16 October 2011

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

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

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

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.