Scobey to Sidney MT

Here is another video of our T-day trip out to the end of the earth. We spend a bit of time down in Sidney, that is where the oil fields and a set of Great Grands. We had a lovely but to short of a time with them. Ben was able to walk away with a couple vintage cars that he is still in love with to this day. Hopefully we will get back out there soon to visit again.



Video: Scobey and Sidney Last vid of trip

Our lives on Amtrak

Here is a vid from our trials and travails upon the 24 hr trip on Amtrak's Empire Builder service to Scobey and beyond. Over all the trip was good, I found it hard to sleep on the bathroom floor, I bought the family tickets for a sleeper but I just hobo it and snuck on at the first crossing out of the station. I would recommend the experience - if you buy a ticket on a sleeper and are not bringing very young children. It is really quite relaxing and a very pretty trip. The accommodations are pretty good for 30 years old stock. It is the really only way to get to Scobey other than drive and I think it is better than driving from a safety standpoint not to met ion less cost. For all 4 of us in a sleeper it was 900 bucks and that includes food. The drive would have been about 19 hours straight and the train took 24 hours.


Video: Amtrak to Scobey MT for Thanksgiving

Pandemic hits Seattle

(pandemic-wallingfo) I am the last sole standing.
Lainey=cold
Ben=cold+flu(fever+vomiting)
Shawn=kidney infection(103 fever+severe back pain) Nanny=flu(vomiting+laziness+complaining\not that unusual)

Scobey's Littlest Bus Boy

This will mark the begining of a series of videos taken during our glorious trip out to West Dakota - Eastern Montana for Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time. The train trip was good better than driving. The kids were better than expected but I still can't sleep on those things. The first day we were there Ben found a serving cart as you will see in the video. It was quite amusing for about a minute.


Video: Scobey's newest busboy

Josh is getting some nice news coverage

A couple weekends ago I flew over to Spokane to check out this year's light set up at Josh's dads house. I stayed in the Doubletree on the Executive floor that had great beds and view of Riverfront park. It had been snowing all day that nice snow that falls like feathers. When I got over to the event there were 3 bonfires burning and about 100+ revelers. The funny thing was they were not at Josh's Dad's house they were all across the street in the opposite neighbors yards. Therefore the kickoff event more than tripled since last year.

People really didn't understand that this was like no other light display, there were 50-60,000 lights this year and it had taken over the neighbors house. Here is one of the news pieces that does a pretty good job of the why. Seattle channels are now picking up the story as well. You can only grasp the magnitude by going to Spokane. There is talk of crossing the street with lights and to have a simulcast display going in Seattle that is connected over the internet and controlled remotely.

Boston is now Sparta not Athens

Pedro and friend after ALCS 2004
Originally uploaded by Spappy.joneS

Morning Edition, December 5, 2007 · Isn't it the most amazing thing, what's happened to Boston?

In sports, the Athens of America has become Sparta.

What a transformation. We used to look at sporting Boston as sort of a quaint, fey, idiosyncratic place — not quite American. Shoot, Boston didn't even much care for football. The Redskins left town for Washington, and nobody missed them. When the Patriots arrived a quarter-century later, they were barely tolerated as something of a distraction from the autumn foliage.

The rest of the story can be seen or heard here on NPR.org

Some of the Kids

I am over in Spokane this weekend to check out Josh's annual spectacular light display. There is snow here and it was snowing in Seattle @ SeaTac and in Wallingford. They had to deice the plane, that was the first experience for me @ Seatac. Spokane is pretty with all the snow. Here is the latest vid of the kids before we left on our Amtrak trip for T-day.



Video: The Kids