27 January 2013 - Snow!

It was a very busy week as we wrapped up Intersession at W&J, so I didn't take very many pictures (zero). So I found some pictures to tell you a story about our week.  On Friday, it looked like this at our house:

I slid down two hills trying to get to work, so at 1 PM as the snow continued to fall, I went here:

I bought some new tires and now my truck looks like this:

Suffice it to say that I've been glad to have 4-wheel drive the past few days.  And new tires certainly helped too.  I even got to rescue a few people who were stuck in the snow, which makes me feel like a big man.

We are also deep in winter swim season, so every Saturday for the next several weeks is booked up.  Of course, I didn't even take any pictures at the meet yesterday, so you get to look at a picture of the pool where the girls swim their home meets.

20 January 2013 - Washington D.C. Wedding

With Intersession in full swing at W&J, and attempting to recover from neglected work while we were away, we haven't done much exciting.  But we did get to go down to Washington D.C. overnight for the wedding of Kevin Morehouse and Julia Thomas.  Kevin has lived in our ward for about six years and served a mission to Argentina for two of those years.  Julia attended W&J and joined the church while she was a student here.  It was wonderful to be in the temple with them.

It was a glorious but cold day on the temple grounds.  We did get some nice pictures before running for the car to get warm.

Being in D.C. also gave us the opportunity to stay overnight with Jenni and Ed, perhaps for the last time, since they've announced that Ed will soon assume an editorial position at the Seattle Times.  We know they're excited to move back to the west coast.  While we were in the temple, the girls got to play with Jeremy and Rebecca's kids, and we had pizza and visited with them Saturday afternoon before we headed for home.

13 January 2013 - Science Fair Project Time!

It is time once again for the elementary school science fair.  This year is Emily's second go-around (they do it for 4th and 5th grade).  Last year, you may recall, Emily tested the gassy-ness of various types of soda pop. This year, she decided she wanted to make a solar oven and attempt to bake cookies in it.  This might seem like a fine idea, but baking cookies in the snowy dead of winter in a place where the sun rarely shines seemed sketchy at best to me.

Here is the solar oven; a mason jar painted black to attract and trap the heat.

Her first attempt was with chocolate crackle cookie dough.

The oven is a parabola made of cardboard and coated with aluminum foil to reflect the sunlight and its heat.

At 32-34 degrees and about 4 1/2 hours of baking time, the crackle cookie was about half done when the sun went down.  I was impressed considering the circumstances.  A few days later when the sun came out again, the girls tried again and though the temperature had dropped to 21-30 degrees, the second cookie baked quite thoroughly and Joanne even had to use a hot pad to hold the oven because it had gotten so hot. Solar science project --- success!

Finally, after waiting more than three weeks, we also got to hunt dangerous and delicious animals this week.  Emily is a regular killing machine on this game!  (Jessica, pictured, is not half bad herself.)

6 January 2013 - SeaWorld and home

On New Year's Eve, we did our final theme park day at SeaWorld.  It was a nice day and a nice change of pace from Universal.  The dolphin show was excellent.  It included all kinds of birds and high divers.

Clyde and Seymour are always a favorite.

We did the Shamu show and a bunch of other stuff as well.  They had some Christmas themed shows and a bunch of floating lighted trees on the lake.  We rode the Manta and released the Kraken too, although Grammie and Grampa, having ridden all three Harry Potter roller coasters back-to-back-to-back on the first day, opted out of the Manta and Kraken at SeaWorld.  We were home before midnight and heard, but didn't see fireworks at midnight.

On New Year's Day enjoyed crepes for breakfast and then headed for home.  Grammie and Grampa stayed on for a couple more days for another trip to Downtown Disney, and a day at Epcot.

On Saturday, we were back to business.  When we moved to Washington, PA nine years ago, our bishop was Bruce Smith and his daughter, Meghan, was 15 years old.  Meghan was married in the Columbus Temple on Saturday, and I was able to perform a ring ceremony for them and their families at their reception that evening.  Here is Bruce dancing with Meghan.

30 December 2012 - Christmas Week in Florida

On Saturday we had driven to Charlotte, NC.  On Sunday, we attended church there and then drove to St. Augustine, Florida.  We stayed that evening in a hotel on the beach.  Monday morning was Christmas Eve, and we spent some time on the beach (drinking hot chocolate).

While in St. Augustine, we climbed the lighthouse.  You can tell from Jessica's hair that it was a bit windy out.

Here is a view of the lighthouse through the trees.

Inside the lighthouse, a Christmas tree was on display.  There were 219 steps to the top.

After spending the morning on the beach and around the old town of St. Augustine, we drove to Orlando.  We got checked into the condo and got the girls settled into bed to await the arrival of Grammie and Grampa, and Santa.

The stockings were hung by the TV with care.

 And Charlie Brown's Christmas tree showed that Santa had recently been there.

Grammie and Grampa also eventually got there, in the wee hours of Christmas morning.  The girls had much to be excited about that morning.

The day after Christmas was our first at Universal Orlando.  We went straight to Harry Potter's Forbidden Journey, and it was the right thing to do.  It is an excellent ride, and although we tried, we never did get a second chance to ride it.

Universal, being a movie studio is heavy on the 3D glasses.  Harry Potter was the first of many -- Minion Mayhem, Shrek, Terminator, Spider Man -- I forget them all.  There's some good ones though.

Mmmmmm......Butterbeer.

Three happy little girls in Hogsmead.

Feet tired, we took Thursday off and just chilled in the pool at the condo, then went to Downtown Disney to look around in the evening.  Found some good street music.  On Friday, we were dancin' with the minions after riding Minion Mayhem, which is awesome by the way.  This was on day two at Universal.  Despite my affections for The Simpsons, I think The Mummy roller coaster was my favorite on this side.

On Saturday, we got to attend the Orlando Temple -- another nice break for the feet and the mind.

23 December 2012 - Christmas/Trip departure

We didn't have room to take presents with us to Florida, so on Friday we had our little Christmas at home.

Jessica got scrunchies.

Emily was delighted with a Hello Kitty purse.

I got a Wii game where you hunt dangerous and delicious animals.  Jake Fails introduced me to this one when we were at his house for Thanksgiving.  I finally own a gun!

Joanne got some die patterns for her Cricut.  I've been learning about the virtues of the Cricut, and Joanne hasn't stopped using hers since she got it.

We got Ticket to Ride from Karl's family for Christmas.  At the hotel on Saturday night, the first of our trip, we played it for the first time.