Kasey Burow – On the Wings of Angels

Goddard Level Rockets Ride The Skies in 17 Days Redbird #20 Among Them

The Goddard level rockets, which are the capstones of the SystemsGo program and the culmination of all the skills the students have learned throughout their years in the STEM program are set to launch June 21-23. This marks the final senior project for the schools that participate in this level of the SystemsGo program.

Redbird #20 is scheduled for testing at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) Sunday, June 23. This marks the last big event for Rockets 2019 and the Fredericksburg Engineering/Rocket Program.

As of today, May 31, when I was able to get a report on the rocket’s status, from team member, Dawsen Harkins, was in good standing. He reported that as of May 30, the nosecone had been assembled and covered with its first layer of fiberglass.

In this photo the nose cone ring is being secured in place, and centered by skewers for fiberglassing.

Although, the tank required 2 trips to SRM to have leaks rewelded, it has now completed its pressure testing successfully. It will be returning to SRM again to have the hatches and holes cut in.

New for this year is a piston valve system. This has also performed well when tested.

This year’s rocket is supporting three payloads. The first came from Harvard University, courtesy of former FHS student, Joseph Sanchez, who attends school there. It is a CubeSat with a pneumatically deployed solar panel.

They second one was created by Keith Jenkins, the FHS IT guy. It is a small electronics bay.

The third the team provided. It is a GoPro camera. It will be positioned behind an acrylic window in the hatch, so that it can look out and video the vehicle’s flight.

According to Harkins, “All components bays have been made and 3D printed and fit perfectly in the rocket.”

The fuel grain is also on the task list. They have assembled the mold for pouring it. One part of the mixture for the fuel grain is still not in but they will be mixing and pouring it as soon as this arrives.

As of this report, supplied last Friday, the following list of things is left and then they are FRR complete.

Complete the fiberglassing of the nose cone.
Make the fuel grain and assemble the motor system.
Assemble the recovery system.
Weld fins to body.
Cut hatches and have holes drilled in the body tube.
Fix minor little things for flight.

The current list of students from this team attending the WSMR launch is as follows:

Rodolfo Avila, Cody Blohm, Gloria Burns, Alexander Casteneda, Lucio Castro Vazquez, Clayton Ellebracht, Jose Escalante, Jabin Gipson, Dawsen Harkins, Cooper McDonald, Eduardo Memije, Bradley Plaza, Joshua Reese-Hadley, Nicholas Rodriguez, Robert Sanchez, Deja Turkett, Gabriel Voorhees, Carl Wilger, and Robert Zowie.

Currently there is not a team picture available, but here is Nick Rodriguez, Deja Turkett and Dawsen Harkins taking a work break on the stairs at FHS.

Launches are scheduled for June 21st and June 23rd. The team will travel out to WSMR on Wednesday, June 20th, and back home again on the 24th.

There are 7 schools scheduled to launch 8 rockets. These schools include:

Alamo Heights
Anahuac
Booker T. Washington
Brazoswood
Fredericksburg
Marble Falls
Union Grove

The current launch schedule is as follows:

Thursday, June 2oth
1. Travel Day
Friday, June 21st
1. Mrorning-T-1/Site Set up WC-50; Afternoon-Launch Union Grove & Alamo Heights ( or whichever rockets are ready)
Saturday, June 22rd
1. Launch Day Two (Four Rockets-Booker T., Anahuac, Marble Falls, & Brazoswood)
Sunday, June 23rd
1. Launch Day Two (Two Rockets-Fredericksburg & Booker T Washington)
Monday, June 24th
1. Travel Day (Could travel home on the 23rd if operations are complete in time.)

This article is for the 2018/2019 school year to update the Fredericksburg Engineering/Rocket program. This school is a participant of the SystemsGo STEM program. This series of articles is intended to support and encourage students in the program as they share their working status and accomplishments throughout the year in the program. These publications will be available for tags and re-posting.

www.systemsgo.org as always is the place for more information on this program. You may also email them at info@systemsgo.org .Take the time to get your school involved, the future of your students will be greatly benefited.

