Jesus Take The Wheel

So we found ourselves back in Crystal Lake, Iowa tonight.  We went up to see grandpa after his extraordinarily bad last 100 days.   He's doing well, all things considered, and we had some business to attend too.

Since we need to clean things out and sort thru them at the same time, we decided to drive two vehicles and accomplish as much as we can after Mr. Calebs test out of the orange belt in Tae Kwon Do this morning.  

Anyway, once the work was completed, Dad and Caleb had a bit of time to sneak in a golf cart ride.  Caleb wanted to drive and I was tired, so...   so be it.

This is on the road heading West out of Crystal Lake towards the cemetary.  It's both of the boy's favorite road as there is hardly any traffic on it and it's probably 2/3 of a mile out of town.  So by the time they get out there, turned around in the most dramatic of fashions, they are content that they are not only ready to drive a car, but also a tank, pilot an airplane and man a space ship...  so, it's good.

The boy, in the heat of the 11mph moment, givin' it all she's got!

Renaissance Faire

We have awesome friends.  I have stated that before in this space and I will likely state it many more times before I hang up the blogging shoes.

These friends were headed to the Renaissance Faire at Sleepy Hollow in East Des Moines and invited Caleb to tag along with them.  There were far more pictures than these, but these were the four that featured our Calebber!
 

I have little to say about the pictures, because I wasn't present when they were being taken so I really have no clue what's going on other than in the 'corn-dog' photo. 

Non-serious Bullheadedness...

If there's anything good that comes out of a funeral, it's that it brings families together in areas that may not be the most typically tread by those peeps.

And that sort of brings us to these couple of pics.

I wrote about my Mother-in-law, Marlene Bushman, passing away.  These pictures were taken on Monday, September 18th, the day of the funeral.  

Crystal Lake, Iowa, home of the worlds largest bullhead and a nice photo op or two.

My sister, Doris Brunnette with Robby and Caleb.

My other sister, Dianne Griffith with Robby and Caleb.

Yes!

The eldest lad, getting ready to launch his own company without a solid business plan!   But man, he's looking good!

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting!

Caleb's board break.  Action!!

This Lady, Right Here...

On Feb 26th, 1935 a little baby girl was born who would alter my life.  Oh sure, it would be 55 years plus a few months and a daughter later, but alter my life she would!

Her name was Marlene Powers and I married her equally beautiful daughter, Lesley Kay Bushman in 1992 after first meeting her in late May, 1990.

Marlene is (I refuse to was!) my mother-in-law and one of the kindest, most gentle, loving, generous, caring, giving, and selfless people you could ever run across!  

She was the embodiment of what a human being should be. She could embrace the impossible and do it with a smile on her face.  It didn't seem to matter to her if she succeeded or not, she would simply approach the next moment in the same manner.  She could, and would, scold you in a way that told you that you were loved and in a way that you would NEVER want to let her down again!  She had a personality that excluded no person in her path.  

Not a word of that previous paragraph is an exaggeration!

When I would talk to people about my Marlene, the person, I would sometime get comments like, 'well, that's on the surface' or 'yes, you see that a lot, but...', they have a hard time believing that I am not only speaking about a mere human, but much less, my MOTHER-IN-LAW! You'll have to trust me on this one.  This lady represented the definition of a lady.  Pure class. Pure beauty.  Pure love.  A pure SOUL, through and through.

When I would talk to people about my Marlene, the Christian, I would sometimes get comments like, 'well, like most "Christians"...'  or 'yeah, but what is she like behind closed doors' or something to that effect.  My Marlene seemed to me the same whether serving at a church function, serving at a city event, or simply serving her family or guests a dinner.  It didn't matter where she was.  She was a pure CHRISTIAN, through and through.

No, please understand me! MY MARLENE was, and will always be, a beacon of true Christianity in a life that is often marred by selfishness, carelessness, spitefulness, greed, blackened hearts, and whatever else.  Ugly stuff.

She taught me that you can always be beautiful in an otherwise ugly world.

Marlene Bushman, I love you and I will remember you from my last words of "I love you, Marlene" and our last kiss goodbye.  You will always be beautiful to me and my family and we will never forget all that you gave...  which was everything!

Hawaii Vaca, Post 11 - Big Island Helicopter Tour, Pt 1

My moment has arrived!  This is what I most wanted to do in Hawaii and of course, have been looking forward to it like nothing else.

Thankfully, there are so many helicopter tours that the Hawaiian's have perfected the signage directing a fella on where he's headed and where to park.

There are a LOT of pictures here and this is just part one of likely 3 or more by the time I get thru them all, so I won't bore you with a lot of words...

Our 'limousine' for the next two hours!  We haven't found out where we're to be seated yet so I have high hopes that I get the front!

A picture from the co-pilots chair up front!!!  Did I take this picture?  Nope, the co-pilot, my lovely bride did!  No worries, my seat was purdy good too.

Robby, looking a little tired and not excited.

Caleb, who is giving me that, "I told you I didn't want to do this and you STILL got me a ticket and expect me to smile for your dumb picture?!?!" smile.  :-)

There's my gorgeous self in a picture taken by Lesley.  I'm sitting directly across from Robby.  Caleb is next to me behind that pole in the middle of the picture and then directly behind Lesley is a newlywed couple.  There were 7 of us in total.

A marina at Noio point where a whole pile of diving companies are located along with Manta Ray Dives of Hawaii and so on.

One of a few golf courses on Hawai'i.  Which one?  Beats me...

The pilot tipped the helicopter so I was nearly looking straight down to my right side, which was a little scarier based on the fact that you could see the sky due to the door either not being shut correctly or it was bent somewhat.  No matter, I figured if it did open I was buckled in.  If my buckle failed, it would be scary for about 20 seconds and then hurt really bad for about 1 more second.  And, I got a cool picture out of it!

Really liked the areas where there were recent lava flows.

Another with the lava flow in the distance to the upper left.  I beleve this is looking out over Milolii.

If memory serves me correctly, this area was an old logging area, which would certainly explain the sharp contrast in vegetations!

I believe this cool little formation is in the Hawea area and very difficult to get to on land as Hwy 11 is about 5 - 6 miles in from shore at this point.  The pilot did say there are some 4 wheeler paths to get down there, but evey those are a bit dicey.

Papakolea Green Sands Beach.  According to the world wide interwebs: One of only four green sand beaches in the world, the others being Talofofo Beach, Guam; Punta Cormorant on Floreana Island in the Galapagos Islands; and Hornindalsvatnet, Norway. It gets its distinctive coloring from olivine sand eroded out of the enclosing collapsed cinder cone.

I can't figure out where or what this lava flow is.  This was taken from the co-pilots chair on our old camera so it sorts them differently on the computer.  As such, it's likely out of place in the sequence, but I like the photo so I'm making you look at it!

From this point on, I'm pretty much lost on where we currently are.  I'll shut up for real this time and only comment when I know what I'm talking about.

This is Lava View Point near Kupapau Point.  Pretty cool stuff but it really depends on the day whether you see molten lava or not.

Another vantage point of the same.

Not 100% sure on this one, but I think it's the Kilauea crater.  With another shot following it where you can actually see a bit of red lava.

You can see little bits of red lava around the top curve of the crater.  That's as good as we got on our tour.

I think that'll do it for the first post of the helicopter tour. I'm trying to divide this post up into three segments because there's SOOOOOO many pictures!