School for the Gifted

29 January 2012 - Swim and sleep

2012-01-29T18:35:00.003-05:00

January is a busy swimming season. The girls had two meets in early December, but January is the thick part of the season. Three out of four Saturdays this month have been occupied with swimming. The one that wasn't was a youth temple trip to Columbus. The girls are all doing great in their events and improving their times. Here's Jessica swimming her leg of the 4x100 freestyle relay. She jumps in the water at about the 12 second mark. Cheering provided by Emily.

The girls have been practicing two days a week and swimming at least four events each (usually five) on Saturdays. That can really wear you out. But at least they still love each other.

22 January 2012 - New Truck!

2012-01-29T18:17:00.004-05:00

OK, so the picture's way darker than it should be, and the little splotches on it are actual snowflakes, but the good news is, I got a new truck this week. Well, an old new truck. If the truck looks familiar, it's because it's my dad's old truck. A year or so ago, Mike convinced my dad to sell the truck to him and get a new truck. Mike needed a smaller truck with better gas mileage to use for his business. He used it for several months, but then sold his business so he didn't need it any more. So on the day before New Years, he and my dad called to see if I wanted to buy it. I wasn't so sure, but I sold my white truck in one day for full asking price, so I called them back and told them to ship it out. I'm very pleased.

The boy sent a little stow-away in the truck. The girls love him.

On Friday, we got to go to a Penguins hockey game again. Since Jessica is in Young Women's now, she got to come along this year. It was an exciting game and the Penguins won!

It's kind of hard to tell in the photo (stupid cheap iPhone camera), but Jessica now has a mouth full of braces.

15 January 2012 - Planting season?

2012-01-29T17:58:00.003-05:00

I came downstairs to take the girls to school one morning this week, and Madeline had left Joanne a note:

If you can't read it, it says "Mama, I miss you and love you. Madeline". She's a sweet kid.

Our January has been very strange. We've had a pretty mild winter, and some days in the 50s. I was able to get the Christmas tree planted in the back yard. The ground wasn't frozen at all when I dug the hole.

Here's the tree beside the hole, ready to have its burlap removed.

Here it is in all its glory. I put a good bed of mulch around it to help insulate the ball against cold January temperatures. So far, it looks like it's faring well and should be a nice addition to our back yard.

8 January 2012 - Back to School, Life

2012-01-08T16:29:00.004-05:00

This week Joanne and I went back to teaching and the girls went back to school. I am teaching CyberLaw this Intersession (January short term), and Joanne is teaching Water Aerobics. Not to brag or anything, but our two classes are two of the most popular on campus this year. Joanne even has more boys than girls in her class this time around.

We finally got our second snowstorm of the winter season. The first one was October 29th, which was really still in the fall. Since then, our Winter has been unseasonably moderate and warm. On the day after Christmas, I took the motorcycle for a 15 mile ride. Most of this week has been equally mild (I got another motorcycle ride in this week), but we took a couple of days out for this snowstorm. It was only a few inches, and it has since all melted, but it was nice to pretend it was winter for a couple days. The girls even went out to play in it.

Take a look at this picture of Jessica. Notice anything different about her?

Yes, our precious little one, the first in our family, is not quite a teenager yet, but this week she got braces. Well, she got phase one of three -- she still has two more appointments this month before she'll completely have braces. She'll be in them for two years. She's not thrilled, but she knows she needs to do it, so we're making it happen.

1 January 2012 - Happy New Year

2012-01-08T16:14:00.002-05:00

We enjoyed a quiet week off of school between Christmas and New Year's Day. Some money Santa left in Jessica's stocking enabled her to reach her savings goal to buy an iPod touch, so on Monday we ordered it, and it arrived on Thursday. There was much excitement.

Despite what it looks like here, she actually got the black one. The white border in her hand is part of the packaging. The younger girls are also saving for their own iPod touches.

To celebrate the New Year (and to use up the last of the Primary's budget for 2011), there was a Primary skating activity on Saturday. For many of the kids (including mine) it was their first time roller skating. Here's Emily getting the hang of it.

Madeline certainly got into the groove with her friend Gracie.

Once the kids got the hang of it, the roller skating people got out the limbo tools.

About midway through, we stopped for pizza and drinks, and only one kid puked, so we counted that as a win! Everyone had a blast. Afterward, our friends from church, the Larsens, came over for an early New Year's party and played games until about 8:30. We all celebrated what would be happening four hours later, then they went home and we watched a movie until 12:05 AM, then went to bed. It was a very fine way to ring in the New Year.

25 December 2011 - Christmas

2011-12-28T11:41:00.004-05:00

The evolution of a ball-and-burlap Christmas tree:
Stage 1-Get an 8 foot tall, 300 pound Douglas Fir into a water-tight metal wash basin and get it inside the house. (Protect carpet with towels and tarp.)

Stage 2-Leave the country for a week right before Christmas and let the girls decorate the tree.

Stage 3-Wait for Santa to leave Christmas presents under said tree. (Mission accomplished.)

Stage 4 will be documented for the next week or two. This phase includes un-decorating the tree, removing it to the garage at night and driveway during the daytime for the next week or so to acclimate the tree to being outdoors, then planting it in the backyard. We'll see how this goes but we're going to do the best we can; it would grieve the lord of this vineyard to lose this tree.

In between all the decorating, the girls made a gingerbread village. Here are the various pieces for the houses.

They're much more creative than I ever will be. The stones lining the steam (blue frosting) are honey roasted peanuts. The Christmas trees are small waffle cones covered in green frosting. We enjoyed looking at it for a couple of days, and have enjoyed eating it since.

Joanne has been getting crafty again this holiday season. Here is a quilt she made this month.

As things get more competitive, there's less time off, even during the holidays. Here are the girls at their most recent meet, where Madeline was selected to swim in a relay in addition to her other individual events.

On Christmas Eve we went to our Elder's Quorum President's house for snacks and a live nativity. Though he has five boys, the two families together resulted in an equal number of boys and girls, so our shepherds were all female. The part of Baby Jesus was played by baby Jared who was born in October, and was quite content to hang out in a laundry basket, which his mom informs us is not a terribly uncommon event.

After the Nativity was over, the ruckus began. This consisted of the adults eating more cookies and Chex mix than necessary, while the little kids wrestle-tickled Jessica.

When the ruckus was over, we came home, watched a movie and then went to bed to wait for Santa to come. He came through in fine fashion. Jessica got a new scarf, hat, mitten combo, and the final few dollars she needed to save up to get her long-desire iPod touch. It has been ordered and should arrive soon.

Emily also received some money toward a future iPod, and a stack of Judy Moody books, which went over well with her.

Madeline got some fabulous Harry Potter accessories -- namely Luna Lovegood's Spectra Specs and wand. Oh, and also a little cash to add to the savings for an iPod.

Santa was likewise good to Joanne, bringing an extra-large griddle and a new purse.

Not pictured: Matt, who received a number of tools, and a new, skinny belt to hold up pants. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas and hope you did as well.

18 December 2011 - Conference in Singapore

2011-12-22T21:38:00.006-05:00

This small Buddhist temple was right next door to my hotel in Singapore. Though small, it was in a fairly residential area and thus was quite busy. Consequently, the hotel smelled a good bit like incense from the many daily prayers offered.

The conference was actually held at the Hotel Fort Canning, a few subway stops up from the hotel I stayed in. Fort Canning was a British military headquarters for much of the 1800s and 1900s until the Japanese conquered Singapore in World War II. Though Singapore was returned to the British after World Ward II, the Fort was turned into a hotel and within a about a decade, Singapore became its own sovereign nation.

You've heard the rumors about Singapore......well......they're true.

The Hotel Fort Canning is a very classy place. It is a popular place for weddings, galas, and even geeky computer conferences.

On the grounds around the hotel (Fort Canning Park), I found this sculpture with the inscription: "Love and Kindness are Never Wasted."

Here's a bit more traditional sculpture at Fort Canning, part of a fountain that was off for cleaning and repair.

Here's a view of one of the conference rooms. I didn't have someone take a picture of me during any of my presentations, I get nervous enough as it is. So I took a pic of an empty room during one of the breaks. My talk and several discussions about my forthcoming data mining book went very well.

As part of the conference, we got to take a bus tour of the city. I found Singapore to be somewhat like Houston in terms of its downtown -- there wasn't really one downtown, there were several clusters of high rise office buildings.

This building is a combination of hotel, shopping and business. It is on the harbor front. The bridge across the top of the three towers is called the Skywalk. We were supposed to get to go up there as part of the bus tour, but when we got there we got some lame explanation from our tour guide about why we weren't going, so I only got to take a picture. The white balls floating in the water are peoples' wishes or prayers for Christmas and the New Year.

When Joanne and I were in London about nine years ago, we rode the London Eye, which at the time was the largest Ferris wheel in the world. It has now been surpassed twice, once by a giant wheel in China, and then in 2008 by the Singapore Flyer, seen on the left side of this photo.

Like any good city, Singapore has a Chinatown where cheap goods are hawked to tourists anxious for a good deal. I did my part, bringing back ear rings for all four of my girls, and Angry Birds pencil cases for the younger ones.

We went to a Buddhist temple during the bus tour. I liked this Buddha. He presides over the fifth circle of Hell, where children who are disobedient to their parents are sent to be punished.

After a week in the Orient, it was time to come home. It's a 24 hour trip, so I did a lot of sleeping and watched a number of movies. I also had some grading to get done and worked on my writing a bit. When I arrived home, the girls had decorated our tree. This year we went with a live tree, a Douglas Fir in burlap. The goal is to keep it alive in the house and then plant it in the backyard after it has served its Christmas purpose.

We wish you all a wonderful and restful week leading up to Christmas.

11 December 2011 - Malaysia and Indonesia

2011-12-22T20:27:00.006-05:00

This week, classes came to an end and I had the opportunity to travel to Singapore for the International Computer Science Education conference. Since it was much cheaper to fly in before the weekend, I found myself there with a few days to explore before the conference began. Here is a view of Singapore from the train platform.

Near my hotel, I found a place where I could sample the local cuisine.

Here's another restaurant near my hotel. The clarity of the owner's advertising was lacking. I wasn't sure if this was a place for Muslims to go eat, or where you go to eat Muslims. Maybe that confusion is why I didn't eat here.

Speaking of advertising, each day when I walked from my hotel to the train station, I felt like I needed to buy some paint.

Singapore's fine bakeries were simply no good for my diet.

Singapore is not really very big -- it is an island nation surrounded on one side by Malaysia, and across the straits on the other side by Indonesia. I spent my first free day in Malaysia. Here is a large mosque I found.

It is a mosque that is not to trifled with.

While I was exploring, I found a little shopping district that was decorated with traditional Chinese lanterns.

To get to Malaysia, you take a bus across a short causeway bridge. This is a view of Singapore looking back across the water from Johor, Malaysia.

Malaysia is primarily a Muslim country, but is tolerant of other religions. This was a particularly ornate Buddhist temple I found on my walkabout in Johor. It's the rainy season over there right now, so when the afternoon rains came, I headed back to Singapore to my hotel and went to bed for the night.

The next day, I took a ferry boat to Batam, Indonesia. This shot is looking back toward Singapore as we left the bay heading toward Batam.

Here's the boat that brought me to Indonesia. It was about a 30 minute boat ride through one of the busiest shipping channels I've ever seen.

This is one of the first places I saw when I got off the boat. There was this very pretty, lily pad covered lake with a walkway around it.

I rented a motor scooter to cruise around and check out the island. My scooter was like the little ones pictured here and cost me $3.10 for about an hour. Indonesia was much dirtier and more impoverished than Singapore.

Another mosque, this one in Batam.

After a day in Batam, it was time to head back to Singapore to get ready for my conference. At the boat dock waiting for my ferry, this water taxi guy with his pink parasol made me laugh.

Back in Singapore, it was pretty easy to get to sleep. Not only had I spent most of two days walking and exploring, the time difference was also 13 hours from Eastern Time, so I was all out of whack. I was glad to get back to my hotel and crash for the night.

4 December 2011 - Swim Meet

2011-12-04T18:32:00.004-05:00

The other night, I was cleaning up in the kitchen, and I looked out and saw a stunning sunset. I had to take a picture, even though a picture doesn't do it justice.

On Saturday, Madeline and Emily participated in the first swim meet of the year. It was Madeline's first swim meet ever, and here is a shot of her as she won the 25 yard freestyle heat for her age group. She was very excited.

Here is Emily on the starting block. She also did very well in her events.

Jessica was not able to participate in the swim meet, because we had a youth temple trip to Columbus. Our appointment at the temple was very early Saturday morning, so after we finished we took all 12 youth who participated to this indoor water park where they played until late afternoon. We had a blast.

Joanne and the younger girls arrived back at the house just five minutes after Jessica and I got home, so our Saturdays, in two different places, were long and tiring, but fun for all.

27 November 2011 - Thanksgiving

2011-12-04T18:19:00.003-05:00

This year for Thanksgiving, Jerry and Danae came to visit from New Jersey. Since our ward didn't have a Turkey Bowl, we had our own in the yard. It was sunny, but we've had so much rain that the ground was very sloppy.

Eden enjoyed blowing bubbles with the girls and playing in the playhouse.

After a couple of hours working up an appetite, it was time for Thanksgiving dinner.

Joanne and Danae made sure that we had some excellent pies to follow dinner (a couple hours later).

After five days, it was time to say goodbye. We never like parting, but the blow was softened for Calista and Eden when they received Pillow Pets from Aunt Joanne.

We hope you had a happy, healthy and yummy Thanksgiving.