#Rockets2018 #SystemsGo #FredricksburgSTEMAcademy #Launcher01 #RideTheSky #Texasrockettrail

Fredericksburg’s Engineering Rocket Program-Pre-Launch Week Red Bird #19 Update

Red Bird #19 is scheduled for testing at White Sands Missile Range(WSMR) next Friday, June 22. This marks the last big event for Rockets 2018 and the Fredericksburg STEM Academy for this season.

These are the Goddard level rockets, which are the culmination of all the skills the students have learned throughout their years in the STEM program. This marks the final senior project for those schools that participate in this level of the SystemsGo program.

As of today, June 15, the Fredericksburg Engineering Red Bird #19 rocket team is due to pick up the vehicle from SRM tomorrow, now that the welding is completed. The team still has to complete the assembly of the motor and then integrate it, as well as the, injector valve, payload, and parachutes. They will be attempting to finish the FRR tonight. In spite of the remaining tasks they are on schedule to make their launch at WSMR.

Red Bird #19 has an 8 inch diameter and is 25 feet long. The team outsourced the payload to the district IT employee and former FMS science teacher, Keith Jenkins. He created a sensor for the vehicle that will measure methane levels at the time of nose cone deployment.

When asked about the rocket’s expectations, Harrison Spisak stated, “My expectations are about 65,00 feet, but after NASA evaluated it they estimated 102,000.” Therefore that is the hopeful estimate if all goes perfectly.

Today, team members, Joey Leal and Harrison Spisak were working on the FRR, and T-1 briefing as seen in the photos below.

Here the nose cone and injection system also await integration.

Here Joey Leal checks on the rockets progress at SRM machine shop.

Harrison Spisak’s father will be hauling the rocket on his trailer to White Sands for the team.

Pictured here is this year’s Red Bird #19 Team: Back Row: Harrison Spisak, Jacob Wienecke, Evan Knapp, Bryce Erwin, Sergio Walle. Front Row: Corbin Smajstrla, Rebecca Sechrist, Pierce Vasquez, Joey Leal. Not pictured in the seniors picture was Chris Calzada.

Launches are scheduled for June 22nd and June 23rd, with a contingency day on the 24th if needed. The team will travel out to WSMR on Wednesday, June 20th, and back home again on the 23rd.

There are 5 schools scheduled to launch 6 rockets. These schools include:

Alamo Heights
Anahuac
Booker T. Washington
Brazoswood
Fredericksburg
Union Grove

The current launch schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, June 2oth Travel Day
Thursday, June 21st T-1 and Site Set up/Rocket Prep at WC- 50
Friday, June 22rd Launch Day One (Four Rockets-Fredericksburg, Brazoswood, Booker T., Anahuac)
Saturday, June 23rd Launch Day Two (Two Rockets–Union Grove, Alamo Heights)
Sunday, June 24th Contingency Day/ Travel Day
Monday, June 25th Travel Day if needed

This article is the eighth for the 2017/2018 school year in a series of periodic updates that has followed the Fredericksburg Engineering/Rocket program. This school is a participant of the SystemsGo STEM program. This series of articles is intended to support and encourage students in the program as they share their working status and accomplishments throughout the year in the program. These publications will be available for tags and re-posting.

#Rockets2018 #SystemsGo #FredricksburgSTEMAcademy #Launcher01 #RideTheSky

Happy Thanksgiving All

I had planned to post something that I had written in the past for Thanksgiving, only to discover I couldn’t find anything I had written in the past for Thanksgiving. How sad, I thought, such a wonderful holiday and I have never taken the time to write a word about it. Well, now I shall remedy that, even if at the moment I have no idea what I plan to say. So you will just have to bear with me a bit!

It is odd that I haven’t taken the time to write about this holiday since I know it is one of my favorites and I know many say the same. I think it stands out as such because it involves all the wonderful aspects of a holiday without so much commercial fuss. Yes, it does still have some, but not like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween.

It is designed as a holiday of thanks and sharing of all that we have, so we take the time to get together with family and friends and prepare and share food, fellowship, fun, parades, football, hunting, church, prayer and thanks. We share sheer joy at just being together. Our gifts for this particular holiday are our food, our joy, our love, and our companionship. We wrap them in smiles, hugs, tears and laughter.

