Once upon a time...

Once upon a time...

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

my man, the oil guru

A lot of you might not know what Paul does at work, so here are some 'photies' he has sent me in the last few months. Growing up in Colorado, I never thought much about subsea drilling operations. Well, now I could tell you more than you ever want to know! Anyway, this is the helicopter Paul rides out to the rig...





and this is the rig. In a recent interview I conducted with Paul, he described his job as designing, refurbishing, and installing subsea equipment up to 6,000 feet deep.(what he actually said was, "I'm a subsea guru".) He has worked 11 years on 5 continents in I-don't-know-how-many-different jobs. His last job was in 'block 15' Kizomba, Angola, on the west coast of Africa. When completed it will be the world's largest subsea development with 190 Christmas Trees on the ocean floor (you'll need to google that, I don't understand that whole ordeal)! I asked how much oil they got every day, and he said if I were to publish that, he would lose his job and we would be sued, so I guess you'll need to google that too! Right now he's in Texas working on the most advanced semi-submersible (google) rig. The coolest, or most famous, place he's worked was at the Harlan & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, where the Titanic was built. He says it's a lot of hard work and the days are really long. He called me once before going to bed and he had been awake for about 36 hours. The rigs can be very dangerous for everybody out there. There are huge moving parts that weigh several tons each, not to mention the possibilities of malaria or freezing cold water in the ocean below, depending on what part of the world you're in. I know it's a lot of hard work, but when he's gone for four weeks at a time and I'm here with three kids and all this work to do, there's only one image in my mind.





Sunday, November 11, 2007

Who ate all the Halloween candy?


Halloween isn't my favorite holiday, but I have found some redeeming value since the kids were born. I heard someone say once that, 'if most of the world can ignore the true meaning of Christmas and still enjoy the holiday, maybe we can do the same thing for Halloween!' Besides, there is something great about wearing crazy costumes with your whole family and eating absurd amounts of candy for one night! Calories don't count on October 31st, right?!? Anywho, we had a fun one this year! Jacob wanted to be a SWAT team guy... the only requirements he had for his costume this year were a gun and a helmet. Liam and Daddy started a game a couple of months ago calling each other 'Little Dragon and Big Dragon' and we managed to find a dragon costume at a discount shoppe. Ewan and I were the princess and the pea, and I must say that we looked pretty cool. I do think that my big brother and his youngest boy won the contest hands down! Byrne was an organ grinder and his one-year-old son Samuel was the monkey! They looked awesome! Byrne even got Sam to make a noise like a monkey a couple of times. That was a great costume. We went trick-or-treating to our Uncle's house and at one of my mom's neighbors who we've known a long time. I guess we always manage to get so much candy at church, I don't bother with the door-to-door. Speaking of which, This last photo needs the story to go along with it! These are the boys' trick-or-treat bags. Now, I don't actually know how much was in them to begin with. We had pretty much been together all night, in all the same places, doing all the same games and things so, I would assume that their bags should have been filled to about the same level. A couple different times throughout the night, people came to tell me that Liam was hiding somewhere eating candy, and since I never buy it at home, I let it go every now and then. I must admit that I did not keep track of his rate of consumption! When I looked at Jacob's basket and then saw Liam's I had to ask;"Liam, what happened to all of your candy?" His reply was simply; "I ate one..."

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Happy Birthday, Liam!

William Seth Anderson was born in Houston, TX on October 24, 2004. He is the funniest little guy you've ever seen, and we had fun celebrating his 3rd birthday. Uncle Tim, Auntie Cristina and Emma invited us to the park for lunch the on his birthday! Auntie Cristina surprised us with chocolate cupcakes that were soooo good! We had fun there for a couple hours and then we went bowling and out to dinner with Grammy and Grampy! I don't know what got into this kid, but he wanted to have a bowling party, so we did of course!



The kids had such a great time bowling and Ewan slept through the whole thing. He'll be getting in on the fun soon enough though! Liam's party wasn't until the Saturday after his birthday, and it was really great. I have so much fun planning the kids parties! I think sometimes I enjoy it more than they do! I like to make all of their invitations and decorations, but with this new little guy, I knew it wasn't going to happen. So, we just ordered all the stuff. I still made the cake, though! I cannot relegate that responsibility to anyone else, it's too much fun for me! With Ewan only five weeks old we didn't go over board on the party. We just ordered pizzas and had a salad, but everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves!