26 October 2014 - Carving Pumpkins

On Monday, Madeline advanced from Yellow to Orange belt in Karate.  This is the result of a year of work.  She's doing very well.

This weekend Jennifer and Eric came up from Orem to visit us and to go to the BYU-Boise State game.  Nice visit, terrible game.

Saturday morning Jessica had her last regular season swim meet for the high school team.  She won the 100 Free and 100 Back.  Her relay team won the Medley Relay and took second place in the Free Relay, missing first by less than one second.  Good meet.  In between events, she made me laugh playing with her phone while staying warm in the exercise pool.

Eric and Jennifer enjoyed jumping on our trampoline.  The girls thought Eric was a cool jumping companion.

Saturday afternoon we carved pumpkins.  Here is Madeline's Batman...

Emily's minion....

Jessica's owl...

and Joanne's owl.

Happy Halloween!!!

19 October 2014 - Getting Ready for Halloween

Here's Joanne at Gardener Village with her mom and sisters.

The girls had a swim meet this Saturday.  It was near Krispy Kreme, so logically......

Jessica actually had two meets on Saturday, one with the Y team and one for her high school team. This is her about to start the 100 Free at her high school meet.  She was very tired by the end of the day.

On Sunday Eric and Lara came over.  We made Halloween sugar cookies and decorated them.

We've been enjoying a warm and pleasant Indian Summer, so the girls have been taking advantage of extra outdoor time.

Joanne got these Potato Head type decorations for pumpkins and Emily spent an afternoon drilling and attaching them to some pumpkins.

12 October 2014 - Caddyshack, Sports and a Baby

When Aunt Amy came to visit over Labor Day weekend, I looked out the back window and saw a large mound of dirt pushed up in the backyard.  Over the past month, I have tried poisoning, flooding, trapping and whacking the responsible gopher with no success as he dug a network of tunnels, tearing up the yard I spent the whole summer trying to fix up and improve.  Finally I'd had enough.  I poured gasoline down his hole, stuffed a bunch of newspaper down there, and struck a match.

The fire burned for nearly 30 minutes.  When it went out, I backed the motorcycle up and ran a hose from the exhaust into the tunnel.

I stuffed rags into cracks and revved the engine for 8 minutes.

After all that, I buried his hole to trap the carbon monoxide down there.  There was no activity for a couple of days, so I started to hope that I got him.  Then I came home from work one day and found a new mound.  I was ready to give up and hire an exterminator (he wanted $250 and I was about ready to pay it), but I figured I'd give the trap one last try.  I put the trap in the hole, and when I came home from work the next day....TRIUMPH!!!!

When the weekend came, the girls and I went to a C of I volleyball game.  I got this action shot of one of my students, Abbey, putting the hammer down.  C of I won in three games.

The next day was homecoming.  We tailgated with my colleagues, and one of them gave Madeline purple and gold pom-poms.  C of I beat Montana-Northern 35-31 with a game-saving goal line tackle as time expired.  It was a really exciting game.

We actually missed the third quarter of the game.  The girls wanted to run in a one mile kids race at the YMCA that took place during the game.  There were several hundred kids in the race.

Here's Emily after she crossed the finish line in just over seven minutes.

Madeline found a friend, and they walked part of it, so their mile took a good 20 minutes.

Here are the girls together at the finish line.  Jessica helped with traffic control because she was too old to run the race.  Afterward, we returned to the C of I game and watched the end.

Emily has been dutifully working on this elephant blanket for our new niece (Tiffany's baby Natalie). Emily used it as a Personal Progress project.

Joanne already had a trip planned to Utah to see her mom and sisters, so she took the opportunity to personally deliver the blanket and get to know Natalie Chloe.

5 October 2014 - Las Vegas

Last Monday Joanne went to the orchard to help sort and pack pears.  I did this last year.  Joanne rightly pointed out that after four hours, the pears rolling by starting to make your vision a little blurry.

On Wednesday I headed to Las Vegas for my annual information systems conference.  I always hate it when they have it in Vegas, but it's a good conference so I always go.  On Thursday night they always have a Fun Night.  This year it was a catered dinner at the Golden Nugget (steak and ribs!).  The food was outstanding -- the entertainment?!?....well, you know.

This is a view of Freemont Street right outside the Golden Nugget.  It's all that is stereotypically Vegas, so I tried to avoid what I could.

On Friday night some friends from the conference and I went to a steakhouse at the Luxor, then walked across the street to MGM Grand to watch a David Copperfield magic show.  This is the view looking across from MGM Grand toward New York, New York (the small one, from Las Vegas) and Excalibur.  The magic show was really fun, and pretty PG rated, by Las Vegas standards, which I appreciated.

Here's the geek squad at David Copperfield.  I'm on the left, then Pete, Nipul and Bryan.  Pete and Bryan both got their PhDs at Utah State.  Nipul is a long time friend from the conference.  He's from India, teaches at Purdue, and is hilarious.

I got home late Saturday night.  General Conference was a welcome respite from the debauchery of Vegas.  My favorite address was the one from M. Russell Ballard.

28 September 2014 - Tailgate and Shaylee's Birthday

Things have been very busy at our house since school started.  With all three in swimming and piano, plus karate for Madeline and driver's ed for Jessica, we're constantly running, but not taking many pictures.  On Saturday Joanne and the older two girls went with Aunt Kathy to a quilt show in Boise while Madeline and I tailgated at the college with friends.  This photo is of the cheerleaders and drum core gathering people to head to the stadium.

This is our tailgate.  It rained a little, but not enough to worry about.  Had some tasty brats this week.

On Sunday it was Shaylee's birthday.  We had some seriously yummy ice cream cake.