Russ Buys a Plane - 30 June 2004

At the end of June Russ flew to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit his parents as well as to check out purchasing a plane in Rogers, Arkansas. Russ ended up purchasing a Piper Cherokee with tail number N75078. Although it was a long flight to bring it back to Virginia, Russ loves having his own plane at his disposal. Now he and his best friend Chad DeNaughel can go flying whenever they want and not have to worry about getting bumped off the schedule from renting a plane through the Aero Club at Langley AFB.

Rachael's June 2004 California Trip

My second cousin Andrea Slosberg was getting married at the end of June in the Los Angeles area.  So I flew out to Ontario CA, where the airport is right along the I-10.  As my dad drove out from Phoenix, he was able to pick me up at the Ontario airport on our way out to Woodland Hills.

The hotel we stayed at was across the street from a lovely outdoor mall. 

The highlight of the mall was it had a Cold Stone Ice Cream store, in walking distance from the hotel!  Needless to say, we may have made a trip or to for ice cream during our stay.  My dad was amazed at the line of people waiting for ice cream.  We'd each bought our cones (mine the Macademia Delight -- sweet cream ice cream with pineapple, banana, coconut and macademia nuts and my dad had the German Chocolate -- chocolate ice cream with caramel, pecans, coconut and fudge) and sat outside for at least 30 minutes enjoying the beautiful weather.  That whole time there was at least a line of 30 people waiting to buy ice cream.

The wedding didn't start until the later afternoon.  So the morning of the wedding there was a car show in the parking lot at the mall across the street from our hotel.  My father loves looking at specialty cars.  Since this was a Ferrari show, he really enjoyed looking at the cars.

 



 

Here's Andrea with her husband, Toyon Proulx.

 

Here are Andrea, Nancy, Ricky and Herschel Slosberg.  (Ricky and my dad are first cousins.  Ricky's dad, Harry Slosberg, and my dad's mom, Rose Slosberg Stoller, were brother and sister.) 

 

It was a great wedding with wondeful food.  Fortunately, as the location for the wedding was at the same turn off where the Reagan Presidential Library is located, former President Reagan died in early June rather than late June.  Or we would have waited several hours getting off the freeway to get to the wedding site.

 

I'd tried getting some photos of my dad with his cousins Ricky and Jeff Slosberg, but the shots didn't turn out too well.

 

Since we were so close to the Reagan Library, my dad and I visited the library a couple days after the wedding.  As with most presidential libraries, it was impressive.

 

I had a wonderful vacation visiting my second cousins and spending so much time with my dad.

Russ Graduates from Embry Riddle University

Russ actually completed the work for his Masters of Science degree in Aeronautical Science in April 2004, but the graduation ceremony wasn't held until 5 June 2004. His best friend, Chad DeNaughel, also graduated the same day.  Even though I played no role is Russ' accomplishment, I was still very proud of him.

After the ceremony we went out for lunch in Virginia Beach and then to the Virginia Beach Aquarium.  Russ and Chad were petting the sting rays (after having been chastened by the workers at the star fish tank where they were the first people "over 10 years old" who didn't read the signs and stuck their hands right in).  This was where I first learned that Russ and Chad are really little boys in big mens bodies who want to play.

After going through the aquarium we went outside to the nature walk.  This was the first picture we had of us as a couple that someone else took.  (All the rest were from Russ stretching his arm out.)

Unit Intramural Softball Games

Our unit had a co-ed intramural softball team.  By early June, one of our co-workers, Maj Greg Williams, commented that Russ and I seemed to carpool to all the games.  He asked if we had an "open secret."  I looked at Greg and said with a straight face that it was very open that Russ and I carpool a lot.  So he left things there.

I was really enjoying using my new camera (which happened to be the same make that Russ had but a newer model) at all the games.  At this game, Russ batted 1.000.  He had two triples and a homerun.  I can't remember the other times at bat, other than knowing he got on base each time.

Russ made the "sacrifice slide" into 3rd base.  I guess all those years riding motorcycles made him more immune to "road/dirt rash".