21 March 2010 - SportsWorks/Fails Visit

It's been warmer this week, and all but a few small protected patches of snow have melted. We've been busy with church stuff all week. On Friday evening, we took the Young Women's group from church into Pittsburgh to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Byham Theater. On Saturday, we helped a family in the ward move in the morning, and then in the afternoon, we took the young men (plus our three girls) to Carnegie Science Center, also in Pittsburgh. They had this gigantic balloon monkey floating in the air.
We spent most of our time at SportsWorks, which is a new part of the Science Center that focuses on the science of sports. The girls are learning about rotation here.
This is Jessica and Emily climbing the wall. Jessica rang the bell twice, but Emily got scared about 2/3rds of the way up and the girl had to climb up and rescue her.When we got home from SportsWorks, the girls were super excited for the arrival of Calista and Eden. They got here before the girls even finished their showers. They had a great time playing with their cousins all weekend.

14 March 2010 - They Might be Giants

On Saturday we went to a concert by They Might be Giants. I've been listening to TMBG for more than 20 years, but until Saturday, I'd never seen them live. This is us in front of Carnegie Hall (the original one in Pittsburgh, not the one in New York). Inside is the New Hazlett Theater, which was the venue for the show. The theater only seats about 400 people, so it was a very personal setting for a concert like this.Chances are good you've heard something by They Might be Giants. One of the two lead vocalists for the band, John Linell, sings the Other Father Song in the movie Coraline, and the band also performs You're Not the Boss of Me from the TV show Malcolm in the Middle. They were very fan friendly.

Although they started off as an alternative rock ensemble, they have more recently gotten into doing kids music too. This concert was a "family show", and if you have kids under age 10, I would strongly encourage you consider going to one of their family shows. The tickets were only ten bucks for kids and $20 for adults. Their kids albums try to teach numbers, letters and science. Even if you don't have little kids, their music is really great. The kids really liked Seven, Meet the Elements, Roy G. Biv, and I Never Go to Work:

On Mondays, I never go to work,
On Tuesdays, I stay at home,
On Wednesdays, I never feel inclined,
work is the last thing on my mind.
On Thursdays, it's a holiday!
And Fridays I detest,
Oh it's much too late on a Saturday,
and Sunday's the day of rest.

They used a huge confetti canon throughout the show, much to the delight of the kids. They had an absolute blast.

We were joined for the concert by our friends from our ward, the Prines. After the show was over, we went out to dinner at a place called Primanti Brothers, which is a sandwich shop that is very popular around Pittsburgh, but didn't turn out to be very popular with us ;-). This is the Prine's daughter Hannah, who is one of Jessica's best friends, with Madeline and Emily trying on sombreros at a Hispanic market in Pittsburgh's Strip District which is where we went to Primanti Brothers.The weather has been much warmer lately, and our big snow has melted. Joanne took this photo out the car window as we were driving through Pittsburgh. This is the Allegheny River, right at the edge of the road. Later on Saturday, the river flooded onto the street, but the flood waters crested on Sunday afternoon and began to recede, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. So we had a fun weekend. Hope all is well.

7 March 2010 - Skiing

I labeled this week 'Skiing', but that was really just one minor part of what I did this week. It was actually insanely busy. Snow had postponed Jessica's science fair at school, but she finally got to present her poster about evaporation rates of fresh and salt water (which she found evaporate at the same rate).
I hadn't done a funeral in a little while, so I ended up paying the price this week. On Monday, the Washington Ward hosted the funeral for Ivor Davies, a long-time member of the Washington Ward. Many of our members were baptized in his swimming pool in the days before we had a font (or even a dedicated building). He moved to Utah more than 15 years ago, just after he retired from U.S. Steel, but retained strong roots here and returned here to be buried.

Then on Wednesday, we held the funeral for Ruth Ealy, whose son, daughter and several grandchildren are members of our ward. Ruth was not a member of the LDS church, but that didn't stop her from hosting many activities in her backyard that puts many city parks to shame. She was a good woman who loved her family very much.

Unfortunately, last Saturday, I was unable to attend the funeral of my Aunt Irene Luke, which was held in Midway, Utah. She was actually my great-aunt, but I never thought of her that way. She was just Aunt Irene to me, and memories of eating burgers, fries and frog shakes at the Timp Freeze are a fixture of my childhood memories. She took good care of us whenever we stopped in, and you could tell she was always genuinely glad to see you.

