Valdosta Visit

Nice Family Shot of Jennah and the kids


Returning to Vancouver today after spending 3 weeks with Jennah, Kevin and the grand kids in Valdosta. Mike is still deployed and is due to return around 12 May. Since there's a chance he may receive orders this summer Kevin and I did some painting and Rita helped Jennah shine the house up for possible sale later in the year.

Our visit coincided with Makenna's Easter Break so we took advantage of that to spend some more quality time with the growing family.

Also took a short side trip to Jacksonville (solo since Rita had caught a cold) to spend a couple of days with Jerry LaReau and his family. Jerry is an old friend from Pax River days - he was in the class behind me at TPS and we later flew together for a couple of years doing projects at the old ASW Directorate. He was class of '67 back at the Academy. After retiring from the Navy he went to work for BF Goodrich. He's retired now and has been living in Jax for several years. Had a chance to go fishing with him and another old acquaintance from '67 one day on his 35' boat - drove it 50 miles offshore to the Gulf Stream where we trolled for a couple of hours and caught a couple of Mahi for dinner that night. Made for an altogether great day on the water. Really enjoyed the chance to reconnect with him and to spend some time with his family. Guess they'll be hosting a Spanish exchange student from Barcelona starting next August (his daughter is 14) so they're in for an interesting year. The guy who went with us was Tom Moore, who as luck would have it was in the same company with me during my Plebe year about 100 years ago. Small world. Tom and his wife have been doing Space Available military flights since he retired about 7 years ago, so I spent a large part of our 12 hour boat trip picking his brain about the ins and outs of Space A travel. He got me pretty enthused about pursuing it again, especially when he mentioned that many of the flights he catches on the east coast heading for Europe actually originate at McChord AFB about 2 hours north of us here in Vancouver. Plan to drive up there next week to check it out.

After returning to Valdosta we enjoyed Easter festivities with the family. Here are a few photos.


Our "Black Swan" Wannabee


Makenna Cuddling with the Easter Bunny


Shane Too


Another nice Family Shot taken at the Pancake Breakfast


Nana, Grandpa, and the Grand Kids


Getting Ready for the Easter Egg Hunt


Checking out Makenna's Haul


Coloring the Eggs


Enjoyed Spending Time with Kevin


Makenna Helping Grandpa on the Computer (More or Less)

After enduring a REAL long day at the Airport in Atlanta thanks to some severe weather in the Southeast we finally made it home about midnight (0300 body time).

Shifting our attention now to finalizing all of the details for the upcoming trip to Alaska which begins with a 3 day ride on the Alaska Marine Highway (ferry) from Bellingham to Skagway on June 24.