We relax, visit, watch football, play games and eat all day long, and in our case late into the night. In fact sometimes it becomes a campfire party later in the evening.

The biggest stress is preparing food and cleaning at the house. Yes I said it that way on purpose because quite often all the cleaning never gets done (mostly dusting, the floors and bathrooms are clean-hey if you can’t handle that, write your name in the dust and then politely leave through the same door in which you came), and my family never seems to mind. What didn’t get done will get finished as the Christmas decorations go up next week. Besides, I live in a sand field and I can dust today and it will look like I never did by tonight, especially if the windows are open which they have been off and on lately. But I digress, that is not the point. The point is we get together for this holiday to give great thanks and to just plain eat and have fun.

The stressful stuff starts on Friday as we start shopping for that next biggest holiday of Christmas. But for Thanksgiving Day, wake up, watch the sun rise and go enjoy your family. I know that is what I am going to do. Actually most of them are coming to my house. I wish every last one of them was, but unfortunately some due to circumstances just cannot. I pray that where ever they are, they are safe and have a wonderful day anyway.

God bless and give thanks for all you have, and pray for those less fortunate than you that may not being having such a wonderful day. May God bless and keep them and fill their needs as well.

Happy Thanksgiving All may you have a wonderful and blessed day.

After Fredericksburg and Before Houston Rockets

Yesterday was the first day after Fredericksburg Rockets 2016, time to go back to work and the real world. It was my daughter, Kasey’s 21st birthday. We celebrated with her at Auslander Restaurant with good food and family. No drinks though, she just wasn’t interested. I think she has seen too much in the military with friends that drink. Not a bad thing though. We are just excited to have her home for her birthday, something that hasn’t happened in three years. Her sister, Chelsea is on the way home right now to do a little celebrating with her today since she couldn’t be here last night, so there is still more fun to be had. Congratulations Kasey on your birthday. We love you bunches!

Chelsea and Steve are heading to Houston on Thursday with SystemsGo to help schools in that area launch more vehicles. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make this trip this year so no pictures to post unless Chelsea, Phil, Steve, or other team members send me some shots. Usually I do get one or two from their phones that I can use with this blog, just no big picture posts on Facebook. They will be quite busy so I am not counting on anything like that. I do good to get daily report information to pass along for this blog, but I will get that.

This launch will be Saturday and Sunday. There will be 12 schools and 27 new rockets to send skyward. This is a very small launch site out in the swampy area near Clute, and it doesn’t allow public access, but there will be Livestream from there again so friends and family can still watch the action.

Phil Houseal will be traveling along with the team this year to conduct interviews on the site with students, teachers, team and other person’s of interest at this launch much like he did here at Willow City. This is a great new addition that allows the public to get a glimpse at education in motion. Get online and watch these students as they learn and share first hand.

Here is the link to the live stream again. This is actually the link for Sunday’s live feed at Willow City last weekend, but for now, until new feeds start on this Saturday, it will get you to the Livestream site.

http://livestream.com/accounts/3165037/events/5379604

Please remember that since there is no pubic access to this event, there are no tickets for order like there were last week in Fredericksburg.

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures if available, and some editorial content will also be posted.

Rockets 2016-Sunday’s Report-End of Fredericksburg Launches

Today was a light day for launches. Only two schools and four rockets. All launched and three were recovered. The fourth a Transonic, once again sailed off into oblivion. Unfortunately that is just the nature of the beast, but hopefully where ever it lands someone will return it. Shoots never deployed on it as far as we were able to tell, so it may be a lawn dart in someone’s pasture and may be too unrecognizable for them to know what they have and where to return it. We can only hope that is not the case. The goal is always to return the vehicle to the students because they learn from what happens after launch and landing as well as from building and firing the rocket.

I would like to congratulate SystemsGo on another successful launch weekend at Stewart’s Hillview Ranch for Rockets 2016. While this weekend’s launches are completed, there are still launches in Houston next weekend and White Sands Missile Range(WSMR), later this summer.

Launches here at Fredericksburg Rockets went amazingly smooth this year. We held a tight schedule this year. With the exception of only a few, if a rocket made it to the pad, and onto a rail, it launched the first try. They were racking them on and putting them up in phenomenal order. Everyone involved actually had down time in the evenings after launches were done this year. That was a nice and welcomed thing.

This last evening we even had time to go home rest and then come back together for a little fun and visiting outside of the site. Thank you to Scott Netherland for providing that time.

I would also like to say how thankful I am to this program. I have had two daughters go through it and continue on to schooling and careers related to what they learned from SystemsGo and the high school program.

Secondly I would like to thank SystemsGo for having us as volunteers for the program each year.It is so wonderful to be counted as a valued part of this group and it’s operations. I am really happy to be part of such a fantastic education based program for our youth.

As I mentioned earlier, the Houston launches are next weekend, May 21 and 22. I will try to have updates on how those are going, as information is available. Also the Livestream will be operational from there as well. Phil Houseal will be there doing PR and conducting interviews with people involved there. The Livestream link is still the same and is provided below.

http://livestream.com/accounts/3165037/events/5379604

Good luck to those schools launching in Houston. I will post schedules for those on those days. One thing to note is that the Houston launches are not open to viewing by the public. The facility is not large enough to provide parking and spectator area for this event, so schools and students involved only.

The Goddard level launches are still coming up hopefully in late June. There is a tentative date, but I won’t be posting that until closer to time since they can still be subject to change at the Army’s need. I will keep everyone posted on that as well as information is available. Good luck to all those schools and safe travels when you go there. For more information as usual check their website at www.systemsgo.org .

The following is a link to the album of pictures from today’s launch. Have a look you and your school rocket just might be in there.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1139283419426121.1073741865.100000334203350&type=3&pnref=story

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will also be posted.

Rockets 2016-Saturday Report & Sunday Schedule

Stewart’s Hillview Ranch boasted a very packed lawn today as Rockets 2016 continued into its third day of launches. Seven schools launched today for a total of 20 launches.

Our recovery teams ran an 80% recovery rate today bringing in 16 of those 20. Overall the teams are running about 79% for the weekend with 52 of 67 found. After final launches tomorrow the teams will have a chance to go out and hunt down more of the missing rockets. Of course there are a few that are not expected to be found any time soon since they went so far that there was not real line of sight to follow on them. For those we count on good neighbors to return them to SystemsGo if they locate them on their properties out of our viewing and hunting area. Each vehicle has SystemsGo contact information on it just for this reason. There are a few Transonics from the first two days that fall into that category, but we hope to locate a good portion of the missing 15 by the end of the day tomorrow.

The launches went smoothly and quickly again today, very little down time. All crews were kept busy, with the only real break happening due to rain showers late in the afternoon. With this recovery crew there is no such thing as being bored. If you are then you aren’t using your imagination, wit and blank radio space wisely.

Kasy Burow and James Drury were our third and fourth for Team 4 again today, and they made the day entertaining. They also taught Team 3 yesterday that there is no way to beat a team to rockets in their own front yard, whether you are at your spot when they fall or not. I always thought Steve was competitive in this recovery action, but I think the kids might have him beat.

I learned a valuable lesson about my camera battery today. Just because it used to make it through the event on one charge, doesn’t mean that a year later it still will. I ended up having to charge it half way through the day and so missed a lot of the action. I still managed 200 pictures though. Of course they will have to be narrowed down before posting as usual. But the moral is lesson learned, charge the battery whether you think it needs it or not.

Phil Houseal caught up with me today out at the launches for an interview. We talked about how long my family has been involved in this program. A good six years for sure. The first year helping Chelsea with her rocket and watching it launch and from then on helping in recovery here, Houston, and New Mexico.

Before our own involvement in the program we watched it and became interested because Josh Jung, and Melissa Jung our niece and nephew went through the early years. By the time they completed it and Josh started returning as a rep and volunteer from SpaceX, we were hooked and couldn’t wait for our children to take interest and be part of the engineering curriculum. Both girls, Chelsea and Kasey Burow did and are pursuing career paths in engineering fields. Brett is not in the program, but has helped with recovery in past years.

