19 September 2010 - Weekend in Delaware

This weekend we decided to go to Delaware to hang with Karl and Jolene's family. We actually went by way of Washington D.C. so that Joanne could participate in a Relief Society temple trip with Jolene and women from their stake. While they were doing that, Karl and I were on kid duty and we took in several soccer games (this one's Kurt's) and ran kids to a variety of other practices too.Later Saturday evening, we watched the BYU game (which wasn't so great), and had a barbecue (which was so great). This is our nephew Trevor watching sports with us.
The girls were less interested in football, but had fun playing games. I think Emily spent most of her time on the trampoline.On Sunday afternoon, around 4:30, we hit the road to come back home. We arrived at about 9:30, and put the kids straight to bed so they could wake up in time for school the next day. It was a quick trip, but lots of fun and worth the effort.

12 September 2010 - Fall Motorcycle Ride

With the number of nice days for motorcycle riding dwindling, I decided that I needed to take advantage, so I've put over 200 miles on my bike in the past week. I took a ride to West Virginia with two friends from church, Matt Lindley and Cliff Bergmann. This is us at a "ski resort" (bunny hill with lift) in West Virginia.We went to Cabela's near Wheeling. I'd never been to Cabela's before.
We saw elephants and zebras there, among many other animals. It was a nice ride and the store was pretty cool too.On Friday evening we had an Apple Harvest festival at the church. There was a dinner and make your own caramel apple table, followed by a talent show that feature mostly children singing along to Taylor Swift or Demi Lovato. Madeline and her friend Emma sang some primary songs, which were a nice break.

On Saturday I took each of the girls for their own long ride. Madeline rode around a lake south of Washington with me, Emily rode to Mingo Creek county park, and Jessica rode out a stretch of the old Cumberland Road with me. Each girl got about 25 miles of riding.

Sunday afternoon was a picture perfect fall day, so I went home after church, took off my suit coat and tie, and took the motorcycle to do my various visits around the ward, putting on another 55 miles in about four hours. Afterward, I picked up my home teaching companion, Jalene (JAY-lyn), and took him to a kickoff meeting for the church's new Duty to God program. Jalene's mom is not a member of the church but his grandma Wanda is. After the activity, we had banana splits (hold the banana for the bishop) and I took Jalene home about 9 PM. It was a long sabbath, but it was an excellent weekend.

5 September 2010 - Labor Day

Labor Day isn't much fun when you work at W&J, because every fall, that's the first day of classes, followed by convocation and an all-campus picnic. Here are two of my faculty friends, Scott and Buba (I'll let you guess which one's which), along with one other faculty member, Lynn at convocation. Instead of going to the all campus picnic, we went to a ruckus at the Larson's house (the Larsons are friends from the ward). We learned how to play Drakkon, a very geeky but kind of fun medieval game.
They have a great backyard that's on three tiers -- a back deck, a grassy area with picnic tables, and a fire pit below that.
Madeline got a kick out of playing in the fire. In this picture, she's with Seth, one of the Larson's six kids.
The swing set is on the lowest level near the fire pit and in front of a small stream.
The ruckus was a fun way to spend Labor Day afternoon.

29 August 2010 - School!

As summer wound down and the return to school appeared on the horizon, we took a couple of our young men from church for a field trip to Google's new Pittsburgh location (our young men's president works there). Google is perennially a Forbes Magazine top five company to work for -- probably because they have a place to play dodge ball with giant yoga balls in a cargo net. Here's a view of urban Pittsburgh from the second story window of Google's new building, which is actually an old Nabisco cookie factory.
With the girls back in school (sorry, no pictures), I had a few free hours to finish up the wishing well I built for them. This is just after paint.
I added a roof and bucket, then we put it under a tree in the backyard near the playhouse.