This is from the other guys plate - some mighty fine looking and tasting sushi.

This was inside the Char-Burger restaurant. They had some great old west decor on their walls. the covered wagon is the fixins bar.

Below is the view from the restaurant - Bridge of the Gods again. The name come from...well, there used to be an actual dirt/earth bridge that crossed the river there many many many years ago. Erosion washed it away and they thought it would be a good place to put a metal one.

The pictures above and below give you a scenic view from my room...much nicer that seeing a river and a bridge - price difference on the room - my room was 33% cheaper. Who needs a view when your eyes are closed. We spent most of our waking hours in my bosses room with meetings.

OK creepy place. One the neat things about this area is that there are many mineral springs in the area and a few Resorts and Spas. The popular thing to do at these spas is soak in a hot mineral bath, get out and then wrapped in linen, the a wrapping of wool...One of the "Resorts" was just across the river and up the road - so we thought we would check it out. We first went into the bathhouse area. It was scary - I saw flashbacks of Almo Primary dungeons at the old Almo Chapel on Sundays. It was old, it stunk and there were creepy looking old men wrapped in blankets. I thought I had time warped to the 1920's. It was dark (2 bare light bulbs) and most of the tubs and pipes were all rusted. NO THANKS...

The picture below is the 'fancy' lobby for the hotel. You need to click on it to enlarge it -to get the full effect.

Later that day we went to another hot springs resort - Bonneville. It was beautiful and looked just like a resort/spa should. The two were about a 20 minute drive from each other. Cost for a good soaking - 50 minutes - $35

We spent some time at the Bonneville dam. The neat thing about this place was the fish ladders. They had to make a way for the salmon to be able to spawn each year – thus the fish ladders. In the process they created a educational facility to help educate everyone on the importance of nature and the need to ‘not mess things up’ too much. They had windows so you could see the fish swim by. We were there in the lowest of all lows as far as fish runs were concerned. We were lucky to see the few fish that we saw.

SLUG BUG - Brown One

Went over to Megan’s house again only to find yet another creature…The GIANT slug. This one was a little more unique – it had this big hole in its back. After I took the first picture with my phone, I realized that it could have been a baby MINI slug – so I put a quarter beside it to develop perspective and sizing.

Then after I reviewed my awesome mad cell-phone photography skills – I knew he needed to be a GIANT sea slug attacking the pacific ocean only to be saved by a special force of plastic coated army men (protected from the radioactive slime that coats the GIANT slug.)

It was easy as 1 2 3 – 1. Find 3 good pictures 2. Cut out the pieces you want and 3. Put the pieces together.

(AND...I thought Matthew would appreciate it… )

She dun did gaduated

Four schools (BYUi, Clark College, Hard Knocks, and Washington State)...a marriage...a baby on the way...a new home...hard work...long hours...student teaching...and now the reward.
The Graduate and her proud mother.





This was taken after the ceremony. See if you can pick out Megan...she's the one with the graduation cap, crimson and grey sash and black robe. It was a zoo...a wa-zoo. Megan did say we were to meet under the blue flag, so it wasn't so bad.
After the ceremony we went to Lewisville Park and had a BBQ with the Wadleigh's Root's and Taylors. We had shish-kabobs...I think when Sprinkle is born we will have shish-kabobs...

Life is Never Boring if you have a Connor...

Rugger Rat…Connor continues to excel at Rugby. His team is still undefeated as the now head into playoffs. He plays wing (left or right), outside center, and the teams goal kicker. Practice is three days a week for 2 hours with a game played every Saturday. The league is a High School Club league with 3 divisions…division one being the highest. Connor’s team plays division 3. At the start of the season they had 4 boys with any Rugby experience. At the beginning of the season they had a couple of friendly matches (scrimmages) where they played a division one and a division two team and beat them both. The regular season is over now. The Bulls (team name) averaged 30 points a match, while holding their opponents to an average of 6 points per match – (scoring = 5pts per try, or end zone score and 2pts per conversion kick)
The league consists of teams from Southwest Washington and all of Oregon. We had 4 games in Battle Ground and 3 games in Oregon, traveling to Salem (1.5 hour drive) and Eugene (2.5 hour drive). The state tournament is held in North Portland, just across the river (45 minute drive) with a game each week (if you win…win or go home).
I read somewhere about Rugby…it is a sport where men show up as gentlemen, play like barbarians, and leave as gentlemen. After each match, the home team plays true host and feeds the away team. So, after beating each other up on the field, the teams eat together as if nothing had just happened.
Jennifer’s job this year…she volunteered to coordinate all the home game meals. After the first match, she provided food for sub-sandwiches. Not knowing how much to get and wanting more than less…well let’s just say, the following week we had sub-sandwiches. The following two weeks were chili dogs and then hamburgers on the grill. She was awesome and good parent support
My job, or should I say jobs, have been photographer, sweatshirt organizer, and web designer (my first one -/https://sites.google.com/site/battlegroundrugby/- thank goodness for templates)

Megan loves this picture...

This was a Sunday morning. It was just Connor and I and he had just got a brand new suit coat.

Connor was tired and a little grumpy.

By the time church was over - there was sunshine in his soul.

One of our home teaching families has four ducks. The family went out of town and it was Connor's and my job to herd the ducks into their pen each night. One night, Connor found the 'bouncy horse' and had to give it a try. The late night and darkness made for a pretty cool picture...and a little creepy too.

How about them apples...? One thing that fire cadets is helping Connor - biceps. In one day - due to running over a hose, not shaving, and a couple other misdemeanors = 725 push ups in one day (a two hour period)

I asked Connor to come downstairs and do the dishes...he drug himself across the floor, down the stairs and into the kitchen. He was 'hurting' from either rugby practice or cadets...afterwards he was hurting from stair rolling!