Now Chelsea is the one that returns each year to help with the launches in all three venues. Of course, this year she is missing Willow City because of college finals. She will be in Houston next weekend though.

I can’t believe we are down to one day and 4 rockets left to the Fredericksburg edition of Rockets 2016. I want a job doing this for a living, chasing rockets and then writing about it each day. Life is perfect. Anyone know where I can find one?

Below is the launch schedule for tomorrow, Sunday. There are 2 schools launching a total of 4 rockets tomorrow.

Sunday, May 15, 2016
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Manor High School Will Davis	2
RL Turner High School (Carrollton) Bill Richardson	1	1






Schools Launching	2
Totals	3	1
May 15^th Total Rockets	4

The following is a link to the album of pictures from today’s launch. Have a look you and your school rocket just might be in there.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1138090906212039.1073741863.100000334203350&type=3&pnref=story

Good luck to all the schools launching on Saturday. I will update the blog after we complete our day again tomorrow. Here is the link to the live stream again.

http://livestream.com/accounts/3165037/events/5379565

Please remember that although there is no charge for the event, and these launches are open to public viewing, parking and seating is limited due to safety requirements. For this reason, SystemsGo has a provided a link for you to pre-order tickets for those in your party. This also provides SystemsGo with a way to monitor the number of people in attendance each year. This is in no way meant to discourage your attendance, but is instead to help them provide a great experience for students and spectators, while doing all possible to monitor safety issues and attendance numbers at any one time during the launches.

https://www.greateventseats.com/events.php?lID=92

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will also be posted.

Rockets 2016-Friday Day 2 Report & Saturday Schedule

Friday was a great day for rockets. SystemsGo loaded 25 rockets onto the rails and launched all 25 rockets. Recovery teams were able to bring in 18 from today’s launches and recover a few still out from yesterday’s launches too. Transonics amassed most of those still missing in the field.

It was an amazingly smooth day, the schedule said 8:30 to 5:00 and all launches were done by about 4:30. Everyone involved appeared to be having a great time whether working, volunteering, participating as a school (student or teacher), or spectating.

KXAN news joined us today to conduct interviews with team members and get a feel for what SystemsGo does as well as all the students have to accomplish in order to build and launch these rockets. The report was supposed to air on the 6:00 edition as long as everything went well on the news crews timeline to get it edited and out on the air. It is wonderful to see attention being drawn to what these students are accomplishing, and the futures being built here by SystemsGo and their affiliate high schools.

Here is the link to the KXAN news report:

http://kxan.com/2016/05/13/it-is-rocket-science-students-launch-homemade-rockets-into-the-sky/

Below is the launch schedule for tomorrow, Saturday. There are 7 schools launching a total of 24 rockets tomorrow.

Saturday, May 14, 2016
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Alamo Heights High School Colin Lang		2
Buinger CTE Academy Michael Skrzynski	1	2
Fort Stockton High School Marcos Mendoza	3
Henrietta High School Doug Underwood	1	1
Northstar High School Byron Appelt	1	2
Northwest High School Elizabeth Mitias	4	1
University High School Dennis Oubre	4	2

Schools Launching	7
Totals	14	10
May 14^th Total Rockets	24

The following is a link to the album of pictures from today’s launch. Have a look you and your school rocket just might be in there.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1138090906212039.1073741863.100000334203350&type=3&pnref=story

Good luck to all the schools launching on Saturday. I will update the blog after we complete our day again tomorrow. Here is the link to the live stream again.

http://livestream.com/accounts/3165037/events/5379517

https://www.greateventseats.com/events.php?lID=92

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will also be posted.

Fredericksburg Rockets 2016-Thursday Day 1 Report & Friday Schedule

Thursday went well. It started off a little slow due to a rain delay and low ceiling. Fortunately, it burned off by lunch time and launches started lining up quickly. We had a little issue with quite a few coming down ballistic so that made recovery difficult on some where there wasn’t much visual or tracking. All in all we still had an 80% recovery rate with only 4 left in the field. Hopefully they will still be recovered before the end of the weekend.

