25 September 2011 - Jenni & Ed's Visit

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

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

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

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

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

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.