Goofy Kids

Coconut and Reilly

Reilly has been fascinated with coconuts since you can find then all over the place. We finally allowed him to bring one home. He wanted pictures taken and put on the blog so everyone (especially Coda) could see it.

The back ground in the picture is out our back door.

Brenden first flight - Friday

So after only 5 days of school, Brenden has his first day of flying.

He LOVED it.

He has lots of school work.

This is his instructor pilot and the plane he went up in.

Written by Brenden Riggs
Went for my first flight friday. Pretty uneventful, at least pretty uneventful in my world. I flew mostly in Arizona, smooth air, big runways, no trees, and a VASI. A VASI is a set of light that let you know if you are descending on the proper angle.

We took off, flew around did a few maneuvers and then Mike (my instructor) and I headed back to the airport to practise some landings. I was told to descend to 1000 ft above the ground. HOLY COW, who let the bucking bronco out, we were bouncing all over the place, I think I lost a contact lens which is horrible because I don't wear any. Then as we get closer to the runway I asked Mike where the VASI lights were whereupon I was informed this particular runway doesn't have any, but aim for the four digit number numbers at the end. I must have been seeing double because runways only have two digit numbers. I stuffed my eyeballs back into my head, don't really recall if they bounced out or if I opened them too wide, that isn't important. So I aim for this black strip of pavement that is moving all over the place, the lower I get the rougher the flight. We get closer to the runway and had a great landing. Let me define landings: A good landing is anything you walk away from, a great landing is one where you can use the plane again. I had sixteen touchdowns in that one landing, but my instructor said I couldn't count them as individual landings. Darn, i would have had enough landings on that one flight to get my license. Then Mike has the audacity to say, "lets do it again!" Glad he is braver than I am. So off we go to attempt another landing. Still bumpy, we circle around and come back for another landing. This time I am ready, coming in at proper speed, and altitude, raise the nose just before my wheels contact the ground, suddenly I am 30 feet back into the air. Stall warning blaring. A stall is pretty much falling out of the sky, bad things happen if you stall very close to the ground. I jam the throttle to full, lower the nose to get airspeed. We recover just fine, Mike looks over at me and says, "that will cover your missed approach lesson for today". We circle around, get clearance for the main runway, yeehaw VASI, there I make a beautiful landing. Taxi back to the parking spot, open the doors so all the water (Mike said sweat, but I don't believe him, it is humid here in Florida) could pour out. I can't wait for Monday to do it all again.

I Pod Humor

Brenden is now using my I POD Touch,

(Look out world, he is in the modern age)

and I was showing him how to use it.

I told him to just start playing with it and before I knew it he was laughing his head off, uncontrollably.

He said the I Pod bounced when it came to the top or bottom of the information. If you have a I Pod touch or something like it you know what I mean. He just thought it was so funny that it actually bounced.

He laughed so hard, it was contagious!!

Brenden's first day of school

Brenden is starting school today. He is going to Aviator College in Fort Pierce, Fl.

He was really cute today, (oh wait men aren't cute, manly is a better word). He was nervous and excited. I know he will do a great job!!! I am very proud of him.

He looked so handsome in his tan pants and white shirt.

He even had a hair cut, so he would look nice.

March 2010 Our first trip to beach

It was cold out so we didn't think anyone would want to get wet
Boy were we wrong!!!

Charlee getting hit by a wave

playing in the waves

We were all soaked by the time we went home.

The water is awesome and the sand is soft.

Our Home in Florida

Our apartment complex

'The Palms At Vero Beach'

Our front door


The cute sign from Joni - so people can find our door.

When you walk into the house, the first thing you see is stairs

Then to the left is the living room , is bigger than our old living room,

Reilly is lounging and Brenden's motorcycle cover is 'all over the place'

part of the living room and onto the kitchen

kitchen from the bar area

other side of the kitchen & the bar

office (big isn't it) and laundry behind those doors

The dining room

and the craft and food storage area

It is all bigger than it looks.

our back porch

we have a huge play area and basketball area out our back door!!

Upstairs has 3 bedrooms and 2 big bathrooms.

we have a storage outside and a storage area under the stairs.

We are in Florida!!

Okay, since I can't seem to keep up on the pictures and stuff, I am going to just right down little notes, on a daily or weekly basis.

So since March 17, 2010 Brenden retired from the Air Force with 20 years. We have moved to Florida so that he could go to school, and Aviator College is covered 100% by his GI bill. Yeah!!
We are loving Florida!! Nice beaches, the weather is lovely.

Today, since I am in scouts, the assistant cub scout leader, we had a meeting. Doing scouts tomorrow by myself. Then onto exercising, 2 miles and a dirt track, my foot is feeling okay.