This year is a special treat for us. We have a third party in our recovery team. Our Navy daughter is home on leave, and joined us to work recovery. We had a real good time. There was a lot of goofing around during breaks in the action. Her dad and her were quite entertaining to watch as they had plant war, trying to pelt each other with beggers lice bushes, and other burr covered plants.

Once again SystemsGo has a truly talented group of team members and volunteers that put full effort into a great experience for all the students involved.

We have a shadow group from New Mexico this year. They have recently come online with the program and are helping in all areas to try to learn and mimic what we do here in order to replicate it in New Mexico starting next year. Here’s a great shout out to them and their group, it is wonderful to have them here and on board with SystemsGo.

Below is the launch schedule for tomorrow, Friday. There are 8 schools launching a total of 25 rockets tomorrow.

Friday, May 13, 2016
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Akins High School John Sayce	6
Fabens High School Manny Moreno	3	1
Hardin-Jefferson High School Mike Fogo	2	1
Hollenstein Career & Tech Center Richard Griffith	2	2
Maypearl High School James Herrod	1
McGregor High School Chris Kuhl	1	1
Tom Moore (Ingram) High School David Bunch	2
Union Grove High School Greg Park	2	1




Schools Launching	8
Totals	19	6
May 13^th Total Rockets	25

The following is a link to the album of pictures from today’s launch. Have a look you and your school rocket just might be in there.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1137664469588016.1073741862.100000334203350&type=3

Good luck to all the schools launching on Friday. If I get a chance to do some updates during the day tomorrow , then I will but don’t count on it. It will probably just be one at the end of day. Here is the link to the live stream again.

http://livestream.com/accounts/3165037/events/5367166

https://www.greateventseats.com/events.php?lID=92

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will also be posted.

Day 35-A Great Week until the end anyway.

We had a wonderful time with Miss Kasey this past week. She visited with several people and kept us well entertained. We had company Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings, friends showed up for dinner and visiting. Some even stayed the night one evening. It has been a while since we have had a house full of goofy girls staying over.

Thursday evening Cynthia Guevara and Michael Montoya joined us for supper, and then Steve received an unknown caller asking if we were there and if Kasey was there that they would like to come out and see her. He had no idea whom he was talking to, and invited them out anyway. Then he hung up the phone and recited a number asking if we had any idea whose is was. Luckily the number was in my phone and we discovered it was Quinten Moellering and his friend Gary Hannehmann, who are both friends with the girls. That was a good thing since he had just told someone whom he didn’t know to come out to our house at 10:00 at night.

That turned out to be a really crazy and fun night. All of them started a pillow fight and then used the palate mattresses as shields. There were pillows, blankets, and stuffed fish flying all over my living room. We laughed so hard at all of them. It was truly one of the funniest scenes I had seen in a long time. If only I would have had a video of it.

Friday night, Chelsea came in and we all met at Jalisco’s for supper, and then Kasey, Brett and Cynthia went out to Luckenbach with Michaela and Miranda Alkire and Sean, Miranda’s fiancee’. Later after graduation, Justin Nebgen met them there as well. The rest of us finished getting stuff ready to go to the coast the next day.

The five of us spent Saturday through Monday at Port Aransas. We stayed at the Mermaid Condo at Sunrise Villas where we had stayed 2 years earlier, the last time Kasey had been able to vacation with us. We ate at Moby Dick’s, The Beach Lodge, and the Island Cafe, and spent a little time shopping. Mostly though, we played on the beach and in the pool and Chelsea and Brett even did some night fishing.

The weather was super wonderful. I front had just been through chasing all the rain and humidity away, so temps were in the 80’s and not humid. The sand was packed from the recent rains, so there was no blowing sand in the breeze. The water was warm and clear as glass even when it was chest deep. It was definitely beautiful.

It was so wonderful just being the five of us again. On Monday morning, Kasey and I got up early and walked the beach taking pictures as the sun rose. It was so nice and peaceful.

