Graduation Trip

To celebrate my completion of graduate school at Eastern Kentucky University, Ariane and I took a little trip out to the Ohio and Kentucky area to do some sightseeing and spend some time away from the kids.  I love my kids more than anything but there is nothing better than a childless vacation, especially when you are just sightseeing.

Ariane has family that lives in Ohio so we were able to spend a few nights with her aunt and some of her cousins.  She really enjoyed seeing them again and it was cool for me to get to know some of them.   We went with them to a Cleveland Indians game one night.

 

 

 The tribe managed to beat Oakland, but it does help when you hit four home runs in the game, pretty exciting.

While we were up in that area we decided to go see a few sacred sites like the church history sights in Kirtland and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton.

The hall of fame was cool, we got to see all kinds of cool football memorabilia.

Of course the highlights were the Denver Broncos stuff like the John Elway bust and jersey. 

The Super Bowl jersey of Terrell Davis and the rings from their two super bowl wins. 

There was some old Broncos stuff from their AFL days.

 

Arianes personal favorite was the jersey worn by Tim Tebow when he won that miracle playoff game a couple of years ago. 

 Probably the only time you’ll see anything that says Tebow in the Hall of Fame.

After our trip to the Hall of Fame we went up to Kirtland to see the church history sites.  We went to the Newel K. Whitney Store, where the school of the profits was held and many revelations were given that made up several sections of the Doctrine and Covenants.

We then went up the road to the Kirtland Temple, currently owned and operated by the Community of Christ (formerly known as the Reorganized LDS church). 

 

 It was really neat to be in that building where so many sacred things took place.

After a couple nights in the Cleveland area, the mistake by the lake as Ariane’s Uncle Dave called it.  We drove south to Cincinnati where we caught a Reds game. 

 

The Reds lost to the Atlanta Braves 7-4, the Braves hit a grand slam in the game.  I wasn’t to broken up about the loss since the Reds play in the Cardinals division and a Reds loss helps the Cards out.

After out night in Cincinnati we then headed across the Ohio River to Louisville Kentucky. 

 

We took a tour of the Louisville Slugger factory and museum; they make all the bats for major league baseball.

 

They had some cool stuff there like one of Babe Ruth’s bats that he used when he hit 60 home runs in a season. 

 

We got to hold some game used bats, like Mickey Mantles, that I am holding, and Johnny Bench’s, that Ariane is holding. 

 

 We even took a few swings in a batting cage, here I am using Evan Longoria’s bat, I even managed to foul a few pitches really hard.

They had a cool Lego exhibit there as well.  Here is a replica of Wrigley Field in Chicago.

While in Louisville we spent the night with an old friend of mine, Robert Valention.  He was kind enough to let us crash at his place.

We also checked out Church Hill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is held, we were a week late for the Derby however. 

They even have former Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird stabled there.

 

Then it was on to Richmond KY, for graduation ceremonies.  This was the first time I had ever set foot on the campus of my school.

They offered a tour to all the on-line students so we took it.

 Here is the Johnson building, the main reception area for the university.

Students rub the foot of Daniel Boone for good luck when they walk by it.

When we got home and told Lucy all that we had done, she told us it sounded like a boring trip.  For us it was exciting to be able to listen to a tour guide, read all the plaques in a museum and sit through a baseball game and graduation without the kids bothering us because they were bored.  We’ll have to take them to Disneyland or Sea World some time to make it up to them.

Entertaining Jack

One of Jacks favorite activities is to go the fire station and see the fire trucks or the “we-lows as he calls them. The name “we-low” comes from the sound that the siren makes. He gets kind of excited when he sees them on TV as well, so the other day I decided to pull up some videos on YouTube of fire trucks. I didn’t really think he would sit and watch it for long but the video I pulled up was nine minutes long and he sat there and watched the whole thing.


This has started quite the craze at our house. Jack often comes to me and says, “Daddy, puter, we-low”, or roughly translated he wants to watch fire trucks on my computer. So I pull out the computer and put a video like this one on. I have to say as a firefighter I’m pretty excited about this interest in fire trucks and I am going to do everything I can to keep it going.

Promotion

A couple of weeks ago we had a promotion ceremony for the Kaysville Fire Department (KFD). The Department promoted three Battalion Chiefs, four Captains, three Engineers and three new fire fighters. I was one of the new engineers getting promoted along with A.J. and Keri. The ceremony consisted of a swearing in by the mayor and a badge pinning ceremony.
For the pinning ceremony I was supposed to have a family member or someone else come up and pin my new badge on me. Ariane was going to do it but at the last second Lucy said she wanted to do it. Originally she declined the invitation so I was surprised to see her come up.
She needed some help doing it, after I got stabbed several times but it eventually got pinned on my shirt.

The whole family was there for the event, the kids even wore their firefighter shirts for the occasion.
I also had two fathers in law and one mother in law come as well as my own Dad.

Some friends and family have asked what I had to do to become and engineer and what I do know that I am an engineer. Now that I am an engineer it is my responsibility to drive the fire engine and pump water to the hose lines.
I am also assigned two department vehicles to make sure that they are maintained properly and that the equipment that they carry are in good condition.

To become and engineer I had to be certified to drive and pump the fire engine, which I had done a couple of years ago. To do this I had to take the states fire apparatus pumper course, which we did at Kaysville Fire and then pass the states written and skills test.

To get promoted at KFD once there were some openings I had to take a test. This consisted of a pumping scenario, getting water from the engine to the hose line in a timely manner and the right pressure, a driving test where they set up a bunch of cones and I had to show I could drive, and an oral board where I was asked questions about my knowledge about driving and pumping.

After all that I did not think I had done very well but it turns out that out of the five of us the tested I finished third overall, enough to get promoted. I ended up being moved up to second on the list when the number two guy got promoted to captain.

I have even had the chance to put my skills to use. We had a car fire where I was the engineer.
I managed to get us there in one piece and get water to the hose line. This job just keeps getting more fun all the time.