Kids have speeches tomorrow and were practicing tonight, tons of homework. Feels like from Monday through Thursday all we do from 4:30 to 7 is homework. Irritating!! What are we going to do when they have other activities??

Family Pictures march 2010

Charlee, Nicole and Reilly
Reilly Talon Riggs

Charlee Christina Riggs

Nicole and Brenden Riggs

Charlee, Brenden and Reilly Riggs

Nicole, Brenden, Reilly and Charlee Riggs

The Ben and Anona Riggs Family

Catalina Island - Charlee

The 5th Grade group that went to Catalina Island from the Odyssey Prepatory Academy.

Charlee and Friends on the boat called the Catalina King.

Charlee with a squid on her eye. GROSS

Another part of the Squid - she is so brave.

January 28th, 2010
Yesterday some 5th graders left at 11:45 {15 min till mid} for Catalina!!! There’s not very much to tell, except that the bus driver stopped to go to the restroom, HIM ONLY!!!!! {We had a restroom inside of the bus}. At about 7:00, in California, we ate at McDonnell’s. Then, finally we got to the boat. HURRAY!!! While we were on the Catalina King {it’s the name of the boat} I saw 5 wild dolphins, 2 seals and 1 whale!!! I think it was an orca!!! Now, how cool is that!!! When we got to Catalina, they showed us where we are sleeping, the girls in the Bald Eagle, and the boys in the Barracuda. Then they went over a bunch of safety rules. BORING!!! Their buildings were made around the 1900’s! Then we had lunch. Went back to where we first were, and met our new instructors\ lifeguard. My group’s instuctor was Kelly!!! The kids in my cabin were Emma, Caylee, Miranda, Sydney Hoff, Nickeya, and Liana {Le- on-a}. The kids in my group were Emma, Caylee, Nickeya, Tristan, Ben, Kevin, and me. {There were some boys in my group}.At 1:30 we went snorkeling, and I saw a shovelnose guitarfish. It was tooooo cool!!! Then we ate dinner, had some freetime {30 min}. After that, we washed our hands. Then I went to bed. While we were in bed I read a chapter from the book “THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA” Then fell asleep. That was the first day of my trip to CATALINA ISLAND!!!

January 29th, 2010
Today is Friday my first full day at Catalina!!! I was soooooooooooooooo excited!!! I can’t believe that I had to wake up at 7:00am! By a bell, nobody in my cabin heard it. Caylee woke up because she heard some snoring, she said everybody snored. When we all woke up we all started talking, then a chaperone came in a said ‘Hurry up, you need to get dressed now. It’s almost 7:25’. Then everyone said ’what? That can’t be right’. Then I said’ Hey, I’ll get dressed to see if it is true’. Then they all said ‘OK’. I got dressed went outside to check the clock and it said 7:20. I ran back inside and they asked what time it was. I said ‘7:20. Hurry up or we’ll be late. I still had to brush my hair. Then when it was 7:24 we all ran outside. Everyone was already lined up, and he was there too. My group got lined up, and was the last to be dismissed, for breakfast. When we were done we went back and brushed our teeth then lined up again, and went to Algae Lab. I learned a lot about algae, like its holdfast is its roots and hold it where it is or make it sink to the bottom, while its air bubbles make it float, because all plants need sunlight and water. I also learned the stipe is the stem, and their blades are their leaves. We have been eating algae our entire life, like in ice cream and whipped cream. After Algae lab we went to Shark lab and got to touch small leopard sharks, small horn sharks, bat rays, round rays, shovelnose guitar fish{a type of ray} and I don’t remember what the other one was called. Then we lined up and got dismissed for lunch. At 1:30 we went snorkeling {for about 30 min maybe 1hr}.We had free time for everyone {30 min}. Then we lined up and instead of our instructors, we had batman and rainbow girl! They told us that our instructors got kidnapped by the giant evil squid!!!! They said that we had to help them get research on squids. We had small ones though! We helped them. They told us how to identify squids, if they were boys or girls. We had to choose partners for this though, And I chose Emma. Our squid was a girl, because it had fewer things then the boys and a place to hold their eggs.Then we lined up and got dismissed for dinner. Then everyone went back to their dorm and got into their pajama's. I read another chapter from “The Phantom of the Opera”. Then finally fell asleep at about 10:00. Boy was I tired the next day.
January 30th, 2010
Today is Saturday. We are leaving tomorrow. I’m not happy; this place is toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fun to leave!!!!! We got dressed and lined up to get dismissed for breakfast. When we finished breakfast we went back to our dorms and lined up for our program. After that program we went to lunch. We all had free time {30 min}. At 1:30 we went snorkeling. We went under the dock and then got on the thing that people get on when getting on or off the boat, took off our snorkel goggles, and jumped off it! Then we went to dinner. After dinner we went rebel rock-climbing {about 1-2hrs} I was the first one to make it up the easy ones. Even though, I was the 5th one to climb it. Then got to the 2nd part on “The Beast” {it is the name of one of the rock climbing walls, because it is so hard}.After that, we had a bon-fire by the beach {I call it a beach bon-fire}. We roasted marshmallows {mine was always burnt}, and sang camp fire songs. After that we went back to our dorms and went to bed. I didn’t even read, because I was soooo tired!!!
January 31st, 2010
Today is Sunday and we are leaving today. I don’t want to leave at all. Before we left we went to a lab. Inside that lab we got to observe an octopus!!!!! TOTALLY COOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!! Then Kelly put a glove on and picked up a lobster in another observing area!!!!! To bad they were all female; we didn’t get to see a male lobster. Then we got to touch a sea slug, it was gross, but at the same time it was cool! It was very squishy. Then we got to touch animals like sea stars and sea cucumbers and sea snails {it is the same thing as a snail, but lives in the ocean}. If any of those wouldn’t move then they were attached. Right before we were about to leave the lab, Kelly feed the octopus a crab, it didn’t eat it so I guess it wasn’t hungry. Then we left the lab and went to Plankton Lab! There are 2 types of plankton, phytoplankton {plant-like plankton} and zooplankton {zo-plankton which is animal-like plankton} it was so cool we drew the plankton we saw up close the microscope!!!! The sad part is that we left right after that {we did get our things though}. On our way back we saw a whale up close next to the boat!! This time, it was an orca!!!!!!!!!!!! We watched movies and slept on the boat; if we were sleeping somebody would wake them up when we got to land. On the Ioat I watched Brother Bear 2. On the bus we watch the movies UP and Willy Wonca. I will always remember the trip and Kelly, Matt, Peter and Cori!!! Mr.McNett, Mr. Burden, Mrs. Clements and Mrs. Hill.
I WANT TO GO BACK FOR
SUMMER CAMP!!!!