20 November 2011 - Birthday in D.C.

2011-11-25T13:35:00.004-05:00

For my birthday this weekend, we went to Washington D. C. We stayed with Jenni and Ed and their boys, but were able to see Joanne's cousin Jeremy and his family (they came over for birthday cake and pie on Saturday night), and Karl and his kids who joined us in the city on Saturday. It was a very quick trip, but we were able to see the Natural and American History Smithsonians and several monuments on the National Mall.

Here is Emily admiring the Hope Diamond.

It was sunny but cold while we walked from the Smithsonian down past the Washington Monument.

We walked all the way down to the Lincoln Memorial, which was about a mile.

Then we walked back up the other side and saw the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.

Sunset over the Potomac River.

On Sunday, which was my birthday, church was late so we slept in then went for a walk in the crunchy leaves. Asher jumped in for a photo with the girls, but Noe didn't want to, so we let him off the hook.

Although the trip was way too short, it was exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday and we had a great time.

13 November 2011 - School Activities

2011-11-25T13:11:00.006-05:00

This week was occupied by children and their various learning activities. Madeline got a crystal growing set for her last birthday and this week she decided to grow some salt crystals. We had a close-up, but it was very fuzzy so I decided to use this photo.

Meanwhile, Emily had to make an ecosystem diorama. Thank goodness for the Africa Playmobil.

Both girls had Meet Me at Music at school this week. Their school has started doing this instead of a big assembly, and I actually like it. I always dreaded going and sitting for two hours (or more) and listening to a bunch of tone-deaf kids I don't care about yelling songs at me, just so I could hear my own kids sing for five minutes. By inviting parents into the smaller music classes, we get to interact with our own kids, for a longer period of time, and still get in and out in less than an hour. I didn't get a picture of Madeline's Turkey Tango, but here's Emily singing the Turkey Boogie.

6 November 2011 - Halloween and a Momentous Occasion

2011-11-07T19:08:00.004-05:00

Monday was the greatest holiday known to kids. It was drizzling a little and not too warm, but that didn't stop the kids from having a great time. I took the kids out while Joanne stayed home and manned the candy bowl.

The kids brought home a tremendous haul. In our family, we've always combined everyone's candy together at the end of the night and tried to manage consumption so as to avoid sugar induced illness.

Given the size of the Halloween haul, and the general tastiness of candy in general, it was somewhat miraculous that on the morning after Halloween, I achieved a momentous goal. Back on July 5th I decided that I felt lousy, didn't like being fat, and needed to do something about it. My blood pressure was creeping back up too. So I downloaded an app called Lose It! on my phone and set up a goal. I weighed 235 pounds--10 pounds heavier than I'd ever previously been in my life. My goal was to lose 40 pounds. Over the course of the past four months I have been very vigilant in managing my caloric intake. I still ate hamburgers, bread and even donuts and ice cream during my weight loss, but I tried very hard to manage portions and stay within my daily calorie limit. As the weeks went by, the pounds started to come off. I felt better every week and even took up jogging -- sometimes running as many as eight miles at a stretch; something I hadn't done (or been able to do) for years. Then, on November 1st, this was the scale's reading:

I was very happy (and honestly, relieved) to reach this goal. I have continued to use Lose It! to try to ensure that I now maintain weight. I'd like to try to get down into the 180s, but if I can stay under 200 for the long term, I will be very satisfied. I should note here that Joanne joined me in the Lose It! quest, losing 20 pounds herself and getting back to what she weighed when we were married. Perhaps not coincidentally, we reached these goals right at November 1st, 2011, the day we also celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary.

As the week went on, the weather turned warmer and our snow melted. By Thursday, this was all that was left.

On Saturday, the girls and I attended the high school play of one of the priests in our ward. It was a theater-in-the-round performance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, an eclectic and existential take on the role of two minor characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Although the girls didn't get most of it and the play's dialogue is pretty heavy stuff, it was good to be there to support Taylor (he's my First Assistant in the priest quorum presidency).

Joanne wasn't able to attend the play because she was in Delaware for our nephew Kurt's baptism. She had a very good time with her brothers and sisters, mom, and many nieces, nephews and cousins. The girls were certainly glad to have her back home after a couple of days away.

30 October 2011 - Trunk or Treat / Snow

2011-11-07T18:54:00.004-05:00

This week we had Trunk or Treat at the church. From left to right, Emily is a devil, Madeline is an angel, Faith (neighbor two doors down) is a geisha, and Jessica is a cupcake with a cherry on top. We had an excellent turn out, better than ever this year, and the kids all had a blast. The weather was perfect. Joanne is a craft costume maker. Emily even had a forked tail.

On Saturday morning, we woke up to an unexpected snowfall of about five inches.

The girls couldn't wait to get out and play in it.

They made a whole family of snowmen (and women). Five to be exact. Madeline delighted in making snowballs bigger than she could roll.

I didn't get a photo, but after about two hours of cold and wet, everyone came in for hot chocolate.

23 October 2011 - Joanne in Utah

2011-11-07T18:35:00.004-05:00

This week was Fall Break at W&J College. It also, fortuitously, coincided with Jennifer's birthday. For Joanne's birthday back in July I had bought her a plane ticket to go to Utah to be with her mom and sisters for five days over fall break. Here's Jennifer opening one of her birthday presents.

Since Halloween was coming soon, they all decided to go out for a witches night out.

And bowling. They also went bowling.

With mommy gone, the girls were free back in PA to have ice cream for dinner if they wanted. There's a banana in there, so it's good for them.

16 October 2011

2011-10-18T13:27:00.002-04:00

This week Joanne was in Utah to visit her mom and sisters. I'm hoping to have some pictures of her trip for my next update. While she was gone, our ward had a temple day in Columbus. We had a chapel session with the temple president prior to our baptistry and endowment sessions. Here is our youth group after our baptistry session.

Since Jessica turned 12 in August, this was her first opportunity to attend the temple.

It's always a good experience to be in the temple.

9 October 2011 - Conference in Mobile, AL

2011-10-18T11:56:00.004-04:00

This week was my annual conference. This year it was held in Mobile, Alabama at the Battle House Hotel which served as Andrew Jackson's headquarters during the War of 1812. It's been through a lot in its history, but has recently been meticulously restored by Marriott. It was a really nice place to have the conference.

Fort Conde was built in the 1720s to defend Mobile from pirates and other invaders approaching from the Gulf of Mexico or along the Mobile River delta. The building is mostly a reconstruction now.

A really cool thing happened while I was at the conference. The guy in the yellow shirt in this photo (at the front of the boat by the truck) is Tom, my advisor from my Master's degree program at Utah State. Tom is at the University of Wisconsin now, and we cross paths each year at the fall conference. On Friday, he introduced himself to a guy named Harold, who happened to be a professor at the University of South Alabama and lived right there in Mobile. Harold has a boat and invited us out Friday afternoon/evening.

At first, we went upstream into the Mobile River delta. It was about 85 degrees and the water was about 76 degrees. It was beautiful.

There were several floating fishing cabins. They reminded me of my time in the Amazon, where floating houses and schools were common.

Sunset on the bayou.

Harold took us to an island accessible only by boat (i.e. no bridges). It had an awesome sandy beach, I was only sad that I hadn't brought my swimming suit to the conference.

Harold brought his son, Giles, who served as boat captain for the day.

After some time on the sandy island, we went back down along the Mobile River out to the bay where we went to a floating restaurant with excellent, very fresh seafood. This photo is of Bay Bridge, with the city of Mobile in the distance.

We got an up-close look at this freight ship getting unloaded. I was trying to envision all the junk inside each container that would soon be on its way to Wal-Mart.

It was a good conference made even better by an unexpected invitation to go out on the water.

2 October 2011 - General Conference

2011-10-18T11:38:00.002-04:00

For this week, I was going post something to the effect of "nothing happened". It was just a normal week, busy with school, church and kids running to piano, swim team, etc. Of course that would completely overlook General Conference, which would be a mistake. As always, we very much enjoyed two days of good gospel instruction.

If you have time, consider taking 15 minutes to click the link above and watch the video highlights of conference.

25 September 2011 - Jenni & Ed's Visit

2011-09-28T11:49:00.004-04:00

This weekend Jenni and Ed came from D.C. to visit us. We've been planning this for a while, because a Steve Miller Band concert was scheduled as part of a Pirates baseball game for September 24th, so we bought tickets back in June. Here is Asher, the younger of their two sons, who is "a grown up now" because he has ridden on a motorcycle.

On Saturday Jenni and Ed took their boys into the city to check out the National Aviary (bird zoo), which they said was super cool. We met them later on in the city at a park near the ballpark and aviary.

Before the baseball game, we had dinner at Dominick's. Noe went to town on his Sprite! Good thing the refills were free.

I've been to Major League Baseball games all over the country but I haven't found a ballpark with a view quite as good as Pittsburgh's. Usually the ballpark view is the best part of a Pirates game, but on Saturday night, they actually won a close one, 4-3 over the Cincinnati Reds.

You can't really tell by the picture, but that's the Steve Miller Band performing down on the field. They're probably best known for their song The Joker, but my favorite of theirs is Dance, Dance, Dance. Jessica preferred Abracadabra.

I took a video of Jet Airliner with my phone. The video is not great and the sound quality was much better in the ballpark than it is on this recording, but it gives you an idea. It was a great show after a pleasant night at the ballpark with perfect weather.

18 September 2011 - Service and Bonfire

2011-09-28T10:18:00.003-04:00

This past week was pretty much regular old work without much excitement, until Saturday. I should note that far, far away in Provo our nephew Brandon entered the MTC for his mission to Vietnamese-speaking San Jose, CA. That was certainly exciting for our family, but we are so removed that unfortunately it wasn't as momentous for us.

Here on our home front, Saturday was a busy day of service. From 9 AM until 2 PM, I had W&J's First Year Day of Service. This is a day when all the freshmen get together to help and do service in our community. Since I'm teaching a First Year Seminar this fall, I went with my freshmen on their assignment, which was to paint and otherwise help out at a countryside rest home near Washington. I went inside at one point and found some of my students baking cookies and watching football with the elderly. I said "Hey, this isn't service", but the lady inside said "Yes it is, this is exactly what our residents need." So I quieted down. Here are two of my students painting a patio trellis.

When I got home at about 2 PM, I grabbed a sandwich and headed down to South Franklin Township Park, which is about five miles south of town. Our ward had selected this park as the place for our day of service in response to President Monson's call to give service to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the church welfare system. We hold our annual Memorial Day picnic at this park, so by giving service here we also benefit. Here are Jessica and Joanne working on one of a dozen park benches that we repaired.

Don't the benches look nice now?

Many in our ward spent the entire time pulling staples, tacks and even nails from the picnic tables and pavilion. There were an average of 200-300 staples in each table, just from people attaching table cloths, birthday decorations and other types of streamers.

After the service project was over, we drove a couple miles down the road to Phil and Beth Conklin's farm where we had a bonfire complete with hot dogs, s'mores, and junk food!

Madeline and Jessica had hot chocolate, even though it really wasn't cold out. The night was beautiful

11 September 2011 - Labor Day

2011-09-11T19:06:00.004-04:00

Given the fact that it was the first week of classes at W&J, and the fact that it was Labor Day this week, I think it's a miracle I got one picture. Our president thinks it's a fun idea for us to start classes each fall on Labor Day, which isn't so fun when you think about the fact that nobody else is working, and the kids are off school too. Madeline went to Joanne's Yoga class with her, then came to my office and watched the seventh Harry Potter movie while I was teaching. Since she's seen the movie several times and read the book, she entertained herself by drawing Dobby, Hedwig and Nagini on my white board. I don't know what the rectangle and orange lines are. Anyone?

After work, we did invite two families from the ward over for grilled burgers, dogs, and other good food. It was a good evening for the holiday. Tuesday was made crazy by the combination of the first day of Tuesday/Thursday classes and a funeral for an elderly gentleman in our ward who has been in a nursing home for about five years. I liked him a lot. His name was Bill Fullgraf and he lived to be 88 years old. He served for many years in the Merchant Marines, then had a long career in a steel mill. When I used to go see him in the nursing home he would tell me stories about carrying supplies to the troops across the Atlantic during World War II. If you know my penchant for history, you'll know I was never bothered by hearing his stories. I got a colleague to cover my first day of class so I could do Bill's funeral. I thought we did a very nice job for him.

The rest of the week has been rainy, unseasonably cold, and busy, busy, busy. We hope you had a great Labor Day.

4 September 2011 - School Starts

2011-09-07T13:27:00.002-04:00

Just one day after returning from our trip to New York and New Jersey, the girls headed back to school. They were excited to be back with friends and teachers, and so far, it's been a good school year. Meanwhile, Joanne and I set about preparing for our semesters to begin as well, so it was a busy, but uneventful week. I have but one photo to share from this week. Strangely, Saturday, September 3rd was our hottest day of the year -- 97% with 95% humidity. Even during our three-week heat wave in July the heat index did not exceed what we experienced on Sept. 4th. Needless to say, it was pretty gross to be outside, so we did what we always do. We headed to the pool. Here is Madeline with a mermaid tail on.

We hope each of you enjoy a safe and happy Labor Day.

28 August 2011 - NY/NJ Vacation

2011-09-07T10:11:00.006-04:00

We left for New Jersey on Sunday right after church and arrived at Jerry and Danae's house a little after 9 PM. There were bad rain storms across most of Pennsylvania that had caused several traffic accidents, causing us to have to get off the interstate and take side roads, which slowed us down some. Still, we made good time. On Monday, the girls played with their cousins all day while Jerry and I worked on finishing up his gates on each side of his house and the rest of his front fence. We were pretty proud of our work.

