California, Here We Come

School's out! We are officially finished with middle school. Eric went out with a flourish, collecting academic awards in four different subjects plus a leadership award. Before we know it, he'll be joining Katie in the fall at Timber Creek High School. He's champing at the bit to join the marching band, the mighty Timber Creek Regiment.

We got up at 4 this morning to catch our 7:40 flight to LA. We're here in Cerritos now at Sherry (Pat's big sis) and Dale's house, getting ready for Pat's folks' birthday party tomorrow. It'll be a Chinese banquet with about 50 attending, including Dan's folks, who happen to be down from SF this weekend, and brother Steve's family, who happen to live here in LA all the time. It'll be the first time the parents-in-law have been together since we got married 20 years ago! A bit overdue I guess.

Eric is interested in aeronautical engineering, and Uncle Dale's is a great place to visit for that. Dale has been training to fly helicopters, and also has taken up model copter flying. One of the coolest things is a computer simulator that you plug the actual copter controller into, and then fly a photorealistic copter just like your actual one. So it's a model of a model, with amazing realism. It's a great way to learn to fly without damaging the real model. Eric spent quite a bit of time with that tonight.

Might catch the Star Wars movie Monday or Tuesday.