Joshua's graduation!

September 17th, 2010 Joshua graduated from lineman school in Warrenton, Oregon. Larry and I were excited that we were able to attend his graduation and spend the weekend with Joshua, Shannon, Jessica and Ethan.  Joshua took us on a tour of where he spent 4 days a week 11 hour days the last 10 weeks.  He learned a lot. His score was a little over 93% with a GPA of over 3.7. Yay for Joshua! I have no clue what we are looking at here. I should have paid better attention.

Ropes. They spent a lot of time on learning knots because tying the right knots could save his life or someone else's life. Joshua had a head start on the knots because of boy scouts. In fact he was helping everyone else learn the knots.

Poles, lots of poles. Up and down a thousand times. These were practice poles that had no real electricity lines.

Diploma! Everyone in the class had a nick name. Joshua's was Cornfed. He's big and strong like the corn fed cows I guess. The men on the sides were his instructors.

Time for demonstrations. He did a great job and it was fun to watch him demonstrate some of the things he learned.

See his pants pushed up above his boots? That was style that he incorporated. He got some friendly ribbing for it but I noticed 1 or 2 others on graduation day doing the same thing.

He has to carry a lot of things as he climbs the pole to work.

Jessica loved watching her dad.

Ethan was loving being able to hang out with Papa J and watch his daddy.

3 awesome guys in this picture!

Big Joshua and "Little Josh" Adorable!

Now that school is done it's time to get a job. The weekend after graduation Joshua and a couple of his classmates took a road trip to sign Union books for jobs in Utah, Wyoming and California. He has also been applying online for apprenticeships all over the country. On the 28th of September he got news of a job in Colorado and he called the office where the job was located. The lady told him on the phone if he was there when they opened he had a 95% chance that he would get the job. Him and Shannon bought him a plane ticket and away he went. He got the job! It's a temporary job working until the ground gets so hard they can't drill anymore. But he'll get experience which will help towards getting another job. The ideal is for him to get an apprenticeship so his whole family will be able to move to where it's at. I am praying it is in the west:)

But the weekend isn't over yet... Stay tuned for more fun at Ocean Park, WA. Our neighbors have a beach house there that they let us stay in over the weekend.  So off we all go to celebrate Joshua's graduation and Ethan's 1st birthday.