On Tuesday we took the girls to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We waited too long to get tickets to go up inside the Statue of Liberty, and soon it will be closed for renovations for a year or so, but at least we got to go see it. Our first stop though was at Ellis Island, and Madeline got to be one of the judges (she's seated in the middle) in a mock hearing for an immigrant whose means and motives for coming to America were being questioned. Madeline was in favor of the lady, and we eventually all voted to let her in. We spent a couple of hours looking at the Ellis Island exhibits, and I felt like it was really good for the kids to be there.

In one exhibit hall we saw a picture of an Eastern European immigrant who was a shepherd who's stated destination was Wyoming. It reminded me of a grave marker in Afton Cemetery I saw once that indicated the man buried there was born in Prussia. I imagined this man, having traveled three or four thousand miles to get to Ellis Island, coming through that building we were standing in, and still facing almost three thousand more miles to get to Afton. It was a good experience for me to be there as well. While we were waiting for the boat to take us from Ellis to Liberty Island Joanne snapped this photo of us with Manhattan in the background.

We made it to Liberty Island without any trouble. We walked all around the island and got some nice pictures. When we got back to Jerry and Danae's house that evening, they asked if we felt the earthquake. We hadn't, we figured out we were probably on the boat and just felt a few extra waves when it happened.

Wednesday was our day at Six Flags. We were joined for this part of our vacation by Jennifer who flew in from Utah and Karl and Jolene's family who drove up from Delaware. We started at Wild Safari, which is a drive through wild animal park. There were elephants and rhinos and buffaloes and a bunch of other animals, but the three giraffes that were standing in the middle of the road and licking, nudging and otherwise accosting cars were probably the highlight. Joanne took this picture right through the windshield.

After the animal park we went to find some rides. There were rides for kids of all sizes. Here's Madeline and Emily on a cute little bug ride. But don't let the tame nature of this one fool you...

Emily also rode Kingda Ka, the tallest (453 ft) and second fastest (128 mph) coaster in the world:

Calista, Eden and Trevor preferred the tamer rides however.

And most of us enjoyed the dolphin show.

Thursday we went into NYC to see a Yankees game. It was raining hard, but after a delay of an hour or so, the game was played. Despite the fact that I've been to dozens of Major League Baseball games, I can't ever remember being at one where a Grand Slam was hit. This game between the Yankees and A's featured a record-breaking three Grand Slams, with seven total home runs and more than thirty total runs scored. If you peek between Joanne and me, you can see the final score: Yankees 22, A's 9.

From the Yankees game Joanne and I headed to Times Square and stayed the night in a hotel. We had dinner that evening at Toloache Mexican restaurant, which I now highly recommend if you ever find yourself in West Midtown Manhattan. The next morning we took to the streets of Times Square to engage in Joanne's favorite pastime: shopping. Along the way, I made a friend.

Joanne tried to do a self portrait of us in Times Square. We also did a little shopping in Chinatown.

That evening we all met up in Queens for a Mets game at their new ballpark near Flushing Meadows. Although there were not 30 runs scored, the game was still very entertaining, the new ballpark was fantastic, and the Mets won!

Meanwhile, back at Jerry and Danae's house, the girls were having a grand old time. Jessica loved helping take care of Eden, and Eden in turn enjoyed being cared for.

They visited the park next door as often as occasion allowed, and also, when the weather was warm enough, went to the SprayGround a couple of times.

Our final activity of the week was supposed to be Arthur Ashe Kids' day at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, but Hurricane Irene was on her way, and the festivities were canceled. We decided to get on our way to avoid the storm, and ended up getting back to Washington, PA around 9 PM Saturday evening. The hurricane rolled up the East Coast on Sunday, but we were grateful to hear from both Karl and Jerry that neither of them sustained any major damage due to the storm. It was an excellent week and we were grateful to spend it with our family.

21 August 2011 - Pony Baseball

2011-09-07T09:53:00.003-04:00

Each year the Pony League World Series is held in Washington, PA. The Pony baseball tournament is for 13-14 year old boys, and they come from all over the world. W&J College is a night sponsor each year and they always get bunches of tickets for the night they sponsor. This year we got VIP tickets and got to have dinner and watch the game from the hospitality suite above the press box. The food was tasty, and since it was hot and humid, watching the game from an air conditioned room was very fine. The only drawback was the backstop net.

After the sun went down it cooled off and we went out to the bleachers for the second game of the night. We had a lot of fun.

My office has been slowing getting back in order since my false-start move down to Maryland in January. I got my pennants put back up finally this week (with a few new ones from my summer adventures), so my office finally feels like home again.

With summer winding down, a friend from church and I decided to fit in another motorcycle ride. This time we rode to a marina on the Monongahela River.

On Saturday, the farm that we helped out on this past summer had a picnic for all the supporters. We toured the farm, checked out the late summer and fall crops, and grilled some very tasty burgers. At one point, Farmer Dave had the kids pick as many apples as they could. This didn't make much sense since the apples were small, green, some had bugs, and were generally inedible. Still, the kids had fun picking armfuls of apples.

Once they were picked, we took them over to the pond and using a giant slingshot (Jessica and I were the holders), the kids got to take turns flinging them as far as they could out into the pond.

It was a fine Saturday out on the farm.

14 August 2011 - Jessica's Birthday

2011-08-14T19:17:00.004-04:00

This week Grandma Fails was in town. The girls had a grand time with her. At some point, they acquired new stuffed animals. These are from Angry Birds.

While I was away on my research trip, Joanne did some minor remodeling to the master bedroom. On the ledge beneath the vault in the ceiling, she did some beadboard panels and trim and added the mirror and iron sculpture. It looks nice.

When I came home from church last Sunday, the girls (and Grandma) were anxiously engaged in manicures.

The girls even got to go to the outlets and do some late summer shopping.

Jessica turned twelve (not 16) this week. This was taken on the morning of her birthday. She was in the driver's seat because something went wrong with the starter on my truck and she was helping me diagnose it. It turned out to just be a stripped bolt, but that didn't stop it from keeping the truck from starting and from taking several hours to fix.

What fun on a girl's birthday -- we went out and worked on the farm for a couple of hours. Grandma came with us and helped pick peppers and tomatoes. The weather cooperated and it was nice to be outside.

Farmer Dave's kids were there this week, and all the kids had a blast playing on the "haystack", which was essentially three bales of straw. From left to right are Jessica, Emily, Mae, Madeline and Lalo.

After the farm work, Jessica got to participate in her first Young Women's activity. Since most of the young women were out of town, it was just Jessica, the YW president, and her daughter who is just two months older than Jessica. They went to a pottery shop and got to make their own pieces. Here is Jessica's.

That night we had a family birthday party. She had lots of presents and cards, which as always were very much appreciated.

Oh great...more stuffed animals. Sigh.

She had a pineapple-shaped coconut birthday cake, which was very yummy but did nothing (good) for my diet.

7 August 2011 - Great Lakes Trip

2011-08-09T20:30:00.006-04:00

This week I went on a research trip to the Great Lakes region. I was collecting some GPS survey day. If you want to see how far north I drove on this trip, find the town of L'Anse, Michigan on a map some time.

Here is my little Honda (college car) and my field research "lodging". The areas I was in were very remote. I put 2,500 miles on the car in just five days.

This is my field research gear. The tall pole is an antenna for a high sensitivity GPS unit (the little yellow thing) that reads location with extremely high precision. I carried this through the Ottawa and Superior National Forests capturing data in 120 different locations.

While I was off cruising the country side, Aunt Kathy came to visit and to go to Kirtland, OH. I was sorry to miss her visit, but the girls were glad to have her here for a day.

The water in the Great Lakes region was beautiful every time I found some, which was often. Minnesota isn't called The Land of 10,000 lakes for nothing. This picture was taken as the sun was rising, just after 6:30 AM one morning. I had camped at the edge of the lake the night before, and when I woke up, the water was so still and everything was so beautiful, I had to take a picture. Actually, I took over 100, but I won't post them all here. The only sounds were of nature, and it was early enough that there weren't many of those. There really are no words to describe it, and the picture doesn't really do it justice. The mosquitoes weren't even too bad this morning.

Here is another view. I really liked this picture because of the way the glassy water reflected the thin clouds.

While I was tromping through the Ottawa National Forest, I came upon this little graveyard. Evidently, around the turn of the century there had been a small settlement in this area of the forest, and a church in a town several miles away has taken it upon themselves to maintain this cemetery. I will admit it was a little creepy, but kind of cool too.

I'm so glad I didn't grow up and go to this school in northern Michigan. (Don't forget you can click on the pic to make it big enough to read the sign if you need to.)

I was pleased on the drive up to find myself in Milwaukee when the Brewers were in town and when I had time to catch a game. I'd never been to Miller Park before (this was my 18th Major League ballpark), so it was fun to catch a game, even if I was alone. It's never as fun to go to a ballgame without friends, but I just made friends with the folks sitting around me. To make my maiden voyage to see the Brewers just a little better, it didn't hurt that my ticket to the game only cost $8.00.

I returned home late Saturday night, tired but satisfied with an excellent research trip. Now to collate my data, write up my findings, and get them published.

31 July 2011 - Patio's Done!

2011-08-01T18:52:00.005-04:00

We went to the farm again this week and helped pick 200 more ears of corn. Mercifully the heat index was down so it was a much more comfortable job than last week. We also picked peppers, beans and dug potatoes which the girls went nuts for -- it was like a treasure hunt in the dirt.

Here are the girls with part of Wednesday's harvest.

It's been a long summer of work on the patio, but it's finally done. I'm very pleased with the outcome. The area underneath the deck used to just be weeds and dirt, and now it's a shady and pleasant place to enjoy an afternoon. To finish, I sprayed the concrete with a silver gray epoxy sealant that should keep it looking nice for years and protect it from the winter weather.

The final touch was to add some soil around the edges where the forms for the concrete had been. I planted grass seed too, so now we have to wait for the grass to grow in for the patio to look complete.

In our ward we have a kind and grandfatherly convert who sadly has no grand kids to dote on, so he dotes on our kids. He recently took a bus tour of the lighthouses of the Great Lakes and while traveling, found these 3-D puzzles he thought the girls would enjoy. One is a castle and the other is a horse and carriage, so they've been a big hit with the princesses. When you finish putting them together, you get to decorate them yourself.

24 July 2011 - Motorcycle & Boating

2011-07-24T19:39:00.003-04:00

I was very sad early this week -- the clutch went out on my motorcycle. When I had it inspected in June the mechanic warned me that he thought the clutch might be going and well, it went. I looked on YouTube and found a video demonstrating how to change a clutch. It seemed relatively easy, so I decided to take on the project myself. Here's the bike with the oil out and side cover off the engine.

This is the old clutch, disassembled. I also changed out the oil filter while I was in there messing around. It really wasn't that hard to do, but that didn't stop me from having to do the job twice. I pinched the oil filter gasket and leaked oil out all over the driveway. It took a little tweaking, but the motorcycle is back to running like a dream.

On Wednesday, the girls and I went back out to the farm to help Farmer Dave harvest his corn. Mommy had a doctor's appointment. Because we helped harvest we got double corn in our share, and it was awesome -- sweet and fresh. If Emily looks a little sad in this picture it's probably because the heat index (temperature + humidity) was over 110 degrees. We cooled off in the hose again and went out for pineapple smoothies afterward.

On Saturday we took the youth from church boating in Ohio. This is Emily on the tube. It rained on the drive to the lake, but warmed up and was sunny for most of the day.

Madeline loved riding in the boat, that is until a sudden storm came up and abruptly ended our trip a little after five in the afternoon. We had to make a mad dash for the marina with rain stinging us all the way there and lightning flashing all around us. The rain came down so hard and so fast that it flooded the parking lot with several feet of water and stranded us for about 20 minutes while we waited for the run off on the roads to subside enough to allow us to drive home. It was not the ideal way to end our boating trip, but the vast majority of our day was a blast.

17 July 2011 - Patio & Farm Work

2011-07-24T19:29:00.003-04:00

I'm pleased to report that I'm finally done with the concrete on the patio. It took me about two weeks, but I lost a little weight and built a little upper body strength in the process. I still have to wash and stain the patio, but at least there's no more concrete to mix.

Here's a view from the opposite angle.

On Saturday, our friends that have the organic farm where we get our vegetables were having a garlic harvesting party. Our whole family went, prepared to cool off in the hose after the work was done. The kids found a bunch of carrots too.

Farmer Dave is the one in the straw hat in the middle. Several families came out to help and have fun.

Here is Madeline taking a big whiff of garlic that we hung in the barn to dry.

10 July 2011 - Independence Day

2011-07-11T20:00:00.005-04:00

After several weeks of traveling this summer, we're home now for a while; and it's a good thing too. Joanne's garden is officially a jungle and she's already been able to harvest some food. It's been a very veggie summer for our family.

This summer we've spent time with two different sets of cousins who have trampolines. The girls have been enjoying them so much, and Joanne has wanted one for a long time so I finally gave in. I didn't want to do it because there is no flat land in Pennsylvania and I knew the work to level a trampoline site would be significant, but I finally undertook the project on Monday.

The girls were excited, and were willing helpers as we put it together.

Jessica was particularly helpful in putting up the net.

With the assembly done (which took about an hour), it was time to level the ground (which took more than five hours).

I dug out turf on the high side of the hill and the girls helped me move the pieces of sod to the lower side of the hill to make things match a little better. Then I used left over pea gravel from my patio project (which still isn't done, by the way) to fill and level the site. It actually helped to have the girls jump on the trampoline to get the gravel to settle.

