31 October 2010 - Halloween

I suppose it makes sense that on Halloween week, we took the girls to see Phantom of the Opera in Pittsburgh.I've seen Phantom several times, including twice in Pittsburgh, but it's one that I never get tired of. Madeline's showing off her program here, though you might need to click the picture to make it big enough to see.
On Friday, the girls had the traditional costume parade at school. This year, Madeline was Peeves from Harry Potter.
Emily was a vampire, though we're not sure if there's a Twilight connection, or if she was just a vampire.
On Wednesday evening, we had a trunk or treat at the church, which was well attended and more important this year because many places here had trick-or-treating on Sunday, and some families preferred to have an opportunity to do it during the week.
We carved pumpkins on Saturday. All the girls drew a face for me to follow.
Madeline was totally grossed out by scooping out the guts. Unfortunately for her, hers was the slimiest one we carved.
I only cut myself once (no stitches required).
This is Madeline's, all done and out on the front walk.
The top one is Jessica's and the bottom one is Emily's.
On Saturday, we went to a friend's house where they were doing trick-or-treating one night early. Middle schooler Jessica had a very cool understated costume this year.
We had a brilliant Halloween, we are eating much chocolate, and hope you had a good one too.

24 October 2010 - Get Ready to Vote!

Hi all,

Not a ton to report for this week. Joanne and I took advantage of Fall Break at the college to go to Columbus and attend the temple. We've figured out that if we drop the girls off for school at 8 AM and head straight to Columbus, we can make the 11 AM session and then head straight back to catch the girls at the bus stop at 3:30. It's nice we have a sister in the ward just across the road from our neighborhood who can get them if we're not quite back in time.

This time on the way back, Joanne took a nap. While I was driving, I got stuck behind this semi, so I took his picture. The white sign on the back of his trailer says "This Vehicle Make A Wide Turn". He also make a slow drive in the fast lane on I-70.

Given that elections are coming up, I also wanted to share the following with you. As you know, we all have a civic duty to vote, and this resource is sure to help you. This may be the greatest piece of journalistic reporting of all time (with apologies to Ed Guzman -- friend and newspaper editor extraordinaire). The Christian Science Monitor has done Americans a great service here.

It may take you 20 minutes or so to get through all 10 of these political ads, but they're totally worth it (especially since it's almost Halloween and some of them are downright horrifying). I especially like the machine gun totin' mama running for office in Arizona, and be sure not to miss the honorable mention about the mayor of Winnipeg on the last page of the article:

10 Weirdest Political Ads

Enjoy these specimens of Freedom of Speech!

Matt

17 October 2010 - Little Swimmers

Fall is definitely in the air. I'm not sure if its because of the very dry summer, but our leaves have been more brown, yellow and orange, and not as brilliant this year. We have had some nice red ones, just not as many as usual.On Saturday, I attended a wedding for a young lady in my ward, Sonya Kirby. I did not perform the wedding, but I did bless the food at the dinner afterward.
Emily and Madeline are now in swimming lessons. It's got Emily all excited about being on the swim team now. They'll have lessons into November and then maybe switch to the swim team or do another session of lessons. This is Madeline on the starting block.
This is an action shot of Emily jumping off the block next to the diving board.

10 October 2010 - Las Vegas/St. George

This week was my annual conference that I attend each October. While I was gone, Joanne took the girls to the W&J football game on Saturday. Madeline was in heaven because she likes watching football, the other two girls were happy because they could read their books and each nachos and cotton candy from the concession stand.Mommy bought Madeline a giant novelty foam finger. It was Madeline's turn with her class's teddy bear for the weekend, so he got to go game too.
The teddy bear also helped the girls decorate the front yard a little for Halloween/Fall.
This year, my conference was held in Las Vegas. We were at the Golden Nugget, which is in the downtown Fremont Street area. They've remodeled and updated this area of Las Vegas a lot to make it very walker friendly.
I thought this photo was very interesting. There is a high roof over Fremont Street, which I'm sure provides some much needed shade in the summer. The weather was very pleasant, sunny and mid-70s all week while I was there, so we didn't much need the roof, but it's a permanent installation. In the evenings once the sun goes down, the casinos have lasers and video projectors and they shoot advertisements up on the roof above the street. I stopped to take this picture of a Christian group holding their sign protesting drinking, gambling, and basically everything else most people go to Las Vegas to do. It wasn't until I downloaded the photo that I noticed the ad for Jack Daniels Whiskey projected on the roof behind their sign.
The swimming pool at the Golden Nugget has been ranked by some travel and leisure magazines and publications as one of the best in the world. It has an integrated shark tank that separates the sharks from the swimmers with panels of plexiglass. It's pretty cool.
I decided I couldn't get that close to St. George and not go to see Angie and Darin and their family. The weather there was equally perfect, and my mom and dad were able to come down for the weekend. I miss the mountains in Utah.My dad took the opportunity while he was there to tune their piano. I told him he needs to work on mine when he comes to visit too.
We also decided to hang a giant clock in the entry way of Angie and Darin's house.

On my last day in St. George, I was able to attend Brandon's jazz band concert. They did a four song set right before I had to catch my shuttle back to Las Vegas so that I could fly home the next morning.Here is Brandon with a solo on 'Zoot Suit Riot'.

3 October 2010 - General Conference

I'm sure there are people in the world who *don't* love general conference, but I'm not one of them. For me, it's a highlight every time. I especially like it when my former mission president, Claudio Costa, is invited to speak.

Unfortunately, I missed part of the last session on Sunday, because I had to do a funeral in West Virginia. It was for the spouse of a member of my ward. He was only 36 years old, but died from severe complications from alcoholism. The funeral was in Fairmont, WV. I had never been then, and being the edu-geek that I am, I took a few minutes to drive around the campus of Fairmont State University after the funeral before driving home. Here is the plaque at the campus entrance.

This gate marks the south entrance of the fairly small campus.
This is the one-room school house where the University began operations in 1865. It has been renovated and preserved.
The campus administration building.

26 September 2010 - Swim Team

This week was mostly uneventful. The girls decided they didn't want to do soccer this fall, so they tried out for the swim team. Jessica is on the team now, and Emily and Madeline are going to take swimming lessons and then decide if they still want to pursue being on the swim team. I didn't get much in the way of pictures, but Jessica is the one on the second diving block in the pink swimming suit with the blue bottom.