14 December 2014 - Christmas Theater

This week was full of Christmas Theater.  On Tuesday we went to the Nutcracker ballet.  This is put on by the Eugene Ballet Company and the college hosts them once each December.  Here's the Sugarplum Fairy working her magic.

Here's the entire cast at the end of the production.

On Friday evening, we went to A Journey to Bethlehem, a live walk-through nativity at the 7th Day Adventist church in Eagle, Idaho.  There were lots of little stops along the way -- we passed some beggars, had to coax our way into the city of Bethlehem, stopped to pay our taxes and heard a prophecy read by a rabbi about the coming Messiah.  After we were told that there was no room in the inn, we went outside the city wall where we found three wise men who told us they were following a star and they invited us to come along.  Just then, an angel appeared and told us the Savior had been born, so we walked just a bit further to the stable where we found Mary and Joseph with their baby.

On the way out, the kids got to pet a camel, which was gratefully very calm.

We had a good time, but I think Madeline had the most fun of all.

7 December 2014 - Christmas Preparation

This week we had our ward Christmas party.  As is traditional, Santa showed, and Madeline waited patiently for her turn to let him know what she's been hoping for this year.

On Saturday, Joanne and the older two girls did a service project with Shop With a Cop.  Some disadvantaged little kids from our area got to go to KMart with a local police officer and shop for up to $150 worth of gifts for their families.  The young women in our ward served as gift wrappers.

On Sunday, the girls followed their tradition of building Christmas gingerbread houses.

30 November 2014 - Thanksgiving in Utah

I was leaving work one evening and we've had some beautiful sunsets lately, so I stopped to take a picture.

We left for Utah on Tuesday evening after I got home from work.  The girls had all kinds of fun at Grandma's house.  They spent many hours working on ornament crafts.

They also made chocolate cookie turkeys for Thanksgiving Dinner.  The young lady on the left is Bailey, Jennifer's step-daughter.

Here is a close-up of one of the turkeys.

On Saturday the girls had hair appointments during our visit.  Emily got a fancy pretzel braid.

Although it wasn't quite Grandma's birthday yet, we went ahead and had her open a few small gifts while we were there.

On Sunday, we had breakfast with Tiffany's family and then went to her baby blessing.  Joanne likes to kiss sweet babies.

With all those guests to entertain, baby Natalie was soon worn out.

That way she could be passed around without being bothered.

23 November 2014 - Birthday

Madeline had her 5th grade science fair project this week.  Here is her poster and the erosion bottles on display at the school.

November was more like January this year.  After our foot of snow, temperatures dropped into the single digits some nights and an inversion caused hoarfrost to form on the trees.

Thankfully the deep freeze was not too long-lived, and as the snow softened and melted, it became good snowman snow.

It also cause gigantic icicles to form on our house.  Sword sized ones.

Oh, and it was my birthday this week.  It wouldn't be my birthday without something Simpsons oriented.

16 November 2014 - SNOW! and Science

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

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

Well, some of us worked.

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

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

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

She picked three rocks she wanted to erode.

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

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

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

9 November 2014 - State Swim Meet and Chili

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

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

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

2 November 2014 - Halloween and Excellent Young Women

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

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

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

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

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

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

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