Today we had some very sad news from New Zealand. My Grandpa passed away this morning in his sleep. He lived an extrodinary life and had quite an influence on me growing up. We’ll miss him very much.
Here are a few of my favorite images of my Grandpa from past trips to New Zealand.
Grandpa and I at his timber factory.

When we were both a little younger.

Grandpa and Lindsey.

Showing off his fly fishing wall.

He was the International Fly and Plug Casting Champion in 1962.

One of my favorite pictures of us together in 2000.

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dad’s out there.

While I was in Hawaii, I was able to convince my wife to let me buy a fancy espresso machine. I justified it by showing the ROI created by a lesser dependecy on Starbucks visits. Here’s the math:

• Grande Americano = $2.30
• 5 Americanos per week * 52 weeks per year = 260 Americanos
• Total Cost = $598 anually

Lindsey estimates her Starbucks consumption to be around $400 per year (before including the banana loaf).
Tamping my first shot.


My precious.


Molto buon!

Today was a pretty exciting day. I got to spend the whole day playing in the dirt with my neighbors. Since we’ve only been living in our new house for a couple months now this was a great opportunity for everyone to spend some time getting to know each other. Along the way we moved a little dirt and drilled a few holes.
Did I mention the dirt? It was rather plentiful today. Almost too much of a good thing. We had five houses split a few truckloads. It ended up being 105 tons of dirt. Seemed like kind of a bit to me. The good news is we didn’t have to deal with wheelbarrows. We all split the cost of an 8,000 pound track loader to reduce the toll on our aging bodies. The neighbors made the grand gesture of letting me run the equipment pretty much all day, which of course made me smile 😉



In true construction worker fashion. Everyone standing around watching one guy do all the hard work. We probably drilled close to 80 of these today. Sure beats using a posthole digger.


Here’s the crew at the end of the day.

Josh and I hiked up Mt. Pilchuck late Sunday afternoon. At the summit (5324 feet) there is a historic fire lookout built in 1909. After a quick dinner inside the lookout we headed back down, using our headlamps to illuminate the trail.