New Years 2009

I really miss the good old days when we were young and carefree, didn't have a worry in the world, and dad paid or fixed everything. Well those days are definitely gone.
January we did our annual 4x4 run, since we really didn't want a repeat of what happened a few years ago BJ picked a nice sedate trail.
Our caravan takes off, BJ's buggy which looks like a skeletal HUMVEE, Matt pulling the 52 Willy’s, Derrick pulling a modified (I can't remember what year) 1 ton flatbed truck which later became the rattle trap, me pulling my rig.
After unloading everything we took off. Four monster four-wheel drives, huge 31 or 35 inch tires, lockers on every rig, KC lights everywhere, we were ready for anything. We followed the road enjoying some of the scenery which was desert. We were talking and laughing having lots of fun, traveled for about 30 minutes when the road started climbing to go over the mountain. I had been having overheating problems all year long and this day was no exception so I took off traveling fast to try to keep some air flow over the radiator, but about every 5 minutes climbing the hill we had to stop shut the rig off and squirt the radiator down, then wait for it to cool. After 3 cooling stops we finally made it to the top of the mountain and started down hung a left drove a little bit further and arrived at our destination. We parked our massive-super modified-stripped down-no frills-climb anything-go anywhere-machines and surveyed the parking lot admiring the other vehicles that had made that harrowing drive, there were a few pick-ups a couple of Sheriff’s trucks pulling horse trailers, and a few other 4X4's, then we turned to our wives and handed them our "Man cards" because nestled between these other vehicles was a Ford Taurus, that is a car, a city car, a soccer mom car, an old man car, which came over the exact same road we did. Yep, that road was tough. However that was not the end of our excitement, we ate our lunch when the kids wanted to go for a hike, so they took off down the trail with Joni's brother. A few minutes later they came charging back up, where upon Joni's brother informed us that the reason the sheriff’s trucks were there is because some hikers found a dead, yes you read that right a dead, deceased, no longer living type body laying on the trail and the sheriff’s were bringing the body up now......KIDS GET IN THE TRUCKS NOW!!!
We quickly packed the kids in and headed back down the trail to load up. We arrived un-eventfully. So the lesson we learned that day is that you can have fun four wheeling without breaking anything.
So with that thought process in mind Matt and his three children came out to our house in Buckeye Jan 9. Their youngest wanted to go for a ride in the jeep. No problem because I had learned that you can have fun without breaking anything.
Me, my wife, our two kids, Matt and his three kids all piled into my Jeep to go for a ride. We took off, headed toward the river bottom we are having fun, we drive in the wash for a little bit, stop shut down to let the radiator cool.
Suddenly I see smoke come billowing out from under the hood, my first thought is that I over heated but it smelled like oil, so I shut down and popped the hood, sure enough it was oil. Before we left I over filled the power steering pump so I thought it was just that fluid that was being sprayed on the engine and hood. No biggie, we'll just head back home. Pile everybody in the jeep start it up and start driving towards home when we notice oil coming through the firewall, and it wasn't seeping, it was pouring through. I knew that if I stopped the jeep there my truck would not be able to pull it out because the sand was VERY soft and VERY deep, so I had to get the jeep to hard ground, which was pretty far away. I yell for everybody to sit and begin to drive like the Baja 1000, heart rate increasing. Now the engine is beginning to get warmer the oil is pouring through faster, anxiety increasing. Oil and warm motor creates smoke a lot of smoke, heart rate increased even more, and anxiety is turning into panic.