After the gravel was all in and the site was level, I mulched in the area behind the trampoline to the edge of the hill to make mowing easier. Madeline kept using the spring pad as leverage to climb on the trampoline, so the last task was to add a ladder. I was not satisfied with the price and quality of the trampoline ladders I was finding online and around town, so I made this one, and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. The girls have been having a blast with their new toy.

Dirty, tired and exhausted from a day of setting up a trampoline, we headed over to a cookout and fireworks party with some friends in the ward. The kids got a kick out of doing some really smoky sparklers, and I was just glad to have a place to sit down and some good food to eat.

Emily really go into the groove.

After a couple of hours at the cookout party, we came home to a different firework party with our neighbors in the cul-de-sac.

And the kids did even more smoky sparklers.

So we had a great, but busy, Fourth of July. The rest of the week we did thing around the house. I've been working hard on my patio (pictures next week), and Joanne helped me finish up some inside work so there is no longer a wall of shame:

It's been extremely hot all week, and the city pool just reduced the price of a family pass, so Joanne decided to buy one. On Saturday, we decided to cool off in the afternoon. I even rode the waterslide with the kids. I went first and then grabbed the camera. Down came Madeline...

Down came Emily...

Then down came Jessica...

It was an excellent summer week.

3 July 2011 - Girls' Camp!

2011-07-05T11:12:00.007-04:00

This week was Girls' Camp. It was Jessica's first year, and Joanne was called to be our ward camp leader. We had five girls go from our ward.

They got to go dragon boating.

This is Jessica with BFF Leah in their matching camp shirts.

This year at Girls' Camp they held a formal dance. There was much skepticism about this type of an activity but Joanne said the girls had an absolute blast with it and really enjoyed getting dolled up despite being out in the woods.

Here are all five girls from the Washington Ward ready for the dance, with Colleen Lindley (from our ward and one of the stake camp directors) and Joanne.

While Jessica and Joanne were at camp in PA, Jolene and Amanda were at camp in Delaware, so the younger two girls and I went there to help with Karl and Jolene's boys during the day while Karl was at work. Here are some Reese's Pieces cookies I made. Super yum!

Karl had ambitious plans for while we were there. He is putting in a play area in the backyard. This is a length-wise view of the area. The wooden thingy is going to be for a net to hit/kick balls into for things like batting practice.

We took the play set apart and moved it into the play area and then reassembled it.

The kids were excited to have their trampoline back together, even though we didn't get everything done (like the net and spring pad), and you can see in this photo that we re-stained the play set. It took 24 yards of playground mulch to cover the entire area.

On Saturday the girls and I headed back to Pennsylvania to see Jessica and mommy after a week away. We were glad to have the opportunity to see Grandma Fails (who came to Delaware on Friday evening) and Jeremy and Rebbecca and kids for a few minutes on Saturday (they came to Karl's for the 4th of July weekend). Around noon, we left Delaware and the temperature was about 90 degrees with high humidity. By the time we got to Baltimore the temperature was 95 degrees, traffic on I-95 was nasty, and we weren't making very good time. As we got to I-70 and headed west, I was running low on gas and the girls needed food so I pulled off in Frederick, MD. When I rolled down my window to place an order at Taco Bell, I smelled the telltale sign of hot antifreeze and knew I was in trouble. I pulled into a gas station next door and found my radiator had sprung a leak. After eating our tacos, filling up with gas, and topping off the radiator, we headed into Frederick, hoping and praying we could find a shop that was open. Within half a mile, I found one. There were two mechanics on duty and although they had other vehicles to work on, they stopped what they were doing, got a hold of a parts supplier who was able to bring a radiator right over, and began working on my truck. We were extremely blessed to pull into this mechanic on the Saturday of 4th of July weekend at 3:30 PM and then leave an hour and a half later with a brand new radiator installed and the air conditioner running. The temperature when we left Frederick was 97 degrees. One of the mechanics even gave the girls his left over Rita's Swedish Fish flavored gelato. Incidentally, it was almost a year ago exactly that Joanne's head gasket blew on a blistering hot day in Frederick, MD on her way to Delaware to watch Karl and Jolene's kids while Jolene was at Girls' Camp. I guess we're going to have to stop doing that ;-). I felt very fortunate as I headed west Saturday afternoon. We saw many cars broken down along I-70/I-68 between Frederick and Morgantown, MD, and I knew the Lord had watched out for us so that we weren't numbered among them.

I was very grateful to make it home Saturday night because Sunday was very important. I have been working with a man in my ward named Bill Schumacher for several years. Bill was excommunicated from the church back in 1993, but has always remained faithful to the church. Last fall we set a goal for him to be re-baptized by spring of 2011. In May, a council was held and we received permission for Bill to be re-baptized. Unfortunately Bill suffered a serious back injury right after permission was received, he underwent surgery, and then his wife gave birth to a baby shortly after that. We had finally set July 3rd as Bill's baptism date, and I was deeply grateful that my truck got fixed and that I was able to be there on Sunday to see Bill baptized by our friend, Cliff Bergmann. Following the baptism, I had the privilege of confirming Bill a member of the church. Working with Bill these past several years has helped me to see how powerful the atonement can be, if a person will truly humble himself, admit his shortcomings and work to correct them, and submit himself to the will of the Lord.

26 June 2011 - Home from Utah

2011-06-25T20:56:00.003-04:00

This week we wrapped up our trip to Utah. On Sunday night we drove back to St. George to spend one last night at Angie and Darin's house. On Monday morning we said goodbye again to Mikelle and Jake, who were the only two at home, and we headed back toward Las Vegas. On our way out of town, we stopped at the temple for a photo op.

Since our flight back to Pennsylvania was at 6:45 am on Tuesday morning, we decided to spend our last day and night in Vegas. We stayed at Vdara, a brand new smoke and gambling free tower at the Bellagio. We swam in the pool in the afternoon, then took a walk down the strip. We kept quoting the Despicable Me lines about Gru stealing the Vegas replicas of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower, so we had to stop for a quick photo.

That evening, we went to see Mystere, one of the Cirque du Soleil shows.

We stopped at the Bellagio fountains on the way back from the show, but then went straight to bed because we had to leave for the airport at 4 am. We traveled all day Tuesday to get home. The rest of the week was spent catching up on long neglected yard work and unpacking. Joanne also had an idea to move all three girls into a single bedroom for the summer (if you're interested in why, you should ask her). So after several hours of disassembling and reassembling beds, the girls are now all in one.

Fortunately we have bunk beds or this wouldn't have worked out. We did manage to get all three beds and all three dressers into what used to be Jessica's bedroom.

I don't know if is was jet lag, fatigue, clumsiness or some combination of them, but on Thursday night I was going up the stairs to go to bed, and I took a bit of a tumble. This is my wall of shame. The round hole is where my head hit and the vertical crack to the right is where my arm hit.

Among my many projects I've now been working on patching up my wall of shame. The white patch higher and to the left is where I fixed a nail pop in the wall -- I figured if I was going to be doing drywall and paint anyway, I might as well do the nail pop too.

While it's always hard to have fun times and vacations come to an end, it's also nice to be back in your own home as well.

19 June 2011 - Camping in Utah

2011-06-24T14:10:00.007-04:00

The second week of our Utah trip was highlighted by a four day camping trip to Daniels Summit east of Heber. Mike's family came over from Vernal, and Tiffany and Brian even came up for an overnight stay. Madeline immediately fell in love with Mike's kids' new kitty.

The weather was cooperative, though not overly warm. We were above 8,000 feet in elevation, and the spring and early summer in northern Utah has been unseasonably cool. Coupled with the extreme amounts of snow Utah received this past winter, long pants were more suitable than shorts for most of the week. Strawberry Reservoir was easily seen from our camp site.

Uncle Mike was plenty popular with the kids because he brought his work truck with a cable winch on the back and made a super-cool zip line that provided hours of entertainment for the kids. Here's Jessica on a zip run.

Emily having a zip turn.

Madeline coming to a stop.

As many of you are aware, Tiffany had a baby about a month ago. Madeline loved holding the baby kitty, but maybe liked holding baby Lily even more. Baby Lily even stayed overnight one night at the camp, but did not roast marshmallows (although she did hang out by the fire with us).

Four wheeler rides were near constant entertainment as well. Because snow blocked much of the dirt road that makes up Daniels Loop, we weren't able to ride as far as we might have otherwise, but we did have plenty of places to ride, and we even logged a couple of trees that had fallen across the road so that we could ride farther. This is Emily and Megan with MJ on the front.

Joanne, who thinks having to stay in a Motel 6 is camping, came up on Wednesday and Friday, just for the day. It was nice that the camp was only about 45 minutes from her mom's house in Orem so she could go home, shower, sleep in a bed, and still get to have a few four wheeler rides with us.

At one point, we wanted to ride farther on the road than anyone had gone yet this spring. We came upon a group with two four wheelers that had stopped at a snow drift blocking the road and were debating whether or not to attempt busting it. I decided I would try. I was on my dad's ATV, which has four wheel drive, but I didn't put it in four wheel drive (dumb) and didn't get a very good run at the drift because I had Jessica on the back with me and I didn't want her to get thrown off. So I ended up stuck about 3/4 of the way through the drift. Fortunately Mike's wife Angie had her dad's four wheeler which has a winch, and they were able to pull me out. By the next day, the drift had melted a good bit and we were able to get through, but only a short distance further, more snow blocked the way.

The mountains were beautiful, and the Quaking Aspens were just starting to get their leaves. The snow melt provided ample water; in some places, entire meadows were flowing. We stopped at some seasonal waterfalls for some photos. This is Megan, Madeline, MJ and Emily at a little rocky roadside waterfall on Daniels Loop.

Our girls took a shining to learning to ride ATVs. Mike's daughter Corinne has this little green single gear Kawasaki. This is Jessica tearing up the scene on it.

Emily had her own turn riding, and though a bit more tentative than Jessica, she did fine and had a blast.

At the very top of Daniels Summit there is a lodge, restaurant and store. It is only a mile or so from where we camped and is accessible by four wheeler. Madeline was enamored with this giant bear carving in front of the lodge.

Here is a little sample of the snow that's still present at the summit. I told Madeline to stand by it to give some perspective.

At the summit store, Joanne found this gigantic gummy snake and just had to buy it for Madeline. It was three feet long before Madeline started eating it.

It wouldn't be camping without s'mores. After four days of mountain living, on Saturday it was time to call it good. We took a few last four wheeler rides and then broke camp to head home and clean up before Sunday.

Sunday was Father's Day and the kids made M&M bow ties for the dads during Primary. Jessica decided to pose with me.

Sunday after church we got to go see Grandma North at Maurine and Rex's house. I kept my tie on. Grandma was doing good and it was nice to visit with her for a little while.

I've been a lot of places in the world in my life, and it's still hard to find a sight that compares with a Utah mountain sunset. Photos really don't do it justice.

12 June 2011 - First Week in Utah

2011-06-13T22:02:00.003-04:00

Monday was the last day of school for the girls. We sent them all off to school for the two-hour event while Joanne and I got ready for our trip to Utah. I cut the grass one last time and Joanne made sure the house was clean for us to come back to. We finished packing suitcases and loaded up the car. When the girls got home at around noon, we were ready and headed to Pittsburgh Airport. We had enough time before our flight took off for Madeline to munch on some McDonalds.

You may recall if you've followed my blog for long that we flew into Las Vegas this time. When we arrived in Vegas Monday evening, we rented a car (a dusty blue Lincoln Continental, or "granny ghetto mobile" according to Mikelle), and drove to St. George. We spent the first three days of our trip with Angie's family. On Wednesday, we took the boat to Sand Hollow.

We paused for a family photo on the boat before the play began in earnest. It was windy, not stereotypically hot for St. George in June, and the water had only warmed to a brisk 66 degrees due to the unseasonably cool spring Utah (and most of the West) has experienced this year.

Madeline never misses a chance to pose for a Kodak moment. (That's my hat).

Given the relatively choppy water, tubing was the order of the day. Emily, Madeline and Jake got us started.

After Madeline and Emily got tired, Jessica and Mikelle joined Jake on the tube.

Then is was time for Daddy, Emily and Mommy to have a ride. I got water up my nose.

Later that evening, after we were all waterlogged and tired out, Angie had a house full of people. Brandon (who was not at the lake with us :-( because he had to work), had received a letter. Jake opened it for him. It read (in part): Dear Elder Atkinson, You are hereby called to serve as a missionary...in the California San Jose Mission...You will learn the missionary discussions in the Vietnamese language...You should report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah on Wednesday, September 14, 2011.

It was an emotional experience for all involved, especially Brandon, and he is excited to have some time to work and prepare this summer for his mission. We are very proud of him. As you can tell from the white dots on the map behind him, people had guessed places all over the world for Brandon, but only two had guessed California, and no one had guessed San Jose (much less Vietnamese speaking). We found out later that the San Jose area has over 100,000 Vietnamese people.

On Thursday we stayed with Angie's family for the day. I was sick so I slept a lot while the kids had a water fight in the yard and Joanne went....well, you know. That evening we said goodbye and headed north to Orem for some time with Joanne's family. On Friday the girls found a playground at Geneva Elementary School.

They also helped Grandma plant her garden. We're so agrarian!!!

And every day since we got to Orem, the girls have been swimming in Aunt Amy's pool.

