21 December 2008 - Harrisburg, Penn State

This week I had to go to Harrisburg and State College (Penn State) for some meetings with other professors. This is at Harrisburg Area Community College, right near downtown and the State Capital.Here is a mural at the college.While in Harrisburg, I went for a five mile run along the Susquehanna River. There is an excellent trail that even includes a bridge to an island in the river. This picture shows part of the river trail, looking back toward the state capitol rotunda.
This is another part of the river trail, looking across the Susquehanna River.Not all of Harrisburg is so nice. Actually, a lot of downtown is pretty run down. This building has a very nice mural painted on it at street level, but if you look up, you see it is boarded up. Many buildings in the city look like this.
I did take a couple of pictures at Penn State, but they weren't very interesting, so I'm not including them. Once I got home on Wednesday evening, we were very busy getting everything ready to leave for Hawaii. The next update should have some good pics from our family reunion on Kauai.

Matt

14 December 2008 - Sledding

While mommy was out of town in Utah helping her mom, we got a huge snow storm.The girls decided to try to fool people into thinking they're angels.
Soon they got bored with that and decided sledding was more fun.
On Friday Madeline had a school field trip to a Christmas Train museum. I got to go too. It was awesome.
Madeline enjoyed herself while we were there too. There were more than 30 trains all going at once.
There was even a surprise visitor for the preschool children.We hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas season.

Matt

7 December 2008 - Piano Recital

On Friday, we had the girls' piano recital, this is their teacher with all of her students. She's going to have a baby soon, so we'll be off piano for several weeks until she's back on her feet.This is Jessica in action on one of three songs she did.
Emily did two songs. Each of the kids did at least one Christmas song.
I forgot my camera, but Saturday night was the ward Christmas party. Although it's less fun when you're the ones in charge of so much of the event, we still had a good time and it was a nice event. After the party, I was even able to call my mom, albeit one day late for her birthday. Happy birthday mom!

Hope you are all enjoying good holidays,

Matt

30 November 2008 - Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, we went to Reston, Virginia to spend the holiday with our friends Jenni and Ed Guzman. The drive down was pretty treacherous, in a blizzard and in the dark. Lots of cars were sliding off the road, but Joanne's car is a monster in the snow. We were only going 15 mph for a while, but we made it through. That was important too, because we had pressing work to get to when we got there.On Wednesday we were able to attend the Washington D.C. temple, and then go out for Ethiopian food with Jerry, Danae and Calista.
On Thanksgiving morning, we took everyone ice skating. This is Jenni with her boys, Noe (in the yellow coat), and Asher.Jessica's a natural skater. She raced me around the rink several times.
The younger girls are pretty good skaters too, but stick a little closer to mommy.
And sometimes they still crash.This is a shot of the girls in front of the Reston Town Center Christmas Tree, on the plaza just outside the skating rink.On Friday we got to go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I had never been to this new one near Dulles Airport. It's awesome.On the way home, we stopped in Leesburg, Virginia to visit Joanne's cousin Jeremy and his family. This is Madeline with Jeremy's daughter Kora. Our kids love playing with the Goeckeritz kids.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Matt & family

23 November 2008 - Birthday!

Thursday was my (36th) birthday. Joanne bought me a chocolate, chocolate, chocolate cake.Saturday, we took the girls to see Madagascar 2 in the theater, then out to Chuck E. Cheese with some friends. Like most kids, they think Chuck E. Cheese is fabulous.The kids are playing inside a lot more these days, which makes them stir crazy, but they find things to do.

I even got my guitar out to entertain. I'm working on rebuilding my callouses on my fingers.
Matt :-)