Maddox Files #2

The last few weeks have gone by quite quickly. I believe it is time for the update. Starting a few weeks back, JaLeen and I invited a bunch of people to join us at the park for a dutch oven picnic. We invited Kelsey, some old friends and some new friends to join us as I tried out some new variations on some of my favorite dutch oven recipes. I think the food turned out pretty well - We did a potato/bacon/onion dish but I added some bell pepper and a secret assortment of spices to finish it off. I resurrected by old chicken soup dish and added a twist: peas, rice, and cream of celery and the good ol' italian seasonings mix, to make a pretty tasty treat.
   JaLeen pulled out her slack-lining gear for our amusement and our friend brought a frisbee and a croquet set. We had quite a good time in the perfect early summer weather. Kelsey's world famous cookies added a sweet final touch to the evening.

After a few short days at work, full of busily trying to answer design questions for the new facilities, we had a work picnic for the entire Eagle Ford Shale group - roughly 200 people. In texas they have what they call "Crawfish Boils". I think it came from the Louisiana's who work in the oil patch. They had a huge tank, roughly 6' in diameter full of boiling water. The have a cage they can lower in and out of the tank. They fill the cage full of still-squirming crawfish, pour loads of Cajun seasoning on them (or in the water) and lower the cage in. The crawfish are  boiled for about 15 minutes and then the cooks add shovel fulls of ice. Nobdy knows they they throw the ice on after, they just do it... and it tastes better.
The big crawfish are about the size of your hand. They don't have much meat, so when you are eating them you fill up a whole cafeteria-sized tray of crawfish and get to work. The Louisianans taught me how to eat them. First you grab their 'head' (really its the whole abdomen) and you pull the tail out of it. Put the head away and just take the tail. The tail is cracked in half by squeezing in on the sides and then you break the rest of the shell off. Then you eat the rest. As you are eating your crawfish be careful - if the tail is tucked up under the body its safe, if the tail is sticking out don't eat it - it was dead before they boiled it and its anyone's guess how long it has been deceased.

We left right after the crawfish boil to head up to Oregon. The airport lost our bags, so we spent all of friday in our same clothes - gross. When we finally got them on Saturday morning we were quite grateful for the change.
Nate (JaLeen's Uncle) picked us up from the airport. On Friday we started right off when some work chores and helped them a bit with their gorgeous back yard. They have pretty trees and bushes and roses and grass. Loved being outside. It was a little cold, but we didn't mind much. Apparently we have become a little too accustomed to Texas weather.
  Nate and Alicia have two little girls: Rowen and Emerson. They are super cute and loads of fun. We played several games with them, had dinner with the family - Alicia is quite the chef - and just had a great time.
   On Saturday we met up with Heather, Kristen, Mike, Maddox and Natalya for a waterfall hike. It was a pretty short hike, but hikes take longer when there are kia around. Rowen and Emerson gave Maddox fruit snacks and he decided they were nice enough - he followed them like a shadow for the rest of the day. After the wilderness trek we headed back to the house for a BBQ dinner. Natalya was having some indigestion and was quite upset. I decided to take her for a couple laps of the back yard so she could scream in the relative privacy of the backyard away from everyone. It took a couple laps to finally find the right position to hold her in so she was comfortable, about one more to help her get her digestive track all taken care of, and one final lap to get her to fall asleep. I felt an odd since of achievement - kinda like winning a chess tournament.
   The families seemed to get along well enough, and Kristen and Company headed back to Corvallis. After another fun day with the Bay Family JaLeen and I left for home as well.

   Coming back to work was an adventure - I felt like I had missed a week instead of just the half-day friday. The Reservoir Engineer decided that the production forecast for the Williams Facility (the second of two I am working on) was inaccurate and trued it up to the current production. In addition, they had adjusted the drilling schedule. I came back to find that there was a 50% increase in the oil and gas my facility would be processing. They also hadn't provided that information to me yet. Suddenly I had two undersized pieces of equipment and a sales gas agreement that would be insufficient.
   JD also came to talk to me. He wanted to know when I would have a cost and schedule update for these facilities (this would be round 5 of cost estimates). Apparently the guys up the latter were off the impression that one of these facilities could be picked up at Walmart for $1.95 plus tax and set up in 4 weeks. I just laughed. When I got one put together a few days later, JD came in and tested every item he could think of. The interrogation lasted 30 minutes. In the end he simply said 'good job, you're doing well. Let's shoot for getting it installed the first week of September' While that schedule is extremely agressive, it does mean that I finally will be getting timely approvals to buy all of my equipment and get these project in construction.

On Saturday JaLeen and  I went down to Lake Jackson. Mom and Dad had just moved in! It was time to party! We were treated to some of Mom's amazing pancakes right off the bat. Then we went to work picking peaches in the orchard. Perhaps it was the sweetness of the peaches, or the gorgeous sky, or everyone kinda spreading to pick their peaches, but we ended up with roughly 80lbs of peaches. Mom posted a smaller number, but I did the math and it ends up at 77lbs and change. We started to work on making freezer jam, frozen peach slices, peach smoothies and the works. We're going to be eatin peaches for quite some time.

Dad and Mom also joined JaLeen and I for some doubles R-Ball. We did guys vs girls doubles. It was some crazy fun games. We had a blast. I thought Mom and Dad would have gotten rusty from not playing much for awhile but they were doing well! Dad still had some of his Z-serves in good form and Mom's ball placement is still top-notch!

Church today was also of note. - In the Black Pearl (clerk's office) we lost our captain - Br. Shanley and got a new Ward Clerk, Br. Stephens, who will be released next week from his calling as Elder's Quorum President. Hmm... We also found out that the most recently called Asst. Ward Clerk got a job in DC and is moving. The other one is out of town on business for three weeks. Talk about a crazy time. So basically I am trying to show everyone how we have been doing things as the new Ward Clerk gets up to speed and decides what he wants to change/leave the same.

Hope ya'll are going well. Catch you soon!