At the zoo!

This past week, Jake, Kyler, and Zoey had Spring Break. Woo hoo! We wanted to go and do something, but daddy only has about two weeks left of school and was concerned about missing days. So we tabled other plans and instead went to visit Aunt Audrey and Nathan (Uncle David was out on a trip again.) Luckily for me, we weren't on a time schedule, as I can't ever seem to remember the time change when we go to Georgia. (For instance, Russ and I were going to a boating safety class last Sat. We planned it out, but Fort Benning was bigger than we anticipated and were about 15 minutes late. We went in to check in for the class, only to find out it had been cancelled. Aghhh! We walked out to the car and looked at our phones, only to find out that we were an HOUR and 15 minutes LATE! Dang it! One day I will figure it out...I hope.)

We got to Audrey's house (without a potty break!) and Aunt Audrey and Nate were just about ready to go. We piled in the (now paid for) Expedition. Kyler, Nate, and Zoey in the middle and Jake in the back. The kids had such a fun time driving to the zoo. Kyler, Jake, and Zoey were all vying for Nates attention. They tried to do some knock, knock jokes with Nate, but he didn't understand what they were doing at first. Once he figured it out, he replied, "Big Surprise!" He is so cute! It was a noisy ride there.

The first thing we saw at the zoo was the elephants. They are huge! And much dirtier than I thought they would be. We were at the big cat area and had great views of the tiger out sunning himself. But, what were my kids more interested in? Wait for it, wait for it...

The men cleaning out the enclosure next to the tiger. No animal in there...just men cleaning up. Uhhh, kids????

We skipped the reptile house, but fortunatly for us, the Komodo Dragon wasn't in there that day. We had a great view of him. Jake and Kyler were facinated to look at him because he really is a DRAGON! He can move fast if he needs to, but there was no need today. Mom somehow got a lucky shot of the Dragon with his tounge out!

At the gorilla enclosure, there were so many gorillas to look at! Outside we found the Silver Backs, and we even heard on pound on its chest! That was AWESOME!!

I just love Jake's smile....

And my favorite picture of the day...

The baby was so cute! He was playing with us and be-bopping around, until his mom had enough and she put him on her back and carried him away. Hmmm...seems familiar somehow. LOL!

And Zoey-bird.Kyler-bird didn't want to be photographed, but I captured an image of his head at least!

It was a really fun day. After the zoo we went back to Audrey's house and played a game of Pirates. Arghhhh! The last round Jake, Kyler, and I were working together to fight a pirate, but in the end, none of us were able to best the pirate.

We had a really fun day with Nate and Audrey. I am so glad we are living much, much closer and get to visit more frequently. Thanks Audrey and Nate!

More at the Aquarium

Georgia Aquarium

It was so much fun at the aquarium. My kids were so excited to see Audrey and Nate again too! It was very crowded when we got there (it may not have been if I had remembered the time change and we actually got there when it opened--duh!) and made it difficult to move around. But we still looked and oooh'd and ahhhh'd. Little Nate was starting to feel better after having been sick all week, but he still wasn't up to too much.

Kyler Kid's Day!

Kyler Kid worked with dad on his first Pinewood Derby race car. Kyler decided he wanted to have a Star Wars car. So dad helped cut out the shape of the car and Kyler was responsible for sanding and painting the car. He also picked out the accessories he wanted to attach to it. (From Star Wars the Clone Wars.) His car ran quite fast and we are so proud of him!
Getting ready to run!

Kyler came in 11th overall, which I think is fantastic considering it was his first race ever!!!

Look at all his rewards! 3rd place for his class and Best in Show for Design! Woot Woot!

This was before he knew about the Best in Show trophy--see how happy!

Way to go Kyler! We are proud of you!

Fun new projects!!

So I have found a new fun project to work on. I saw something on-line about etching glass. I bought the expensive etching cream and tried it, but I wasn't thrilled with the results. upon thinking about it more I realized the best way to etch glass is sandblasting it. I get better results because the sand doesn't seep under the vinyl like the chemical does. here are my most recent adventures...

P.S. I fought with my new phone to get this post done. On my next few days off i will get more updates on here.

Bonnie--At work

At work we just finished an outage. An outage is where we shut the plant down and do major maintenance and make changes to different systems throughout the plant. This one lasted 23 days, from my understanding they can last much longer, so I am relieved it was ONLY 23 days. The upside of it--off work at 5:30ish instead of 7 p.m. The downside of it--it was 23 straight days of work! So, after I finish work this Thursday, I will have worked 31 of the last 33 days. Yuck! (Although they have been more than decent paychecks. Don't want to do it often though.)

It was actually kind of fun most days.

Until the end when I was so tired and sore that I couldn't hardly move. Anyway, here is a brief recap of what I did...

Confined Space: Checking the air quality (sniffing) the space to be worked in, and occasionally hole watch. Hole watch could arguably be the most boring job ever. Really. What hole watch consists of is staying outside of the work area (confined space) and waiting outside while other people work. I know, I know, it doesn't sound bad, however, when you spend 8 + hours a day watching the same space AND YOU CAN'T LEAVE it gets boring. FAST. There was at least one day however, that I was relieved to be on hole watch because I was so tired.

Replacing air filters: in the above pictures we were at the air inlet. We had to change all the pre-filters in both units. 418 in each unit. It is a long process, luckily I was only involved in finishing up the project. Part of what I did was operate the man-lift and bring the filters up to the 3rd and 4th levels. While the man-lift can be fun, going up to the 4th level was outside of my comfort zo

ne. But I did it. Several times. (If you don't know, the man lift can hold two people or one and a load, rotate 360 degrees, raise to 90 feet, the platform rotates and tilts. And yes, you can drive it while you are lifted. It can be quite fun.)

Racking in breakers: There are many large breakers we had to open and lock so they wouldn't be used. These breakers are 4160 volt breakers. Very large and very dangerous if not done properly. So it was time for Loraine and I to learn. Because of the potential for fire, we had to wear special protective gear. Bibbed overalls, jacket, hard hat with hood, and rubber gloves with leather gloves over them. The clothing is fire resistant which makes it heavy. (Super glad we were doing this in Nov. instead of July.) So we dressed up for the task.

There was alot more, but these were the best pictures. I was in oil quite a bit, water quite a bit, up and down the stairs to the top of the HRSG (eight flights), there was so much going on. Many things to see that I hadn't been able to before. Lots of food. Most of the contractors brought us food at least once. (Okay, so the new Granger Tool Rep only did it because "someone" left a note on her car windshield with the message, "Next time you come bring food." I don't know who would have done that though. But apparently she got the idea and brought food a few days later. LOL!)

I didn't work on the cooling tower, but I went to see what was going on there. Up until this point I really didn't know how big everything was there. Once they got all the water out, I was able to climb down in there and look around. This is what I found:

That is a water pump. Yes, it is the largest pump I have ever seen! Really! The motor for that pump has 4160 volts behind it. As a reference, the washing machine uses 120 volts, and the dryer uses 240 volts. Anyway, while I was down in the cooling tower, I was told it holds roughly 2 million gallons of water. When we refilled it, we used water from the city water department. The residents around the plant don't particularly like it when we do that as we use about 3,000 gallons a minute when we refill. Tends to drop their water pressure a bit...

And it seems that the engineers that designed most of the plant assumed they would have Chinese Acrobats working on the systems because I don't know how they thought average Americans would fit into those places! Sheesh! I twisted and turned ways that I don't think I was supposed to anymore. Ouch!

Anyway, that is how I have spent the last month. Any questions?