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New Friends

Stranger at the airport.

Moon

Cows went to the moon in the Texas version of the story. Hey, he has a video camera!

Waiting

Delayed plane.

Trapped

How do I get out of here?

Walking

A view on our walk. Kate will get a pair someday.

Houston

A walk in the park.

Ducks

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Look

Giddy Up

Kate Gets Artsy

Howdy from Houston

Where else can you get a dinner for $7.69? Texas is like another country!!

I love watching Spanish speaking channels and brushing up on my Espanol!!


This Spanish show is "muy interesante."
Yo quiero Texas!!

Miss Mississippi

Kate likes to relax as she waits for her dinner.


Kate's at her Uncle Phil and Aunt Christine's house. She also needs entertainment before she can eat.
No meal can really get started with out a drink. Kate has found a love of water glasses of any size or variety and she eagerly grabs them and chomps the lip while sipping water.

And no great meal is complete without the best of friends like Grandma Bomgaars.
What a great time.

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Charlie Brown wakes up and thinks about what he is going to do in Houston.

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Kate relaxes after a busy shopping day with mom and grandma. She even got to in a store called the little dutch girl.

Morning Fun

Mommy thought it was so funny to see me talking to myself and laughing at myself in the mirror that she had to run downstairs to get her camera. I don't know why she thinks it is so funny. I'm just enjoying the best view from my crib. Who wouldn't want to look at this face first thing in the morning??

East Roaring Flight

Today we shot more video with the crews and we drove out to the site of the "East Roaring" wildfire. I had to get suited up in a flight suite, gloves, helmet, and glasses for the helicopter flight to "recon" the fire with the wildfire incident leadership.
The fire is named for the "Roaring" river nearby. It was started by lightning and now covers thousands of acres. Here is a picture of the tough terrain the crews are dealing with.


It's only about 30% contained at this point. About 150 firefighters are on the ground, fighting along the fire line, calling in air support with helicopter loads of water, and our military aircraft coming in with huge loads if fire retardant slurry.Unfortunately for this blog, I was shooting video while we were on top of the fire. It was pretty neat to see, and I could see fire fighters working on the ground. The helicopter also could get really low.
Fun day. Only one more day till I get to go home to my great family. See ya later.
Micah

Sunday Afternoon

Here I am after coming home from church. I took a nap on the drive home, so I am extra perky in this picture.

MO' FROM IDAHO

Working around the aircraft is great. The flight crews have loved the videos I've done and everyone wants to help us with whatever we need.


In the cockpit at the pilot's controls. Oooops. What did I just bump?????


It's great work and a lot of fun. The days have been long (up to 18 hours) with shooting, and then editing, but I'm addicted to the work.

Can't wait to head back home to my great wife and cute daughter in Charlotte.

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Parked for the night.

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End of day.

Some Happy Kate Pictures

Hi! I like living in North Carolina, but I miss all of my family so much. I want to take this opportunity to extend an invitation to my grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends and whoever to come visit me!

Here I am in my swing. I have with me my friend the Lion. He is fun.

One of my favorite things to do is look at myself in the mirror. Mommy says between that, my love of the television, and my fascination with the telephone I could be a teenage girl. Mommy is so silly.

Watching Martha Stewart

Mommy and I like to watch Martha Stewart. In this picture, Martha was talking about how to make a pasta cake. And, I was thinking, "Wow! I never knew you could make a cake out of pasta! And ziti, no less!" Oh no! Mom! How can we make the pasta cake if we ran out of ziti!

All this is just too much to think about. I am going to take a nap and hopefully when I wake up, Mommy will have solved the ziti problem.

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Back on the road.

Today I was so excited. Mommy opened a savings account for me! I was just thinking that my first words were going to be, "Charge it to my account!" when Mommy said, "Not so fast. There isn't any money in your account yet." I think this is a mean trick of Mommy's. In fact, I've decided I am NOT going to help her fold this laundry. So there!

From Idaho

We're out scouting for interviews from people affected by the forest fires and we stopped along the way.

Our planes are out dropping fire retardant in Oregon and Nevada. We were in a meeting today where all the agencies coordinate all the fires for whole country. Interesting.


I only had my phone with me so I used the built in camera for these.

We're having some trouble getting clearance to get very close to the fires. We'll have to work on that. Does anyone have a match?
Tomorrow we're shooting all the ground crews that turn each aircraft around many times a day. They refuel, refill the planes with "slurry", go through all the checklists as fast as possible, and guide the plane through take off again. It is very tough work for the ground crews and the flight crews. Many have flown in Iraq and they say this is tougher because the mountains create crazy air currents, then you get close to the fire and it gets worse. So your plane is getting boxed around all over the place, your loaded down to the max so it's as tough as it gets to fly, then you're flying low (dangerous) over very bad terrain, being very careful but trying to hit a very specific target, and then dumping your whole payload in a matter of seconds right in the most volatile airspace close to the fire and going from a heavy plane to a very light plane and keeping control the whole time. Then they fly back as fast as they can and do it again and again and again.

Today was a lot of foot work and hand shaking for us to prep the rest of the week. More pictures to come

Today we went to Walmart. Mommy says you can find just about anything at Walmart. I'm wondering in which aisle I'll be able to find Daddy. I miss him.

Today, we went to the library so Mommy could rent some movies to watch while Daddy is gone. Mommy says you can borrow books from a library, too. But, she said, as long as I chew books, I have to bring my own. Just think...all these books and noone has sunk their teeth (I have 2 now, thank you very much) into them. If Mommy will just turn her back for a minute - I have my eye on a fat Grisham novel.

Saying Goodbye to Daddy

Daddy is off to fight forest fires in Idaho. He's in the Air National Guard which is exciting, but sad when he is gone. I promised him before he left that I'd keep him updated on the blog about what Mommy and I are doing. I love you, Daddy!! Be safe!