Donaldson Crew Adventures

This weekend, as an early celebration of his 14th birthday with his friends, we did a ski day up at Mt Bachelor.  The snow conditions this spring are amazing.  The coverage of snow is incredible considering its almost May.    Kelly packed us an amazing lunch that we ate in the parking lot for lunch.  After skiing we stopped in town for pizza.    If you are trying to pick out Hunter and Noah - Noah has the bright green pants and the blue jacket on skis.  Hunter is in all black with a grey helmet on a snowboard.

Hunter has been playing bass and 6 string guitar at school.  This year at the middle school spring recital he as part of an 8th grade group that performed the song 'Don't stop believing'.  He played bass and did an amazing job.

The national EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) has a program ran by volunteers called Young Eagles to help get kids into the field of aviation.  Bend has a chapter managed by some great volunteers.  Hunter has recently joined and will participate each week helping the group put together airplanes.  As part of the program they can also go up with the pilots when they fly.  

Here are a few pictures of Hunter helping thread rudder cables on a plane followed by some pictures from his first small aircraft on Sunday.  His pilot Jack was a commercial pilot in his younger days and now flies just for fun.  The plane they flew in was built by Jack himself.  After his first flight he got a certificate, and a flight log book, to log his trips and flight time.    

Here is Hunter taking off on in his first flight.

Here is some video footage Hunter took from the cockpit.  He also got to take the stick and steer the plane while in the air!

Today Hunter participated in his first pistol competition! He did really well for his first time and enjoyed it a lot. As expected there is a huge focus on safety and they really work with new shooters to learn good safety practices.

Sunday afternoon there was an organized 'range day' with the church middle school and high school. We shot pistols and rifles. Here is a cool capture of the rifle muzzle blast we got via slo motion video on an iPhone.

We got invited to go up boating for the day this past Sunday.  Hunter and his friend Asher were tubing until their arms fell off.

Hunter's end of year middle school trip was to the Oregon coast this year.  As with last years trip to Boise, I volunteered as part of the chaperone/driving squad.   It was a fun trip with great weather on the first day and decent weather the second two.  The kids got to go in the ocean, visit a marine science center, take a boat around Newport Harbor to see the sea life, ride an old railway line with peddle based systems and sand-board on some sand dunes.  Great group bonding for grades 5-8.  Here are a few pics and a video of hunter on the sand-board. 

Hunter at his ski elective at Mt Bachelor on Friday

Last spring I did some pipe shelving for Noah in his room above his desk. Hunter wanted some as well but we came up with a different design for his. Like Noah’s we used reclaimed barn wood that is over 100 years old giving it a rustic feel with the pipe.