17 February 2013 - Valentine's Day and Big News!

This week, everyone was sick.  We had plans for Valentine's Day but canceled them to try and get well.  Some of you may not have been introduced to Madeline's eel from SeaWorld yet.  This is Mahonri Moray-ancumer.  We just call him Mahonri.  He's 4 feet long, although you can't really tell from this picture.  He's been helping Madeline get over her wicked cough.

Emily made us a heart cake, and despite being down sick herself, Joanne made sure that everybody got a Valentine's present.

Now for the big news.  This fall, I'm going to be working here:

Where is here?  It's...

I have accepted a professorship and this summer our family will relocate to the Caldwell area for me to begin teaching here.  The College of Idaho was founded in 1891, and if you know anything about my earliest years, you may know that I was born in Caldwell, ID, sometime after 1891.

If the Maryland experience two years ago taught me anything it is that I love teaching in a small Liberal Arts college environment, and The College of Idaho provides just that, only a lot closer to many members of our family.  While we will be sad to leave those who are here in the east with us, we are excited to be much closer to grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  We are in the early stages of planning the move, so we don't have many details yet, but Joanne has been busy communicating with Aunt Kathy and Eric and Laura who all live in Nampa right near C of I's campus.

Some of you may also know that I have been offered a Fulbright appointment for this summer in Argentina.  We are planning on spending the early part of our summer there before our move to Idaho.  So it will be a busy summer, and there are plenty of bridges to cross between now and fall.

10 February 2013 - Cupcakes and Birdhouses

The girls have been getting crafty in the kitchen again.  They made the chocolate hearts on top of these cupcakes themselves, and adorned them in pink and red.  They were most yummy.

We had a lot of snow during the first part of the week, so Emily and Madeline took advantage of the opportunity to ride their sleds before it melted.

On Wednesday evening, all of our youth got together to help one of our young men, Sam, assemble birdhouses for his Eagle Scout project.  We'll still need to head out to a county park to hang all the birdhouses in order to complete his project.  This was a good start though.

Saturday was our final regular swim meet for the winter season.  Here's Jessica in full action.

We were very excited because Emily qualified for the District Championships in two individual events (50 Yard Butterfly and 100 Yard Freestyle), and in two relay events (200 Free and 200 Medley).  This was a major goal of hers at the beginning of the season.  The relay qualifications occurred earlier this season, but she made us sweat until the final meet of the season on the two individual events.  We're very proud of her.  Unfortunately, the District Championship for her age group is on a Sunday, and Emily feels very strongly against swimming on the Sabbath.  So barring some accommodation, the season is done for all three girls.  We're proud of Emily for her conviction as well as her swimming ability.

3 February 2013 - Swimming & Sewing

We are still busy with swim season.  Joanne and I caught a little bit of the girls' practice this week.  Here's Madeline at the end of practice.

Joanne's been busy getting ready for Valentine's Day.  She made a patchwork runner and now her friends in the ward want her to teach them how.

Here we are at the swim meet.  As you can see, Jessica is just out of the pool.  I'm wearing a white shirt with no tie because we had a baptism in the ward, so I had to go to the swim meet, then run to the church, then back to the swim meet.  Fortunately we only missed one event while we were at the church.