Every year, Joanne's brother Karl and I have planned to get together to go skiing like we used to. And it seems, every year, we don't pull it off. This year, especially with all the snow we've had, I was determined to make it happen, even if it had to be on the relative bunny slopes of Pennsylvania. On Thursday, I dismissed class at the usual time of 2:15 pm and walked straight out of the classroom, got in my truck, and drove 280 miles to Bethlehem, PA. Karl left work in Philadelphia and met me at our hotel around 8 PM. We found a Brazilian churrascaria called Rios in nearby Nazareth, PA for dinner. It was excellent, well worth the $20/plate price, which is about half the price you pay at most churrascarias.

The next morning, we drove the last 20 miles to Blue Mountain Ski Area in the Pocono Mountains. While not on par with resorts in the Western U.S., I was pleasantly surprised. This particular resort is one of the largest in Pennsylvania in terms of skiable acres, and has the largest vertical drop -- both measures of how much you can ski before you have to get back on the lift. Though older, less agile, and less aggressive than we used to be, we skied all day and even took a few good jumps. The sun was out most of the day and the slushy snow conditions didn't damper our enjoyment of the day. Here's a picture I took of Blue Mountain from the parking lot.

After skiing all day, we broke bread at Panera and then headed home. I drove until midnight to get home, and when I arrived, Emily had made me an EZ-Bake Oven dessert pizza. Saturday was spent resting sore muscles that just aren't used to it anymore. On Sunday, our family attended the baptism of Lauren Larsen. The Larsen family moved into our ward several years ago, and they are some of the best people you will ever have the pleasure of meeting.

28 February 2010 - Madeline's Birthday

Three weeks after the big snow, we got hit again. The college hadn't even finished digging out the stairs to my building before the were re-buried.Joanne was a little stir crazy with the kids home from school so much, so I brought them to my office and made them watch movies and color on my white board all day.
The second storm hit the day of our annual cake auction fund raiser at the church. Despite the snow, we had a good turn out.
The big event for the week, of course, was Madeline's birthday. She was completely beside herself with excitement at being the center of attention.
Joanne, crafty as always, made a stellar flower cake.
And Madeline and Emily made EZ-bake oven versions of their own.
The party continued from her birthday on Wednesday right on through a pajama breakfast party on Saturday morning--prolonging the gifts and the attention she relished. This is Madeline doing the limbo.

21 February 2010 - Hockey Game

Jessica is doing indoor soccer now, so the snow hasn't slowed her activities down much.We took our youth group at church to a Wheeling Nailers hockey game. As you can see, it's not terribly crowded at the Nailers games, but they are a lot of fun. The Nailers play in the same league as the Utah Grizzlies.
Two weeks after the big snow, the steps at Church of the Covenant (across the street from my office, where the girls did preschool) are still buried in snow.

14 February 2010 - Valentine's Day

This is my Homer Simpson Chia Head that I got for Christmas. He grew kind of uneven, more like Krusty the Clown.This is a picture from our giant snowstorm. I made the girls hold the tape measure in the snow, but you can't really see it reading just under two feet, and still snowing.This is a picture of me fixing our basement toilet. I, um, invited some folks over who were without power or water because of the snowstorm, and ended up having to take the toilet off its base to clear a, um, clog. Awesome.For Valentine's Day, I got Joanne an herb garden pot. The girls got Valentine's Webkinz. Oh great, more Webkinz. Oh great, more stuffed animals.
My wifey baked me a heart shaped, very tasty, M&M cookie for love day.

7 February 2010 - Big Snow!

This week, we got some seriously big snow -- about two feet. Madeline couldn't wait to try it out, but it was past her waist and she kept falling down. At least it was soft.This is a row of pine trees in our neighborhood.
A view of a little valley on the road to the church.
Downed power lines cut off power to 180,000 homes in western PA. Here are a few downed power lines. Our house kept power (probably because in our neighborhood all utilities are underground), but the church lost power over night.
This power pole snapped off along the road to the church. It's probably the culprit for knocking out the church's power. There were a couple others broken too.
Since we canceled church, I went over and decided to dig the church out. We have a super-awesome snow blower so the work wasn't as hard as it would have been otherwise. I had fun, and a few ward members came by to help. We even used the snow blower to dig out the widow across the street from the church. I took this shot while I was snowblowing.
Here's the front of the church with the snow blower half way up the front sidewalk.
The sidewalks look like luge tracks once the snowblower has been through.
Back inside and all warm, Madeline helped mommy make blueberry muffins.