Almost there, when suddenly my windshield shatters, and ear drums burst as my wife decides that people in New York City need to know, without the benefit of a phone, that my engine is on fire. So I immediately do the prudent thing and hit the brakes bringing my jeep to a sudden halt. I was violently crushed back ward into my seat, usually it takes a few minutes to get everybody out of that rig, but they vacated it so fast they left a vacuum. Matt and I, once the vacuum subsided, bailed out and headed to the front to open the hood, Matt handed me the fire extinguisher and I pulled the pin and squeezed the trigger and got the biggest surprise, it worked, the fire extinguisher actually worked. So there I am putting out the fire, which was started by oil, and my wife comes up with a water bottle so I turn to talk to her, when I made another startling discovery, the fire extinguisher once activated does not turn off, so as I turn to my wife the extinguisher sweeps across shooting her right in the face. Can you say dilemma, truck on fire, wife covered in fire extinguisher powder......which one do I go to.....I didn't need another stress factor at that point.
Anyway, we got the fire out, wife still says she kinda loves me; we got the kids calmed down, found out where the oil leak came from, plugged the hole and decided to drive it out instead of getting the truck. But I still had oil all over the engine, when I had a brainstorm, what is a good way to soak up oil? Why you cover it with sand or dirt. So there I am dumping sand all over the top of my engine (not in the carb). Well we fire her up, get to the hard dirt load all the kids back in, I was kind of surprised we got them back in the smoking vehicle, and headed back home. It was the same road I had used many times but Uncle Sam and the DOT decided my day was not complicated enough and had strung 4 row of barb wire across the place where I usually cross. Matt and I decided to loosen the wires so I could drive over them but the wires were strung too tightly, my fun meter was pegged and all I wanted to do was get my smoking vehicle home, so I told everybody to get out the jeep (safety first) just in case the wires broke as I drove over/through the barbed wire fence. After making it safely through the fence we piled everybody back into the jeep and drove home.
I need an easier hobby for next year…maybe I’ll take up flying!!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

OCTOBER 31, 2009

WE HAD A WONDERFUL DAY ON SATURDAY, THEN ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT WE WENT TRICK R TREATING WITH SOME GOOD FRIENDS. WITHIN AN HOUR OR SO THEY FILLED THEIR BUCKETS WITH CANDY AND GOODIES AND WE WERE ON THE WAY HOME TO WATCH MOVIES AND EAT THE TREATS.

YUMMY

Lucas Oil Speedworld Raceway Park

The big guys were just as excited as the little ones!!

On Saturday, October 17, 2009 We went to the Baja races with Brenden's brother, BJ and his amazing family. We had the funnest time!!! It was Awesome!!

Reilly's favorite parts were: When the the unlimited trophy truck rolled right in front of him, it was scary and awesome!!! He also loved the crashes and watching # 8 our new favorite, Leroy Loerwald, after talking to him awhile and him giving the kids pictures and signing autographs. We found out that he was also LDS. We all thought that was awesome!!

Charlee's favorite parts were: getting free shirts with her cute cousin Jaycee!! She also liked seeing all the crashes and the jumps. Charlee also likes #8. Had a fun time getting free stickers and posters of everyone. She loves the BAJA races, she can't wait to go to the one in March for her Birthday!!

We had a amazing time with BJ, Joni, Jaycee, Coda and Keate. Always a fun time!!!!

Lucas Oil Speedworld Raceway Park

Brenden, Jaycee, Charlee, and ReillyCoda and Keate



Brenden and Nicole



Joni and BJ