5 June 2011 - Memorial Day Week

2011-06-13T21:40:00.003-04:00

For Memorial Day, as we have each year since we moved to Pennsylvania, we attended our ward's picnic. This year, it was blistering hot by noon on Monday. We ate and tried playing volleyball and ladder ball, but ultimately ended up retreating to the refuge of the shade of a large tree. After about two and a half hours, the picnic started breaking up because people were just too hot. We headed a couple miles down the road to swim at Phil and Beth Conklin's pool for a while before heading home.

This summer we are participating in a local organic farm cooperative. It's mostly a really large vegetable garden, so our shares each week consist of lots of veggies -- lettuce, herbs, collard greens, radishes and beets so far. Things like peas, carrots (maybe), cucumbers, tomatoes, and zucchini are on their way. In order to keep our cost for the veggies low and to try to teach the kids a little bit of work ethic (as well as where food comes from), we've volunteered to help on the farm some this summer. On Memorial Day in the evening, when things had cooled down (a little) we went out to the farm. Here's Emily pulling some weeds.

Jessica was looking fabulous while watering the bell pepper starts we were transplanting from the greenhouse to the farm.

Not only is it nice to get out and get your hands dirty, but the farm itself is historic, dating at least back to the 1800s with a picturesque and stately farmhouse (which I mostly cut off on the left of this photo) and sweeping views of Pennsylvania's typical rolling green hillsides.

The rest of Memorial Day week was occupied with work around our house, the last week of school for the kids, and getting ready to leave for our trip to Utah. Before that could happen though, I had a wedding to perform. The groom is Army Private First Class Scott Harris, a young man from our ward who will be serving in Germany beginning next week.

29 May 2011 - Garden and Patio

2011-05-29T15:31:00.003-04:00

This week I was able to finish the garden wall and fill in the top soil. Joanne wasted no time in buying and planting a variety of vegetables.

We also filled in the area around the hose with gravel to make mowing easier and to improve drainage.

Aunt Jennifer came on Thursday. After a day of mowing, trimming hauling gravel and pouring cement under sunny skies, a Popsicle in the shade of a tree was in order.

I had five tons of pea gravel delivered this week and used it to prepare the area under the deck to pour the rest of the patio. As with the area around the hose, this is going to make mowing a lot easier.

On Friday I poured and stamped a new section of patio. It's going to take me a while to finish, but the patio should be nice when I'm done.

The patio's first section against the house is now done. Time to move to the next section.

22 May 2011 - Garden Wall

2011-05-24T11:04:00.005-04:00

When I built the girls' playhouse a few years back, I made a poor choice on the climbing wall. I used wood that was not terribly suitable for outdoor applications, and tried to improvise with the handholds. Since it started falling apart this spring, I decided to make it right this week. The girls helped me replace the wood with some good treated material, and I bought some actual climbing holds which made the wall a lot better.

Ever since we moved into our current house, we've never been satisfied with the south side. The grass kind of grew up against the house, but it was patchy and kind of weedy. We've talked about doing something with it every year but this year we finally decided to do something about it. We're making it into a small garden. This photo shows the first part of the retaining wall I've started building to level the ground and contain the fill dirt for the garden.

We ordered eight yards of topsoil to fill the garden. I hauled the first two yards (one at a time) with my truck, but its 20 year old leaf springs made me nervous, so we had the last six yards delivered and began filling the garden by hand. I'm tired.

Next week, photos of the finished product.

15 May 2011 - Pirates and Crazy Hair

2011-05-24T10:52:00.004-04:00

Emily had a birthday party this week. It was a pirate party. This is Emily's impression of a hook-hand.

All the girls had to try on the pirate gear.

I think Jessica didn't get the right idea here. The spy glass is used with the good eye.

On Monday, we had Meet Me at Music with Madeline's class. I got to practice clapping and tapping cups with Madeline. I was good at it. That night, Jessica had her final choir concert for the year at the middle school.

Oddly enough, Meet Me at Music Day was also crazy hair day at school. Joanne made Madeline's hair awesome, but when she saw it, she refused to go to school until Joanne tamed it down. Notice in the Meet Me at Music picture above Madeline's hair is not like the original do. It reminded me of the time my sister Angie went to school with crazy braids only to realize that they'd gotten the day wrong and she was so embarrassed that when the real day rolled around, she wouldn't let my mom make her hair crazy again.

Emily on the other hand went all out with an Eiffel Tower motif, and wore it proudly throughout the day.

8 May 2011 - Mother's Day

2011-05-24T10:40:00.003-04:00

During the week leading up to Mother's Day, Joanne left town. OK, that sounds wrong. She actually had a conference in Ocean City, MD, so she was there Thursday through late Saturday night. The girls wanted to do something nice for her, so we got some plant-able flowers so she can enjoy them all summer. We also baked some M&M cookies and made her a card.

This week I was conducting some instrumentation research at the college's biological field station. I love working there because its very quiet and secluded and there's lots of good hiking. This is the college's Trimble GeoXT GPS unit.

Joanne made sure to get her Mother's Day flowers in the ground quickly.

One night while mommy was at her conference, we needed milk so we went to Sam's Club. When we came out, we saw this.

I'm pretty sure Sam's Club is not a pot of gold.

1 May 2011 - Spring time

2011-05-02T21:20:00.003-04:00

The weather this week was typical spring -- cold/sunny/warm/rainy/sunny/windy/cold/rainy/sunny. Thus, you can understand why the girls were outside wearing jackets while not wearing shoes. If you click this picture to expand it, you'll see that Jessica and Madeline are of the Blackfeet tribe.

The girls made some super awesome cupcakes with crushed Oreos on top. Yum.

This week we had a pretty epic windstorm. It wasn't anywhere near the tragedy and devastation of the areas hit by tornadoes and flooding in the Midwest and the South, but the wind was strong here nonetheless. It pretty much shredded the side of our neighbor's house. Ours is one of a very few in our neighborhood that has not suffered some wind damage over the course of the past several years. The only thing I can attribute our good fortune to is paying tithing, although I realize that even that doesn't make one immune to the powers of nature. Whatever the reason, we're grateful we haven't had such damage to our house, and hope our good fortunes continue.

When I went to campus Monday morning, I found that this parking lot light pole had blown over in the storm and smashed on the ground. Fortunately this faculty/staff lot is rarely used for overnight parking, although I'm fairly certain the black car in this shot was parked there when the light came down, missing it by about five feet.

Because of our visit to Delaware last weekend, I went for more than a week without cutting my grass, and this time of year, I can't afford to do that. On Friday it took me five hours to mow and rake the lawn. I was very tired. This week I've been attending motorcycle riding and safety school too. I was supposed to do it with a friend from church, but he wasn't able to go. Fortunately a different friend from church was also in the same class. I'll go this coming week too and then be done.

24 April 2011 - Easter in Delaware/Emily's Birthday

2011-05-02T20:46:00.003-04:00

This year for Easter we were fortunate to have enough time to go to Karl and Jolene's house for Easter. The girls had Friday through Tuesday off, so we left Thursday afternoon and spent five days in Delaware. On the first day we arrived, the kids made forts of blankets in the basement, and this is where they slept for the next four nights.

On Friday night, it was Emily's birthday. It was fun for her to be able to spend it with some extended family. Living in Washington, PA, that rarely happens.

Emily got a T-shirt that fits her perfectly: The camera loves me (monkey).

All the kids couldn't wait to set the cake on fire and belt out Happy Birthday to you!

On Saturday, Jerry and Danae came from New Jersey with their two daughters, Calista and Eden. All the kids gathered around to color three dozen Easter eggs.

On Sunday morning, the girls found some small Easter baskets. These contained calories that were largely consumed by adults, although the adults did not need said calories.

Baby Eden liked to play with me, and I've always had a soft spot for little girls. A couple of the days were sunny and warm, so I took her outside and pushed her in the swing.

Trevor is a rock star, with or without this Paper Jamz guitar. He liked to strike the rocker pose though.

On Sunday afternoon, we had an Easter egg hunt. The adults hid nearly 60 plastic eggs for the kids to find. The real ones stayed safely inside.

Madeline was getting the tire swing moving one afternoon.

And Emily and Jake were having some competition to see who could fly highest on the swings.

As with every trip and time spent with family, this one was too short too. We had a great time and feel fortunate to live close enough to pull these kinds of road trips off. It was a great way to spend Easter weekend. Joanne and I even sang in the choir at church, and Karl and I found a way to fit in a round of golf. It was sad it had to come to an end.

17 April 2011 - A Visit from Grandma

2011-05-02T20:32:00.008-04:00

This week Grandma Fails visited us from Utah. They did all kinds of things together. Although it wasn't quite Easter yet, the girls are always game to dye some eggs.

They did manicures with Grandma too. Everyone got beautiful.

Grandma worked with the girls on making melted colored chocolate mold suckers.

I was impressed by the colorful results.

As always, it was nice to have a visit from our family, and as always, the visit didn't last nearly long enough. Joanne had to take her mom to the airport not long after church on Sunday.

10 April 2011 - Primary Activity

2011-04-11T13:53:00.002-04:00

The weather has been more spring-like this week -- it only snowed three out of seven days. On Saturday it was a nice 61 degree day which gave me a chance to spread two cubic yards of mulch in our flower beds and on our trees. My lower back is still sore.

Saturday was also a primary activity for the girls. I thought the presidency did a really cool idea. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of pictures because I spent most of the morning out doing bishoply stuff.

The activity was a drive-in movie. The kids started off by getting together with their class and planning a skit. Each class was assigned a story from the scriptures and their skit had to depict that story. Once they had their parts and their lines, the went into the "studio" and they were filmed performing their skit. From there, they went into the gym and got a cardboard box and made a car to drive to the drive in.

You can't see it in this picture, but there was white tape down both sides of the hallways and yellow tape down the middle, sometimes two stripes, some times one dashed stripe, so the hallways looked like a road. Well, from my observation, the girls thought it was a road and the boys thought it was a race track.

Judging from the size of Jessica's car, this was likely her last primary activity (she turns 12 in August).

The kids drove their cars to the primary room movie theater, where their skits had been deftly (and rapidly) assembled into the premiere event. They found shoe boxes with popcorn, juice boxes and M&Ms for them to clip onto the side of their cars using binding clips. Although I didn't get to see the final product, I'm told it will be nominated for and Oscar next spring.

The girls still haven't tired of cupcake making. Here are some of Joanne's fresh flowers and some marshmallow cupcakes.

Grass is turning green, and warmer weather is in the forecast. Soon will be lawn mowing season.

3 Apr 2011 - General Conference

2011-04-11T13:38:00.005-04:00

Welcome to April in southwestern Pennsylvania!

These photos were actually taken April 2nd, in between sessions of General Conference, which we enjoyed thoroughly by the way. My favorite quote was from Cecil O. Samuelson:

"We should not have higher standards for others than we do for ourselves. Too often we may let the mistakes or failures of others, especially leaders or Church members, influence how we feel about ourselves or our testimonies. Other people’s difficulties are not an excuse for our own deficiencies."

I also appreciated Dieter F. Uchtdorf's counsel to Priesthood brethren on Saturday evening. He challenged each of us to read Doctrine and Covenants 20, 84, 107 and 121. Yesterday at church I asked how many of us had heeded that council....

On Sunday, when the sessions were all over, we had two families in the ward over for Sunday dinner. One of the families is relatively new. They moved to PA from Utah last summer. The girls, not having lost interest in the cupcake cookbook, made these sugary monstrosities.

Despite the snow, there are definitely signs of spring and we're looking forward to a little warmer weather.

27 March 2011 - A Funeral and a Hockey Game

2011-03-26T15:34:00.002-04:00

On Monday afternoon I received a call that a baby girl had been born to a couple in our ward. The mother had been in a womens' hospital in Pittsburgh for three weeks because there were multiple concerns regarding the pregnancy, and the doctors had detected some developmental issues with the baby. She was born about five weeks premature, and the birth defects were more numerous and more severe than expected. I drove to the hospital and arrived as the doctor was explaining the prognosis to the baby's father and the outlook was grim. With the help of a ventilator, the baby lived until Wednesday afternoon, but unfortunately passed away. We planned a brief funeral, which was held at the church on Friday afternoon. Many people in the ward helped out to make it a nice service, including Joanne, who sang a duet of Teach Me to Walk in the Light with our Relief Society president.

On Friday evening, after the funeral was over, a benefactor in our ward had arranged for our youth group to use a corporate suite for a Pittsburgh Penguins game. Here are two of our young women and one of the young men from the ward, checking out the food selection (all of which was included).

Though the suite was cool enough by itself, there was also a hockey game going on, so we watched some of it. The Penguins played the New Jersey Devils. After regulation and overtime, the score was still 0-0, and the Penguins ended up winning 1-0 in a shoot out.

The building where the Penguins play is called Consol Energy Center. It is a brand new arena that just opened this year and was designed specifically for hockey. It was awesome and the kids all had a blast.

Here are three of our young men, enjoying the leather box seats.

The two young women who came with us were busy taking pictures of Mario Lemieux, widely considered the best player to ever play for the Penguins, and now the team's owner. You can't really tell which one he is due to the angle I took in this picture, but he is the black-haired guy in the suite next to ours, in front of the flat screen TV with his head turned.

Here are five of our young men who took a break from eating free pizza to watch a little of the game.

20 March 2011 - Spring?

2011-03-26T15:26:00.002-04:00

We're cautiously beginning to get excited for spring. The weather's been warmer, but the forecast warns that we might still have some winter before we're officially done.

I came home the other day and the girls were making paper mache' Easter eggs. Easter is still a month away, but what do I know? I guess they're optimistic.

Here are some of the finished products.

We had the missionaries over for dinner the other night and the girls had made butterfly cupcakes for us. This one is mine.