We left for home just after lunch and then swung through San Antonio to pick up Aaron Chadwick’s Tahoe and bring it along home with us. We tried to go have supper with Grandma Bobbye Burow in Comfort but couldn’t get through on the phones. When we got to Los Jarros we discovered that all phone service was down in the Comfort area.

Tuesday, Chelsea had lunch with us at Porky’s and then headed back to Lubbock. Steve, Kasey and I went out to the park for a while after going to AT&T and getting Kasey a new blue phone identical to her old red phone. She needed a new phone, but still refused to get a smart phone. Later we had dinner with her and Donovan Hawkins and then they went to visit his mom and watch a movie.

Wednesday, we picked up Cynthia and had an early lunch and then headed to Austin to take Kasey to the airport. We left with plenty of time but a wreck on 71 right outside the airport made us miss her flight, then her second flight got grounded twice and she had to stay the night in Austin with her cousins who took her back to the airport at 4:00 in the morning so she could catch a 6:05 flight. She finally made it back to Norfolk at 2:00 this afternoon their time. Thank heavens she finally made it safely, a but the airlines tore her luggage for the second trip in a row and she now has to get another bag after just buying a new one here because they ripped the one coming here as well. I told her she should report it to the airlines, but she didn’t figure it was worth it.

If that wasn’t enough for one day for her, now her truck won’t start. Her dad believes it’s the battery, so she just has to find someone to jump it for her. Let’s pray that is all it is.

I am sorry if this wasn’t the most interesting or educationally informative blog tonight, but I just had to catch it all up for myself this time.

On another note, the Goddard level rocket program at White Sands is coming up in July. More details to come in the future.

Stonewall Peach Jamboree and Father’s Day is coming up next weekend. The Antique Tractor show is this weekend at the fairgrounds. More details to come on these and other things of interest as well as whatever strikes my fancy to write about.

Day 26-Yes, I know, I Missed a Few-“For A Little While”

Well, I was a little busy late last week and managed to miss a few days. Plus at first it seemed really hard to follow that last post about the boys. It was and still is such a tragedy for so many reasons. God rest their souls, and God bless their families.

On the lighter and better side of things, I am super happy right now, because I have a very special young lady from the US Navy home right now. My middle daughter, Miss Kasey Burow, is home for a visit. She came in Sunday evening. We had a nice fajita lunch in Austin at my sisters so that her girls could visit with Kasey. We played some games and had a nice time before heading back home for the evening.

We celebrated a late birthday with Kasey when we got home. She finally got to open the rest of her gifts that we didn’t mail to her since she was coming home. She said we should keep them for her visit. Then she and I played a few rounds of Hell, our favorite card game. It was a nice day.

Monday I spent the day with her as well. We got her truck registered here in Texas instead of Virginia, and then went to Kerrville for lunch and shopping. We even caught a movie while we were there, and then came back to town to Dairy Queen for a shared dinner and ice cream with a friend.
Back at home, we played dominoes with her dad for a while. It was another great day.

Today I had to work, but I did have lunch with her and some of her girlfriends. Later her and Cynthia came to the house, I made supper and then we all watched a movie before the girls ran off to town again. It was really nice.

Kasey will be with us until the 10th. Chelsea comes in this weekend and we will all 5 be together doing family things for once. That will be great. It has been a while since the 5 of us have been together on a non-holiday to just spend time without the hustle and bustle of Holiday schedules. Don’t get me wrong I love having them all here for the holidays too, but they are just so planned and scheduled. This time will just be us doing what we want to do. I can’t wait.

For A Little While

My heart beats with joy,
There is no greater day,
For today my baby is home,
No longer so far away.

I see her smile,
I hear her laugh,
And know she is home again,
For at least a little while.

She makes us proud;
Every day she serves with honor,
This country we love so dear;
Showing strength, proud and clear.

For that we thank her;
For being who she is,
A Navy Airman,
And my beloved daughter.

She is part of the 1 percent,
That live in service for us all,
Living and working so far from home;

Answering the call.

But today she is home,
Making me smile
Sharing her heart with us all
For a little while.

By Ginger Burow
6/2/2015

Ok, I know it wasn’t much, but that’s it for tonight.

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