Noah on Mackinaw Island after going through the butterfly house. Apparently everyone has a very good time. :) 

Recent picture that was just too funny... check out the old school Grover...  

Noah's 4-wheeler

Noah's 4-wheeler
Originally uploaded by dfester.

Noah on his 4-wheeler in the backyard - Spring 2004

Mantas in PV

DSC01175_edited
Originally uploaded by dfester.

Getting to dive with Manta Rays in Puerto Vallarta

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Last couple of weeks

Well, I thought I should drop a quick note to everyone about what's been going on the last couple of weekends.

A little update on the diving trip 3 weekends ago… The diving both days was excellent. Weather cooperated nicely. Got to see a couple of excellent wrecks, one in particular named the Eber Ward. It’s a 200ft wooden freighter, that's 150 years old. The anchors are hanging over the bow, there are tools and hand-trucks for loading still in the storage areas, it's just a cool wreck. Only trick is that it's 130ft deep, which is considered the deepest one should go for recreational diving. That's where the story gets interesting. I have been this deep a number of times, so this was nothing out of the ordinary, but still to be respected. To shorten a rather detailed story, after the dive I developed a case of Decompression Sickness (the "bends") which was not recognized until we made it home at about 11:30pm. The only symptom I exhibited was a bit of stiffness and some "tingling" in my right leg, no pain, no nothing. To be honest, there is a whole variety of symptoms and conditions that are generally called "the bends", mine was pretty minor. None the less, I spent all night in the ER and almost 6 hours in a recompression chamber on Monday. That part wasn't fun as it is basically the size of an MRI / Catscan chamber. Fortunately the "tube" is clear so they can let you watch TV / movies. That all being said, I am fine. Can start diving again in about another 3 weeks. No obvious cause, although I will need to take some additional precautions in the future. It's just one of the risk associated with diving. Hopefully, the experience helps me to train those divers I instruct all that much better. :)

2 weekends ago we had the maiden voyage of the popup camper. We left of Friday for a local church camp in Big Rapids, Cran Hill Ranch. It's a nice campground. There are a lot of additional activities for kids as they also run a regular camp for kids during the week. Setup of the camp seemed to go well, maybe 30-45 minutes and we were all set. Bummed around on Saturday, mostly reading a book. Took a wagon ride in the evening, and went to a potluck for our church members. So it was nice to spend some time outside of church with them. Sunday, they had a chapel in the woods, so that was nice. Noah got to pet a Donkey that they brought up from the petting zoo area. Had lunch and packed up. Packup too about an hour and a half. Need to get better that keeping things more organized during the time we are at the site. But all in all it was nice. No problems with the trailer. It was pretty cold at night so we tried the furnace out on night, it actually made things a little too warm. But at least we know that it works. Other than that, we enjoyed the trip and are hoping to get out a couple of more times before the snow flies.

Well that's all for now, will be working around the house the labor day. God Bless and have a restful / productive holiday weekend.

New Idea

Well, I thought that I might try a blog to keep the friends and family updated on what's going on with our life. :)