Camping with a new twist

This year for our annual camping outing at "Grandma and Grandpa's campground" we had a special treat!

We camped from Thursday through Saturday (before the heat hit us) and on our first afternoon there we were joined by the West Bend Civil Air Patrol and a team from the National Guard. Jenny joined this CAP squadron two years ago along with Steve who is a senior member. Steve has worked hard to bring more training and experience to the squadron and this latest event was an experience we all got to enjoy.




Steve had been planning months ago to have the CAP join together with the Nat'l guard that is based in West Bend to do a training mission and suggested Grandma & Grandpa's wide open fields at their home to hold this one. It was really cool to see the cadets get ready to be "injured victims" while Steve called in the "emergency" and we waited for the Nat'l Guard Blackhawk helicopter to come to the "rescue".



Not only did the cadets and Sr. members get valuable training but it was also great training for the medical crew with the Nat'l Guard. Once they landed the Blackhawk they came out to assess the injuries and the cadets got to load up a "dummy" on a board and take him to the helicopter (just like the movies!). Then the Blackhawk took off to land at the Beaver Dam hospital, pretended to unload the "victim" and then flew back to our "campgrounds". Not something you can see everyday!!





The crew then landed the Blackhawk in the field again and shut it down so they could join the CAP cadets, Sr.'s and us for a cookout. We cooked a ton of brats and hamburgers with all the fixin's to feed everyone and they all seemed to enjoy it and were very appreciative.



The only hitch was that Jenny was not able to see all of this with her fellow cadets as she is spending two weeks in Maryland for a CAP color guard training. She was one of the lucky cadets to be picked to attend this encampment out east. There were many many applications from across the US and she was the only one chosen to go from Wisconsin. Quite an impressive accomplishment but she did miss the Blackhawk mission. Oh well, we have plenty of pictures and video for her to see what happened.




Thanks Grandma and Grandpa once again for letting us use your home for our campout and the training mission!!! Hope you had fun to!

Graduation Party

We got a big job behind us with getting a double graduation party done on Sunday. Kyle and his cousin Cory both graduated this year so Nancy and I decided to have a party together. This worked out really great. Working together took a lot of pressure off of both of us and it turned out to be a really nice day for everyone.





Of course Olivia loved being with everyone again and even went right up to guests she didn't know to greet them as they arrived.

The party was at Nancy and Pat's home and they have a big house with lots of land and room so it was great having it there. They also have a swimming pool which worked out well for the hot-hot weather. Olivia loved the pool and a big "Thank-you" goes out to her sweet cousin Kate who took care of her the whole time in the pool and helped her to "swim". It was fun to be in the house getting dinner ready and still hear her laughing so hard playing in the pool. Her cheeks had to hurt from laughing and smiling again all day.