13 March 2011 - While Mommy's in Utah

2011-03-15T17:18:00.004-04:00

Mommy went to Utah this week, so we got to have some daddy/daughter time. We made some peanut butter cookies.On Saturday, the weather got really nice for a few hours. By about 4 pm, the sun had come out, it was about 57 degrees, and Madeline and I decided to take the motorcycle for a ride.
Madeline's school class has been learning about robots, so we decided to try to build one. We went to Radio Shack and got some parts. This is us testing some voltages and currents to make a line following robot. We're not done yet, but we're working on it.
Despite all the fun, the girls are all excited to have mommy coming back home soon.

6 March 2011 - Brandon's Visit

2011-03-15T16:53:00.002-04:00

Jessica's school choir finally got to have a concert. The Christmas one was canceled due to weather, but this week we got to see her for the first time this year. The lighting was bad for a photo, this was the best I could do.This week our nephew Brandon came to visit us and to check out Washington & Jefferson College. He's already been accepted and received a scholarship offer, but he had the opportunity to interview for additional scholarship money. This picture is actually at Carnegie Mellon University, not W&J. We forgot to take one at W&J, but when we drove through the city before heading to the airport on the way home, we got this one.
The weather was beginning to get a little more spring-like, until Sunday when we woke up and found several inches of snow had fallen. I took this picture right after church.
Why I love our little town. I'm so excited, I just can't wait!

27 February 2011 - Madeline's Birthday

2011-02-27T18:17:00.011-05:00

On Monday, I was working quietly in my office at the college. A storm was brewing outside. By about 4 o'clock, large snowflakes were falling at a rapid pace. I gathered my things to head home before the roads got too bad. Right before I shut down my computer, I got an email from the Young Men's president in my ward. He works for Google (center in the picture below) and they were having a ski day the next day at Seven Springs, about 50 miles east of my house. He invited me (on right), and our Gospel Doctrine teacher (on left) to go with him. It wasn't Utah skiing, but it was excellent nonetheless.
Many of the slopes were ungroomed, so we found lots of powder to fall down in.
For several years we've had a very comfy Poang chair in our basement. It was always the first chair occupied when we went down to watch a movie or play Wii. The pad finally wore out, so we went to IKEA to get a new pad for it, and ended up with one new pad and three new chairs -- two little ones and another big one. Now I don't have to fight for a comfy chair anymore.
Lest we lose track of the most important event of this week, Madeline turned 7 on Thursday. She got more presents than she needed, but thank you to everyone anyway. This is a crystal set she got from Grandma.
She also got Toothless. A stuffed animal never fails when it's for Madeline. This was from the girls.
Mommy made Ho-Ho cake. Super yummy.
Here's Madeline opening her card and gift from Grammie. When she saw the money in the card she grinned mightily and and said: "Oh! Grammie is soooo loving!". It gave us a good laugh.
On Saturday, she got to have a friend party. Joanne had a really good idea for a craft. She had each of the kids decorate a place mat and then laminated them for the kids to take home. (Joanne's a laminating fool.) The party's theme was Disney, mostly Mickey Mouse. I guess our Christmas trip left an impression.
We played pin the tail on the Mickey donkey. I don't think Mickey would have appreciated being turned into a donkey -- kind of reminds me of Pinocchio.
I have no idea how many of these Mickey Mouse cakes Joanne has made in the past couple of months.

Madeline was very excited about all her presents. She passed some time on Saturday by working with her crystal set.

Happy Birthday to Madeline!

20 February 2011 - Skiing!

2011-02-21T19:20:00.002-05:00

Monday and Tuesday of this week were spent skiing with several different nephews, one niece, and Karl and Jolene. On Monday we went to Brighton. Here are Kurt and Trevor, getting geared up for a day on the slopes.Trevor was without a doubt the cutest skier on the mountain on Monday.
Karl worked with Trevor on his french fries and pizza techniques for a little bit. He's only three though, so he didn't last too long.The weather was very warm, which was a mixed blessing. It was nice to be outside, but the snow melted and froze, so in some places it was a little icy. Karl and I visited many of our old haunts, but didn't try to tackle the Millicent Chutes which were popular with us in our younger days.

On Tuesday, Karl and I drove two and a half hours south to Beaver to meet up with Brandon and Jake who drove up from St. George. We decided to try out the new Eagle Point ski area, which is the old Elk Meadows. Elk Meadows went bankrupt in 2002 and despite numerous efforts to revive it, only this year did it finally get back up and running. It was probably even icier than Brighton had been the day before, but we found some good trails anyway. This is Jake on a snowboard.
Brandon and Jake on the Monarch chair lift. We skied this lift for most of the afternoon.
Brandon and Jake getting their Shawn White impression on. This photo was right above the freestyle terrain park. We all tried the half pipe, but it wasn't pretty.
On Wednesday, it was time to come home. I caught a flight to Memphis and then on to Pittsburgh. I had ordered flowers for Joanne because I was gone on Valentine's Day. In return, the girls made me a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and nuts.
After a couple of days getting back on track with my writing (I'm currently working on two books and two other chapters), we had our annual Blue and Gold Banquet and scout cake auction fund raiser on Saturday night. Since I had missed last Sunday, today was a little longer than most as I tried to catch up on a number of ward issues and responsibilities.

13 February 2011 - Going to Utah

2011-02-21T18:44:00.002-05:00

This weekend I decided to go to Utah for a few days. I was supposed to arrive before midnight (Utah time) on Saturday night, but we ended up not getting to my mom and dad's place until after 1 AM Sunday morning.

On Sunday I went to church with my mom and dad and sang in the choir. Then I went home teaching with my dad. That evening Megan came home from Disneyland and stopped by to see me. She got a princess bear. Cameron got a Dino-foofy.
My dad's working on refinishing the cabinets in the kitchen. This is old, dark look.
Here is the sanded, lighter refinished look.
While I was there I got to see my Grandma North too. She's doing good, especially for having turned 93 this past December.

6 February 2011 - Last big swim meet

2011-02-21T18:17:00.002-05:00

This week we were mostly getting back to our normal schedule after the break down of the University of Maryland job. I returned to my sabbatical activities at W&J, and then on Saturday, the girls had their last big swim meet of the winter season. Both improved at least two of their best times. One of the parents had an underwater camera and got this shot of Jessica, who made sure to flash a smile.

30 January 2011 - Back at W&J

2011-02-01T21:21:00.002-05:00

On Monday morning at 5 AM, I left Pennsylvania for Maryland. I had determined over the weekend that we needed to remain in Pennsylvania, and when I arrived at the University around 9:30, I immediately went to see the Dean. She was very kind and we spoke for some time about whether or not the job was going to work out. Ultimately we determined that it was not in my best interest nor the University's for me to remain in the position. I met with my department chair and several colleagues that morning to share the news with them, then cleaned out my office (believe it or not, I had moved a good number of things in already).

I went to lunch with my department chair, and when I returned, I found an email informing me that Billy Shriver had died. Billy's dad Bill died just 16 months ago, and his mom, Opal, is a very dear friend in our ward. She has known much heartache in the past couple of years. Billy died of organ failure due to alcoholism, and Opal had tried for years to encourage Billy to get help. Though he was only 57, he never could overcome the demon of addiction.

I knew Opal would need support, so once my office was cleaned out, I turned in my faculty ID, parking pass and computer and headed for home. I arrived just after 11 PM Monday night. It was a long day, exhausting both physically and emotionally, but I knew choosing to stay in Pennsylvania was the right thing. The people at the university in Maryland were so kind and nice, I think under different circumstances I would have really enjoyed working with them, but things just weren't quite right at this time.

On Tuesday, I was at the funeral home when Opal arrived. She wrapped her arms around me and cried and said: "Oh Bishop, I prayed all night that you'd be here this morning." I was grateful I was there for her. We had a viewing on Thursday night and a very nice service on Friday morning. In between, I moved back into my office at W&J and began to feel like I was home again and getting back to normal.

In the meantime, the kids have been continuing in their craftiness. Madeline has been making Valentine purses for the girls in her class and wallets for the boys. Busy times for all of us.On Saturday, I rode the bus with the girls to New Castle, PA (about 1 1/2 hours north) for their swim meet. Jessica improved her best time in three of her four events and won two heats, while Emily improved one of her best times and won one heat. They both did very well at this meet.

We're now looking forward to a little more return to normal, though not for long. I leave for Utah on February 12th, and Joanne gets her turn in Utah on March 8th.

23 January 2011 - A Week in Maryland

2011-02-01T21:08:00.004-05:00

This week I traveled to Maryland to attend benefits orientation and to begin learning some of the aspects of my new job. Even before the benefits orientation started, I began to have some serious concerns about the job. Several of the benefits were very different from what had been explained to me when I was interviewing and negotiating. As the day went on, I felt more and more uncomfortable. On Wednesday, I had hoped that things would get better, but they got worse. I began to learn additional unsettling things regarding the position, including information about conflicts within my department and even a related lawsuit. By Thursday evening, I was beginning to feel that I'd made a very bad mistake. That evening, I returned home to Washington, PA.

I felt that I had not been honest with myself regarding the job, and I began to investigate my options regarding whether or not I could withdraw my resignation from W&J, and learned that I could. I met with my Stake President before a scout training on Saturday morning and received counsel from him. By Sunday, I felt that I had been led to feel that I should take the Maryland job because I needed to learn some valuable lessons, that I had learned those lessons, and that we needed to stay in Pennsylvania.

While I was wrestling with my career decisions, the girls were getting crafty as they often do. The subject these days is cake decorating. Jessica's becoming quite adept at it.Every year in February we have a cake auction at church to raise money for girls camp and scout camp. This year the girls want to donate a Mickey Mouse cake for the auction, so they've been practicing.
Here are the three girls, proud of their completed (and tasty) Mickey cake.

16 January 2011 - Preparing for Maryland

2011-02-01T21:05:00.003-05:00

It was a difficult week this week. I resigned from my teaching position at W&J College, a position I've held for seven years. I spent much time cleaning out my office. I thought I wasn't much of a pack rat or a clutter maker, and I still don't think I'm too bad, but I was amazed at how much I had accumulated in my office over seven years. I found many papers and tests with names of students who hold fond memories for me, and it was a bit melancholy thinking about leaving the college.

One bright spot was that I was asked to baptize a woman named Cindy Belcastro. She has been attending church in our ward for several months and I was honored to baptize and confirm her a member of the church.

9 January 2011 - New Year

2011-02-01T21:02:00.001-05:00

Following a fun-filled trip to Florida for Christmas, it was time to get back to routine this week. The kids went back to school. On the weekend, Joanne took the girls to see 'Tangled' (the Rapunzel movie), and Madeline spent the next several days tying every scarf she could find in the house together and then trying the train to her hair, so she could be Rapunzel.Unfortunately for Weebie (her stuffed shark), her Rapunzel hair was good at tying him by the tail and sending him over the stair railing in our entry way.
This week was also pivotal professionally. I hadn't said much previously, but around Thanksgiving time, I had been asked to interview for a job as a graduate program director in the University System of Maryland (University College). Over the Christmas break I received an offer, and this week, we decided I would accept it. We attended the temple in Columbus and I spent much time studying and contemplating the decision, and ultimately, we decided to move to Maryland. The arrangement was that I would work 3-4 days in Maryland and 1-2 days from Washington, PA through the spring semester, and during that time, we'd find a place to move. I scheduled to attended benefits orientation on January 18th.

2 January 2011 - Epcot/New Years

2011-01-01T11:26:00.004-05:00

The day after Christmas was a Sunday, so we took a much needed and welcome break from theme parks to attend church. We slept in as late as we wanted, then found a ward that started at 1 p.m. It was a nice ward and we enjoyed our time, then after church we drove over to the Orlando temple. If you look at the pose I'm striking, you can tell that it was quite cold out on Sunday.Monday was our last theme park day and we went to Epcot Center. The weather continued to be very cold -- there was ice on the windshield that morning. Still the sun was out and it was a beautiful day.
Madeline had to wait in line, but got to meet Princess Aurora (a.k.a Sleeping Beauty).
They had a Finding Nemo ride and aquarium. Here is Aunt Jen with the girls in front of the attraction.
The girls were eaten by Bruce the shark. It was tragic.
Epcot has two parts. One is mostly rides and attractions, while the other is called World Showcase. This part features replica-style villages from all over the world. In Germany, we ate bratwurst and sauerkraut (well, some of us ate sauerkraut), and in the United States we ate funnel cakes. In China, we went to an acrobat show. They were pretty incredible.
This girl balanced and juggled stuff with her feet, including this table.
On Tuesday, we went shopping a little bit in Downtown Disney and then it was time to say goodbye. I drove Grandma and Aunt Jennifer to the airport, then picked up Joanne and the kids and we were on our way. We stopped in Savannah, GA for a short visit, then stayed in a hotel in South Carolina for the night. The next day we drove to Virginia and spent some time with Joanne's cousin Jeremy and his family. This is Madeline with Kora getting a back massage.
After 11 days on the road, the girls (and us too) were ready to be home, so on Thursday we drove back to Washington. Everything was in order here, and we were very grateful for that. There wasn't even any snow! There was a present under our tree from the North's in Vernal, so the girls unwrapped that and found a karaoke machine. They are regular superstars already.
All in all, it was a whirlwind, lotsa fun, crazy Christmas break for our family. We're glad to be home now, looking forward to a happy and adventurous 2011. We wish you all a very happy new year.

