The Party is Now Complete

So the Lemonds' have four out of five of their family birthdays in September (but only Dave is lucky enough to share with Riley Logan, Frodo and Bilbo). So why not roll them into one HUMUNGOUS ONE?

And what would a birthday party for four people in one family be without a visit from everybody's favorite Sith Lord?

Actually, it would be a normal party, but Dave and Kristen don't throw them you see. People would be expecting that.

And when confronted with the most powerful and most evil Jedi, you might expect a four year old to cry or at least cower a bit. Nope. Not Jack. He was grabbing for that elegant weapon from a more civilized age.

And of course, true to form, Mr. V let Jack know that he was in fact Jack's father. Amazing - Dave was right there holding Jack too....You'd think he'd have a bit more tact than that. That Vader guy - Always with the "I am your father" - sheesh.

So Jack scored as presents some of the things that he finds most hard to put down when he visits our house for Taco Night. Amazing how much feedback you can get out of a kid's amp, and I'm sure Dave and Kristen will love every minute of it.

We went skating too - it was cold. Lily was putting it together pretty well I must say.

Visit from Mr. Birthday himself

Two words: serious air

Bouncer madness

Bouncer insanity

Jack and the "Bootie Toss" Girls

Lily and the "Bootie Toss"

She was probably hoping for Bootie Toss boys....

Watch that guy !

Making sand muffins

Playing in the sand

Birthday boy (or near enough to score presents)

End of party conference....

Ready for near freezing temperatures at the Ice Palace

Bad Clowns

So we're driving home today and Lily is telling Jake and I about her friend who had a birthday today. I mentioned that "Oh, her birthday is right near your cousin Tia's..."

This prompts Jake to remember that at Tia'a party last weekend, the clown who was supposed to show up and entertain the kids never arrived. Fans will remember that the kids are VERY happy to be entertained by clowns.

So Jake says....."Maybe the clown got into a fight with a pirate and had to go to clown jail...."

Bet that was the case. Fricking clowns.

1:72 Hasegawa P-38 Lightning

After a couple months of on-and-off work, I finally finished my P-38. I had bought a super old kit on Ebay and the decals were totally useless (Note to self: shell out for newer,better kits). No problem - I'll make my own decals. Spent some time in CorelDraw and bought some decal paper that you can run through a color injet printer and voila - my own specialized plane. But what to do?

I figured that I would make the Lightning that shot down Admiral Yamamoto (see story here) and definitely got more interested since there seemed to be a bit of a controversy. Go ahead read it it's pretty short. Anyway - the kit was such that I could make any number of variants...

So I did the best I could with the tools and skills I had available. Unfortunately reading the instructions was not one of those. I was just about done when Jim comes over to the house for Taco Night. He mentions (out of the blue) that back in the day he would turn in the same book report for school over and over - the book? "Get Yamamoto" The story of the mission to, well, you've already read the link above right?

So I say, I says "Well, you'll probably be interested in the model plane I'm building right now..." Reaching into cabinet of nerdishness

He says..."Wow, pretty nice...but...it can't be the plane that shot down Yamamoto since this is a P-38L and it was either a J or a G that flew the mission...

Whoa. That dude knows his planes.

Anyway, Spitfire Mk IX is next.

*Note: UofAPilot pointed out that Jim and Wikipedia were at odds - I fixed the quote to give Jim the benefit of the doubt. It was a Taco Night (read: lot of beer) so remembering conversations verbatim is a long shot.

Weathered supercharger

Homemade decals

Had to make the guns from scratch since i lost a couple

Ready for decals

Inserted and painted

Waiting for insertion

Scattered pieces

At Tia's 5th birthday pool party

Say what?

Malia meets Sally Sparkle

Taco Night toy exchange

Watching the sunset and chilling with Sally

Hoser

Rocker girl

Piñata's eye view

Ready to ride

HNL + moon and 2 planes

TIM: I'm warning you!
ROBIN: What's he do, nibble your bum?
TIM: He's got huge, sharp-- he can leap about-- look at the bones!
ARTHUR: Go on, Boris. Chop his head off!

Fun on the trampoline

Stretching out at gymnastics