So Proud of my Grandkids

 

I decided I wanted to write about my grandkids today. I have four of them. Two girls and two boys. The youngest is Jacob (Jake) and he is 9. I live with him now and get to interact with him more. He’s quite smart. Some of the things that come out of his mouth verify this. And he’s brave too.  A lot braver than I ever was at 9 years old. For example, when him and his folks were returning from their week long visit in NY to see Andy’s folks, the air plane seating was such that there were two together and a third off my itself. Jake requested the third seat saying “I really need a break”. Haha And he was just fine and dandy visiting with the two ladies he was stuck with. He’s big on sports and plays football, basketball and soccer. Also loves to swim and spends a lot of time at the pool. He gets high marks at his school and that makes his folks proud. He’s a character through and through.

                                                  Jake at Lake Ontario with his Aunt Crissie.

My other grandson is Hunter. He’s 23 and just bought his first home this week. Him and Taylor (his cute girl friend) bought it together so we’re fairly confident she’s going to be part of our family soon. This place is on an acre of land up in Port Angeles. I asked each of the kids to write about their life as I was more or less in the dark as to what they actually did for a living. Hunter wrote:

Hi grandma, I work at Bruch and Bruch construction and I am a heavy equipment mechanic apprentice in the operators union (local 302). I drive a Kenworth shop truck for work and have another 6 months and I’ll be at the journeymen level. I work at all sorts of things from dump trucks, excavators, all the way to rock crushing equipment. Doing work anywhere from oil changes, paint jobs on dump trucks, to full engine rebuilds. I went to school at Universal Technical Institute in Avondale Arizona for diesel mechanics, the main course was 10 months long and after that I took an extra course for heavy duty Cummins engines which was another 3 months. By taking the Cummins program I received multiple certifications to be able to do warranty work on those specific engines.  Taylor and I a buying a house it’s a 2003 double wide manufactured home sitting on an acre with a nice shop.  The yard is all open and grass and has a nice paved driveway getting to the house. It’s right off Hwy 101 but you can barely see the corner of the house from the highway.

pics of their house:

Catie is 34 and got married to Louie Guevarez a year ago. She met him in high school in Florida and I really like him. She wrote: My job is Software QA Analyst. I am part of ThriftBooks' web development team. When a developer makes changes or adds new things to the website, I check their work and make sure it does what it is supposed to, looks the way it is supposed to, and make sure it didn’t inadvertently break something else before it is deployed to our live website.

I've been a vendor at the Kent Farmers Market since 2017. The market will be celebrating its 50th year next year. I take pictures for the market and add them to instagram and Facebook. I sell jewelry, cards, postcards, hair accessories and whatever crafts I decide to make and put up. I'm currently working on a small skeleton fairy diorama I hope to have completed before this weekend's market. You can see my crafts on my instagram page https://www.instagram.com/catiescraftcloset/

My main focus this year has been on updating the way I display my items at my booth. I made new frames to display my earrings, and some fun book holders to display my greeting cards. I have plans for a few more displays, but I have yet to make them.

Maddie who is a twin of Hunter lives in Mississippi with her husband, Ants who is in the air force. She wrote:  My official “duty title” is the Resource Management Flight Commander and the Commander’s Support Staff Flight Commander. In total, I oversee two “departments” and 8 people. She is a lieutenant and her husband has to salute her. hee hee

For Resource Management, I deal with quite a bit but mainly I manage our $7.5M budget, all active duty manpower authorizations, civilian personnel (hiring, awards, timecards, etc), contractors, data quality, MOUs/MOAs, government travel, third party collections, and a medical expense system called MEPR.

For Commander’s Support Staff, I’m essentially in charge of the group of employees who act as administrative assistants to the Commanders & the entire Medical Group. This can be a variety of things like awards, drug testing, government travel cards, leave, medical group instructions (regulations specific to our Medical Group), in processing, out processing, promotion testing, etc.

One of the most intimidating tasks I do is brief at the Executive Committee. Every month, I have to brief the commanders and the executive staff on all of those tasks. It’s definitely helped with my public speaking though!I got asked to attend the Air Force Association in Washington, DC. It’s not for sure yet, but my commander wants me to go. I’d be going with the Base Wing Commander and a few others selected to go. Essentially it’s a giant conference with a bunch of high military leaders & political leaders. I didn’t think much of it until the retiree civilians I oversee said it’s a big deal to even be asked! I’m also going to Oklahoma next week to get training on the new financial system that’s being deployed next year. 

In front of the house they bought in Mississippi