26 December 2010 - Christmas Theme Parks

2010-12-31T11:34:00.005-05:00

On Monday, we picked the kids up right after school, dropped their backpacks off at home, and headed south on I-79 toward Florida. We drove only about four hours or so that evening, stopping in southern Virginia for the night. On Tuesday, we continued south through North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, arriving in Florida late Tuesday afternoon. Just south of Jacksonville, we diverted our course just a little to pay a brief visit to Ormond Beach. It was too cold to splash in the water, but hey, at least we saw the beach during our vacation in Florida.We then drove southwest to Orlando, meeting Grandma and Aunt Jennifer at our condo in Kissimmee. It had been a long travel day for all, so we got some pizza, arranged our things (including Christmas stockings), and went to bed. On Wednesday morning, we began the first of our five days at Disneyworld -- first stop: the Magic Kingdom.
You can see that I was tremendously excited to be there.
One of the first rides we hit was Dumbo's Flight, which was a big hit with all the girls. On our first day in the Magic Kingdom we rode Peter Pan, Small World, Snow White, Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Mad Hatter's Tea Cups, and Jessica proved what a good driver she is on the Motor Speedway. I think we might have ridden a few other things too, can't remember. Oh, and we caught a couple shows.
On Thursday, we went to Hollywood Studios. Our family took time to hang out with Pooh and Piglet.
And here's everyone with Chip and Dale. I wanted to take my shirt off for this photo and flex my muscles.
And you can't go to Disneyworld and leave without a candid with Mickey himself.
Hollywood studios has one of the funnest rides ever. It is a 3-D Toy Story ride. While you wait in the very healthy line, a large animatronic Mr. Potato Head entertains you.
Madeline and I were paired for the Toy Story ride. Your car spins you around while you aim your cannon (which shoots plunger-style suction cups) at a variety of carnival type targets that move and shift in 3-D with the help of the glasses. The ride was a total blast. They also have a wicked fun Rockin' Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios.
Friday was our day at Animal Kingdom. We started our day with an African safari, which was really cool. They had tons of animals, all of which where in very authentic settings. I've never been on a real African safari, but it almost felt like you were really there, and we got some great looks at the animals.
We also took in a 3-D Bug's Life show, rode the Expedition Everest roller coaster (very fun, several times), and spent a couple hours in Dinosaur Land. We attended a 45-minute musical performance of the Finding Nemo story and a Lion King show as well. Here are some Bug's Life 3-D glasses being modeled by Jessica and Aunt Jen.
On Christmas Day, Saturday, we awoke to find that Santa had found us in Florida. Madeline got Harry Potter's wand, Emily got Hermione Granger's wand, and Jessica got Ginny Weasley's wand.After presents, we headed back to the Magic Kingdom. We arrived there about 10:30, and found everyone in the whole world was also there. Yes, you may not realize it, but you were at the Magic Kingdom on Christmas Day, because I swear, every person in the entire world was there. We found we were fortunate, because less than an hour after we arrived, the park reached its capacity (which I have since found out is 100,000 people), so had we been even a little later arriving, we wouldn't have been allowed in. Here are the 'twins' on the tram between the parking area and the monorail station.
The crowds were bad throughout the day, but we still found time to do many, many things. We rode the Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Pirates of the Carribean, Buzz Lightyear (again), and we caught the Country Bears Jamboree. Grandma even found a little time to rest with the girls on a bench in Frontierland.
We rode Aladin's magic carpets in Adventureland too.
On Christmas night, we stayed for the 9 p.m. Main Street Electrical Parade. The castle was lit up with thousands of lights.
Despite the crowds, we were able to stake out an excellent spot to watch the parade, and it really was fun to watch the looks of pure delight on the kids' faces. When the parade was over, there were fireworks and then we made for the exit. It was a good thing too. As we reached the parking lot a cold, hard rain began to fall, and I read of short tempers and other unpleasantness amongst guests trying to leave the park later that night.
After four days in a row of theme parks, capped by a late Christmas night, there was only one thing to do: fall into bed, completely exhausted.

19 December 2010 - Caroling

2010-12-31T11:33:00.011-05:00

Not satisfied with the collapsed gingerbread house at the ward party last week, Joanne set out to architect her own gingerbread village. The girls played a bit in the snow, but were around to help with some of the candy decorating, and certainly were available for a photo op.Here's a little of the detail on one of the houses.
Here is the front of the village.
On the 18th, we had our annual Christmas Carol singing activity at Giant Eagle grocery store. This is one we've done with the Salvation Army every year. We usually have a pretty good turn out despite the cold, and we have a fun time singing and drinking hot chocolate.
We've finished finals and tithing settlement now, and getting ready for our Christmas trip.

12 December 2010 - Swim Meet/Christmas Party

2010-12-31T11:33:00.010-05:00

The girls had their first official swim meet as members of the Mon Valley YMCA swim team this week. It was an away meet at Sewickley, which is northwest of Pittsburgh. Both girls did an excellent job. Emily swam in four events while Jessica swam in three. She won the 100 meter freestyle for her age group. This photo is of Emily during the 100 meter backstroke, where she placed fourth for her age group.On Friday evening, we had our annual ward Christmas party. One of the activities was a gingerbread decorating activity. This was our table's entry. The icing wasn't setting up fast enough, so most of the houses fell down, and were subsequently eaten.
Our table included one of the girls' friends, Lauren Larsen. Emily is trying to provide some structural support in this photo.
Outside the church, the girls hastily constructed a small snowman using what little snow we had left on the ground.
Santa came to the ward party. Madeline asked for a baby brother.
Emily asked to be Hermione Granger. If you don't know who that is, read more Harry Potter books.
I don't know what Jessica asked Santa for, it was probably a secret anyway.
I continued with tithing settlement this week, and concluded classes for the semester. Lots of grading and prepping for finals too!

5 December 2010 - Christmas Decorations

2010-12-31T11:33:00.009-05:00

The first week of December was very hectic. My dad and I went to Washington D.C. for the day on the Monday after Thanksgiving. While we were gone, the girls decorated the house for Christmas.Emily was apparently extra excited and decided to play Santa.
Although our weather was unseasonably cold through most of November, we didn't get our first real snow storm until this week.On Wednesday, my mom and dad had to finally say goodbye and return to Utah. It was great having them here with us, even though Joanne and I were gone for one of the two weeks they were here. Things worked out great though throughout their trip and we were grateful for all the help they gave us (including tuning the piano -- thanks Dad!)

28 November 2010 - Germany/Holland/Belgium

2010-11-26T11:06:00.004-05:00

On Monday, I was working at the Technische Universität Dortmund, a technical university in Dortmund, Germany which has recently spun off a data mining software company called Rapid-I. I have been working with them and their software for some time now, and I am looking forward to incorporating many of their tools into my textbook on data mining. Here is a shot of part of the university.On Monday afternoon, I drove to Cologne to meet with one of the university's professors, Katerina Morik. We met in a very cool area of Cologne near the old cathedral, a Roman Catholic church near the banks of the Rhine River. Construction commenced in the 13th century, and the twin spires, at 157 meters tall, represent the second tallest church spires in the world, even to this day. My meeting with Dr. Morik was very beneficial, and getting to see the cathedral made the meeting place all-the-more ideal.
That evening, we drove north and west into Holland. We had a hotel reserved in Amsterdam. I didn't know a lot about Amsterdam, but it is a city built on canals an bills itself as the "Venice of the North". It certainly is of the north, it was freezing cold there. The city is very cool, like most European capitals full of architecture, and as the home of both Rembrandt and Van Gogh, boasted its share of art as well. Of course what Holland is most famous for is its windmills. We found several good ones near a small chocolate manufacturing town just outside Amsterdam.
After checking out Amsterdam for a day, we went on to Belgium on Tuesday evening. Brussels was one of the crazier cities to drive in, but I had bought Europe maps for our GPS, and it got us right where we needed to go. There is much to see in Brussels. At the heart of the city is Old Town Square where there is a main cathedral and a royal palace. This photo is of Grand Place, which is now a museum.
It wouldn't be Belgium without Belgian waffles and hot chocolate.
Joanne was pleased to find Aldi very plentiful in Europe, and we stopped to stock up on chocolate and other goodies as our trip drew to a close.
Our final stop was in the city of Compiègne. It was here in 1430 that Joan of Arc was captured by Burgundian soldiers at age 19. She was later sold to the English, tried for heresy, and executed. These are the remains of the castle where she was captured.
After our brief stop in Compiègne, we continued on to Roissy-en-France, which is the outskirt area of Paris where Charles de Gaulle Airport is located. We spent the night there, then returned our car to the airport and boarded our flight to Pittsburgh the next morning. My dad picked us up at just after 2 PM, and we came home to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal together, prepared by my mom.
We had an excellent time on our trip, and look forward to someday seeing other parts of Europe. For now, it's good to be home and to have a few days to rest before heading back to teaching.

21 November 2010 - France/Luxembourg/Birthday

2010-11-26T10:17:00.002-05:00

On Wednesday, our trip to Europe finally arrived. We picked the girls up from school and dropped them off at piano lessons, then drove to Pittsburgh Airport. My mom and dad's flight arrived right on time at 4 PM, and they had their luggage and were ready to go when we arrive. We exchanged a few quick details and hugs, then they took my truck and drove to get the girls from piano while we boarded our flight to Paris. The flight was an overnight, 9 hour trip, and with Paris six hours ahead of Eastern time, we arrived at about 8:30 AM Thursday morning. We took the RER train into the city and went to our hotel a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower. We slept for a little while, then went exploring. Here's us at the Eiffel Tower Thursday night.On Friday, we went roving around the city. We walked over seven miles. First we went to the Arc de Triomphe.
Then down the Champs de Elysee (think 5th Avenue in New York, Rodeo Drive in L.A., or the Magnificent Mile in Chicago) to the Grand Palais/Petit Palais.
We caught a boat on the River Seine to Notre Dame Cathedral. We went inside, but pictures were a no-no.
Then we took the boat to the Louvre. Here's Joanne with Mona Lisa.
Here's Joanne with Venus de Milo.
After the Louvre, we were very tired, and our (my) feet and back hurt, so we went to take the boat back to the Eiffel Tower so we could rest at our hotel, but a guy said the boat wasn't coming anymore so we started to walk back. Then the boat came anyway and we missed it and I was sad. Finally we made it back to our hotel, and instead of resting, we went up inside the Eiffel Tower to the top so we could take pictures of the city at night.I was very sore Saturday morning, but there's no rest for the wicked. We took the train to Versailles to check out Louis XIV's palace, grounds, gardens, and Marie Antionette's place. I have not bothered to put in any of the hundred pictures we took at Versailles. If you want to see them, come visit us some time and we'll show them to you. It is a massive, unreal place with art, architecture, sculpture and luxury at every turn and in every corner. Here's Joanne at the entrance to Versailles.
The gardens were very green, but the colorful flowers we pretty much all gone for winter. It was a little warmer outside on Saturday than on most days of the trip, but still pretty cold. This shot gives you a little glimpse of how huge the palace's garden's are.
After Versailles, we checked out of our hotel and went to rent our car. This is our Fiat 500, which was an awesome car and reminded me of the truism that small is beautiful, especially when trying to find a parking spot in Europe's capital cities.
Saturday was also my 29th birthday. I've been 29 for nine years now. We drove our little car east toward Luxembourg, and stopped in the little town of Sedan in eastern France for a birthday dinner. It was most excellent, and this is my wicked chocolate birthday cake, which I devoured. After dinner we drove the rest of the way to Luxembourg, where we had a hotel for the night. On Sunday we drove the Valley of the Seven Castles in Luxembourg. The first is an ancient castle in the city of Luxembourg itself. The earliest parts were built starting in around 900 A.D. It was expanded over the centuries to stretch throughout the city. This is Joanne on the ramparts of one of the oldest surviving sections, with an old Roman arch stone bridge (still in use for trains) in the background.
These were the first four days of our trip. Next week will be the final three.

14 November 2010 - Getting Ready to Leave

2010-11-26T10:06:00.003-05:00

This was a quiet week, primarily focused on getting ready for Joanne and me to leave town. We had a big house cleaning event so that grammie and grandpa wouldn't think we were pigs when they got here to stay with the girls.

7 November 2010 - Wedding Anniversary

2010-11-26T10:02:00.002-05:00

Joanne and I turned 15 together this week. It was November 1st, 1995 that we were married in the Logan Temple. To commemorate the occasion, I bought her flowers, steak, shrimp and zucchini at Aldi. I made surf and turf for dinner on the grill.

31 October 2010 - Halloween

2010-10-31T20:06:00.005-04:00

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!

2010-10-29T10:46:00.003-04:00

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

2010-10-23T16:45:00.003-04:00

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

2010-10-22T17:09:00.010-04:00

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

2010-10-05T16:44:00.002-04:00

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

2010-10-05T16:38:00.003-04:00

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.

19 September 2010 - Weekend in Delaware

2010-09-22T14:04:00.003-04:00

This weekend we decided to go to Delaware to hang with Karl and Jolene's family. We actually went by way of Washington D.C. so that Joanne could participate in a Relief Society temple trip with Jolene and women from their stake. While they were doing that, Karl and I were on kid duty and we took in several soccer games (this one's Kurt's) and ran kids to a variety of other practices too.Later Saturday evening, we watched the BYU game (which wasn't so great), and had a barbecue (which was so great). This is our nephew Trevor watching sports with us.
The girls were less interested in football, but had fun playing games. I think Emily spent most of her time on the trampoline.On Sunday afternoon, around 4:30, we hit the road to come back home. We arrived at about 9:30, and put the kids straight to bed so they could wake up in time for school the next day. It was a quick trip, but lots of fun and worth the effort.

