16 November 2014 - SNOW! and Science

All week the weather forecasts were warning that it would snow on Thursday and Friday, and that we should expect 1-3 inches in the valley.  I snapped this picture of campus as I left work Friday afternoon.  There were two or three inches, and it was still snowing.

Friday morning, we woke up and it was still snowing.  We had about a foot of snow.  School was cancelled, so we set to work digging ourselves out.

Well, some of us worked.

Others just took advantage of a free day off school to play.

It wasn't all fun and games all weekend though.  Madeline has a science fair coming up, and she decided she wanted to look at the effect of water erosion on rocks using a microscope.

So we built a contraption she could use to drip water on some rocks.

She picked three rocks she wanted to erode.

She has quite a rock collection, but she decided these three would be the most likely to erode.

She spent much of Saturday afternoon "raining" on her rocks using our contraption.

We'll finish the project this week, and I have no doubt more photos will be forthcoming.

9 November 2014 - State Swim Meet and Chili

Jessica qualified for the state swimming championship as a member of the 4x100 relay.  Although she goes to a charter school, she swims for Vallivue High School.  On Friday, the team made the first cut, and on Saturday they ended up taking 14th overall.  Before the finals began, there was a parade of teams.  Here is Jessica with the four other girls from Vallivue that qualified for state.

Saturday evening we had a ward activity.  The Young Men and Young Women were in charge of it, so basically that meant Joanne was.  We had a chili cook off.  The Young Women were in charge of decorations, as you can see.  It came off really well and there was a lot of tasty chili to be had.

That evening, the sunset was radiant, so I took a picture.

2 November 2014 - Halloween and Excellent Young Women

We were really bad about taking pictures for Halloween this year.  This is about the best we got.  Madeline was an Egyptian Princess.

Madeline did a state report at school.  Her state was Indiana.

They also made skeletons.  If you tip the picture sideways and look closely, you'll see the skeleton's body is her name.

Wednesday night was Young Women in Excellence.  They did a paint/colors theme.  It was a good program.  Jessica played the piano and Emily showed off some of her crafts.

I didn't want to distract her, but I thought I should immortalize Jessica's first drive now that she has her learner's permit.  Since this photo, she's actually driven us all over town.

On Saturday we went to the Boise Ski Swap.  The college had a table set up so I snapped a quick photo.  We got the whole family outfitted for the upcoming ski season as well.

That afternoon we went and climbed at the Y.  It's been a while since we did that.