First Soccer Games - 2009

Let the season begin!

Today it was supposed to be around 90°, and we had the first soccer games for Connor and Tegan. Connor played at 11:15am, so the heat wasn't to full strength yet. All the boys did get quite hot and drank lots of water. Tegan's game didn't start until 4pm - so it was plenty warm by then. Many of the girls on her team were overheated. Both teams looked great and had moments of good passing and shooting. Apparently the action with our kids didn't happen in front of Dad with the camera. Here are a couple of run-bys...

Connor going after the ball

Tegan going after the ball

Benchmarks

We had our annual church campout at Fort Stevens State Park this past August. Lots of friends, fun, and sun. Only a little bit of rain one night and some misting for a few minutes here and there. Not bad for five days on the Oregon Coast.

One of the fun things to do there is to go see the Battery Russell. It is an decommissioned battery that was used during World War II to guard the Oregon coast and the entrance to the Columbia River. It was the only mainland location in the USA that was attacked during WWII. Shots were fired at it from a Japanese submarine - and they did not return fire. Some accounts say that they didn't want to confirm their location, and others say the sub was out of reach of their guns.

While we were exploring this time, I found a couple of benchmarks. These are locations were the position of the point is know - usually both in the horizontal and vertical positions. Surveyors can use these point to locate other locations bases on the distance and angle from the benchmark.

So anyway - taking photos of benchmarks is one of those strange quirks I have. Someday I could publish a coffee table book of the benchmarks. Yep - that would be a big seller.

Benchmark on top of the Battery Russell

Benchmark near Battery Russell, on the wall of a small bunker

So anyway - no big story here. Just wanted to let you see some places we've been recently. From a different perspective.

Yard work update... grass cutting #16 was on August 26th and #17 on September 8th. With just the few days of rain recently - the grass has started to grow again. Three more months before winter sets in and it stops growing for a couple of months.