Good-bye Kite

It definitely was a good weekend, though as always went too fast...and despite the fact that Sam's kite (a really cool Blue Angels kite) got away from him and tangled itself up in some powerlines. It first got caught in some tree branches, but Ryan climbed up and was able to get it loose from the branches. Unfortunately, it moved immediately from the tree to the powerlines where we decided it was best to now leave alone. It was gone yesterday morning when we drove by, so I am hoping that OPPD was able to come out and retrieve safely from the wires.

I am still enjoying my current book, End of the Spear. Steve Saint is definitely a very good story teller, plus it is simply a good story to read about. For the most part, he is telling about the time that he and his family went and lived with the Waodani tribe for almost 2 years. Their purpose in being there was to help the Waodani become more self-sufficient and be able to support theirselves long-term without outside or government help. Though from largely good intentions (well, except maybe not from the oil companies), the Waodani had become over-dependent on others help/aid.

Besides being quite touched by some of the stories, I find myself laughing every night as I read through the pages. My latest favorite story was when Steve was visiting hardware stores in his hometown to get ideas for how to best build him and his family a house to live in once they moved to the amazon with the Waodani. He was sharing about how he would walk up and down the aisles just looking for items that might work best, and even enlisting the help of some helpful hardware store employees (who would even sometimes call him days later with ideas that they had brainstormed...there was something interesting about a guy building a home in the rainforest).

This story definitely made me think of my Dad as I could see him being like Steve and puttering up & down the aisles of a hardware store, and just enjoying the challenge and creativity needed to build that home. I was just thinking of all the cool things that Dad has put together over the years: a gigantic toy box for me & my sister (we could both sit in it and still have room for at least 20 more kids), a wooden maze for my hamster, Freddy Krueger gloves with wooden knife blades attached to each finger, a wheeled cart to help his grand-daughter Hayley start crawling...