12 September 2010 - Fall Motorcycle Ride

2010-09-13T14:27:00.004-04:00

With the number of nice days for motorcycle riding dwindling, I decided that I needed to take advantage, so I've put over 200 miles on my bike in the past week. I took a ride to West Virginia with two friends from church, Matt Lindley and Cliff Bergmann. This is us at a "ski resort" (bunny hill with lift) in West Virginia.We went to Cabela's near Wheeling. I'd never been to Cabela's before.
We saw elephants and zebras there, among many other animals. It was a nice ride and the store was pretty cool too.On Friday evening we had an Apple Harvest festival at the church. There was a dinner and make your own caramel apple table, followed by a talent show that feature mostly children singing along to Taylor Swift or Demi Lovato. Madeline and her friend Emma sang some primary songs, which were a nice break.

On Saturday I took each of the girls for their own long ride. Madeline rode around a lake south of Washington with me, Emily rode to Mingo Creek county park, and Jessica rode out a stretch of the old Cumberland Road with me. Each girl got about 25 miles of riding.

Sunday afternoon was a picture perfect fall day, so I went home after church, took off my suit coat and tie, and took the motorcycle to do my various visits around the ward, putting on another 55 miles in about four hours. Afterward, I picked up my home teaching companion, Jalene (JAY-lyn), and took him to a kickoff meeting for the church's new Duty to God program. Jalene's mom is not a member of the church but his grandma Wanda is. After the activity, we had banana splits (hold the banana for the bishop) and I took Jalene home about 9 PM. It was a long sabbath, but it was an excellent weekend.

5 September 2010 - Labor Day

2010-09-13T14:15:00.001-04:00

Labor Day isn't much fun when you work at W&J, because every fall, that's the first day of classes, followed by convocation and an all-campus picnic. Here are two of my faculty friends, Scott and Buba (I'll let you guess which one's which), along with one other faculty member, Lynn at convocation. Instead of going to the all campus picnic, we went to a ruckus at the Larson's house (the Larsons are friends from the ward). We learned how to play Drakkon, a very geeky but kind of fun medieval game.
They have a great backyard that's on three tiers -- a back deck, a grassy area with picnic tables, and a fire pit below that.
Madeline got a kick out of playing in the fire. In this picture, she's with Seth, one of the Larson's six kids.
The swing set is on the lowest level near the fire pit and in front of a small stream.
The ruckus was a fun way to spend Labor Day afternoon.

29 August 2010 - School!

2010-09-13T14:05:00.003-04:00

As summer wound down and the return to school appeared on the horizon, we took a couple of our young men from church for a field trip to Google's new Pittsburgh location (our young men's president works there). Google is perennially a Forbes Magazine top five company to work for -- probably because they have a place to play dodge ball with giant yoga balls in a cargo net. Here's a view of urban Pittsburgh from the second story window of Google's new building, which is actually an old Nabisco cookie factory.
With the girls back in school (sorry, no pictures), I had a few free hours to finish up the wishing well I built for them. This is just after paint.
I added a roof and bucket, then we put it under a tree in the backyard near the playhouse.

22 August 2010 - Summer Days

2010-08-24T12:49:00.002-04:00

Hi all,

There's not a lot to report for last week. It's been hot and dry in Western PA, so we've stayed inside a lot and tried to keep cool. I've been working on my writing (I have two books I'm working on), and also some curriculum development for the upcoming semester.

I did go out and work on the yard a little more this week. I added a section to my patio. Eventually it will extend past the vertical deck support in the picture.

I also used some scrap wood from several previous projects to make the girls a wishing well. It's not done yet, I still need to put the hand crank and bucket on and then paint it--maybe this weekend.

15 August 2010 - Jessica's Birthday

2010-08-15T19:33:00.003-04:00

To commemorate my recent trip to Fenway Park, I started a pennant collection in my office at the college. So far I've been to home games for 12 of the 30 major league teams. Unfortunately, some of them (namely the Astros and Mariners) have moved into new ballparks since I saw them play, so I guess I'll just have to keep going to baseball games! The big event this week of course was Jessica's birthday. Emily helped mommy make a cake.
Here's the finished product!
Mommy's quilt for Jessica also got finished. Here it is in all its glory.
In addition to the 'family' party, we also had a 'friend' sleepover. This cookie cake was for the friend party.
Jessica got Mario Cart racing for the Wii from mommy and daddy. She loves this game, and it's been played extensively in the past few days.
For the friend party, Ken Doll fashionistas was a popular option this year.
On Saturday, we took the youth group from the church boating. We have a family in our ward who has a boat and the wife just happens to be in the Young Women's presidency, and although her husband is not a member of the church, he does love to take the kids out on his boat. We did this for the first time last year, and the youth have been raving about it since and wanted to make sure we did it again this year.
The kids don't water ski, they just want to ride the tube all day long.

8 August 2010 - Cape Cod Vacation

2010-08-11T16:25:00.007-04:00

Although our vacation officially started on Saturday (July 31st), we arrived on Cape Cod so late in the day that we were only able to swim a little and mostly hang around the beach house. The next day, we decided to attend church at the Plymouth Branch, and then take in the historical sites around Plymouth Rock.We ate lunch at a cafeteria style Lobster place. Madeline wanted her picture taken next to the menu fish.
Our family next to the Mayflower II, a replica ship of the original Mayflower. We also walked around the historic part of Plymouth and saw the first church and an early house built there, along with a variety of monuments and memorials to the pilgrims.
On Monday, we mostly stayed around the beach house, played in the pool, read books, and in the afternoon, Karl and I went golfing. The pool was none too warm, and Trevor spent more time out of the pool wrapped in his towel.
Tuesday was a windy day. We went to the beach. The sand was excellent, even with the wind.
The water was relatively warm, but there wasn't much to see beneath the surface.
Byar! Thar be a beached whale!
Wednesday was our day in Boston, about 60 miles north of our beach house on Cape Cod. We drove to the southern part of the city, parked our cars, and bought day passes on the city transit system, which included subways, buses and ferries. Kids under 10 were free, so it was a bargain.
After a train into the city, we took a ferry to the north side of the city to see the U.S.S. Constitution visitor's center, and then we began walking south along the Freedom Trail, a path marked by a variety of Revolutionary War sites.
Here are all seven kids on an anchor at the U.S.S. Constitution site.
The steeple of the Old North Church, where Paul Revere's lanterns were hung as a warning of approaching British troops. In Paul Revere's day, this was the tallest building in town, and the buildings you see lining the street in this photo weren't there yet.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
And along a path of history, who doesn't like to stop for some giant macaroni.When we were tired out from our historical walk through Boston, most of the family headed home, while Karl, Jake and I made our way to Harvard University and then to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game. The park was very cool, the heat and humidity were almost unbearable, and the Red Sox got killed by the Indians, 9-1. We did get to see one home run (by the Indians) bounce off the top of the Green Monster, and another to deep center field by Big Papi (David Ortiz) for the Sox's only run of the game. This photo was taken an hour or more before the sold out game started while there were still empty seats.
On Thursday, it was Aunt Jolene's birthday. While the parents went out for a seafood dinner, the kids stayed home and baked a cake.
On Friday, we drove to the very tip of Cape Cod. At the end of the Cape, there is a small town called Provincetown. Just outside Provincetown is the Highland Lighthouse.
Provincetown is well known for a few things, some more savory than others, but the reason we went there was for whale watching.
Just north of the tip of Cape Cod is an Atlantic shelf called the Stellwagen Bank, a fertile feeding ground for a variety of types of whale. We saw several whales on our four hour trip, though none of them jumped out of the water, much to Jessica's disappointment.
Here's our boat for the whale watching tour.

On Saturday, we had to vacate the beach house by 10 am, and facing a 10 hour drive back home, we decided to leave relatively early. We arrived home at 7 pm, found all well here, and thus ended our family's summer vacation to Cape Cod.

1 August 2010 - Patio Work/Off to Cape Cod

2010-08-11T16:07:00.002-04:00

Joanne decided that she wanted to make Jessica a quilt for her birthday. She likes to do patchworks, and uses hundreds of pieces to make intricate patterns and designs. The number of hours invested in this quilt is in the triple digits.We have a sister in our ward who suffers from many health problems and doesn't have much money. A brother in the ward found this air conditioner for her and on a sweltering late July day this week, I went over and installed it for her. She was most grateful.
Ever since I got my motorcycle, having the garbage cans in the garage has been a hassle. I never liked them in there anyway, but with the high winds we get at our house sometimes, we've always been hesitant to put them anywhere outside. Finally this week I decided that I wanted to make a back patio under our deck, and that this was a prime time to build a sturdy shelter for the trash and recycling cans. This is the start.
Joanne wanted a stamped concrete patio, so I made a stamp that makes the concrete look like rectangular pavers.
Here is the shelter with paint to match the deck and the patio concrete starting to harden and dry.
After being busy with projects all week, the time came for our vacation to Cape Cod. We decided the 10 hour drive would be more tolerable if we split it up, so we left on Friday for Uncle Jerry and Aunt Danae's house in northern New Jersey. The girls were glad to see their cousins Calista and Eden. This is Jessica with baby Eden.
Eden liked me OK, but I'm not sure if that's joy or fear on her face.
Saturday morning we were joined by Joanne's brother Karl and his family from Delaware, and we headed for Cape Cod. The route we took went through New York City. Traffic was awful and it took us much longer than the four or so hours it should have taken to get there. Check out the line up.
We were moving so slowly we didn't have to stop or get out to take this picture of the Cape Cod welcome sign. To make matters worse, the air conditioning in Joanne's car had gone out when we got to New Jersey, so the slow ride was also very warm.
We had rented a beach house for the week for our vacation. This is the gate and pool house.
Here is the main beach house.
After many hours in the car with no air conditioning, the kids wasted no time getting in the pool at the beach house Saturday evening.

25 July 2010 - Mommy's Birthday

2010-08-11T15:44:00.002-04:00

Joanne's mom came from Utah during the week of Joanne's birthday. It's been hot in July, so we decided to go swimming at our friends' pool. They have a beautiful farm about 20 minutes from Washington, and their pool is excellent for cooling off.Aunt Jennifer came to be with us for Joanne's birthday too. They set her cake on fire!
I took Joanne to Cheesecake Factory for her birthday. When we came home the girls (and grandma) had baked and decorated a cake for her.
That weekend, on the 24th, we went to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with some friends. It was an excellent show, only rained a little, and we had a lot of fun.
We're going to have a youth boating activity soon, and I wanted to check out a possible site for our trip, so I rode my motorcycle to Salt Fork Lake in Ohio. It's an excellent place for boating, camping and skiing, and the ride out was fairly enjoyable too.

18 July 2010 - Cabinet Doors and Visitors

2010-07-19T13:51:00.003-04:00

So if you've been following my blog very long, you know that about three and a half years ago, I started working on finishing our basement. You probably then also know that I got some shelves, my media room, a bathroom and a small utility closet done just before August of 2007, when I was called to be bishop of my ward. Then, for a long time, nothing happened.

Following that, you may have noticed this past Christmas, when I posted pictures of finishing the kitchenette as my gift to Joanne, wrapping up the last major unfinished part of the basement, that had sat with bare concrete and walls for more than two years. That project left just a few unfinished items in the basement. The biggest one was that the entertainment center cabinets I built for the media room never had any doors on them. So this week, I decided to finally get around to making the doors. I only needed three, and I've had the materials literally for several years, waiting for me to make them. Here they are in their infancy.Joanne decided that they needed to be two-tone paint, so this is one with the center panel painted and masked.
Here is the door drying after the second tone paint was applied to the outer frame, but still masked.
The first door installed to the left of the movie screen. It takes some getting used to, because I've been looking at the cubby hole with plastic kids bowling pins in it for years. Now I can't see them any more.
The right cabinet is larger and required double doors. The first one is installed here.Now with both. Around the time I was mounting the doors, Grandma Fails came from Utah for a visit.Saturday afternoon we were invited to go swimming at the Bergmann's house (they're in our ward). We played a lot of basketball in the pool. Grandma came and swam with us.
On Saturday, I officiated a wedding for the son of our high priest group leader. It was at his sister's house in the country just outside Washington, PA. This was the sunset from the lawn where we did the wedding. It rained hard the day of the wedding, and we were delayed, but eventually it cleared up and the sun came out.
While I was at the wedding, Joanne was at the airport fetching Aunt Jennifer. The girls have been keeping Jennifer and Grandma busy playing games, including Twister.

11 July 2010 - Back Home

2010-07-14T18:32:00.002-04:00

On Monday, we had a birthday party at my mom and dad's house before it was time for me to head for home. Cameron decided to try on my sandals.Instead of cake, we had Mississippi Mud, and Meghan was very happy about it.
On the road home, I covered 1,037 miles on Tuesday, from Sandy, UT to just outside Kansas City, MO. I slept in the back of my truck and departed at 6:30 the next morning, covering 924 miles and arriving home at about 7:30 pm. When I was on my way out to Utah, I had bought a Land Cruiser brush guard from a guy near Kansas City. I brought it home and put it on Joanne's car. No more bent bumpers from crashing into snow banks for us!
On Saturday, I officiated a funeral for a member of my ward, Francis Stewart. She was 88 years old and suffered from stomach cancer, so it was a blessing for her to go, even though it is hard to lose a good and faithful member and friend. In the evening, we attended a graduation party for one of the priests in our ward. We played badminton.
The girls also had a lot of fun with many of the other kids who came to the party.
With Joanne home from a week away, of course there had to be fresh flowers in the house.
It's nice to be home and settling back in.