Fifteen

Kenrick next. He turned 15 this year.

No, that's not a pizza with candles! It's a peanut butter ice cream pie with a Nutter Butter crust and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups on top. Kenrick's invention. It was quite delicious.

The official pic. What a good looking kid!

Birthday's for a fifteen year old aren't as big a deal as they used to be. Presents can be opened on a different day than cake (he needed the shoes for track practice), and yes, the box is wrapped in the Sunday comics.

Tomorrow our little bug starts Driver's Ed. Wow.

Eight

Birthday time again. Seems to happen every year.

Paxton first. Eight years old.

Lego's continue to be our go-to gift. No complaints from any of the kids so far.

The official pic. Keep smiling Pax!

Winter Travels

Idaho again for Christmas and New Year's break. Total vacation travel miles in 2015: over 10,000.

Here we go...

We spent the first few days of our trip with my folks, then planned to meet the rest of my family in McCall for Christmas. We had a chance to spend an evening with Andrea's brother and family before we headed north.

It snowed all the way to McCall, adding to the five feet or so already on the ground. Unfortunately, the house we had rented was on the side of a mountain, up a steep, narrow road. We got stuck. Then we put chains on and made it part way before Dad got stuck. Then we waited for the snow plow to come and walked around and took pictures of all the beautiful snow.

It was worth all the trouble in the end though, the house was great and the view was phenomenal.

Looking to the south-east over a cloud-covered Payette Lake and the Cascade Mountains.

One of the most highly anticipated activities planned for this trip was to get a few days of snowboarding under our belts. Brundage Mountain did not disappoint. Pandemonium in the Powder!

Andrea and Anthony, working out the kinks in the ol' snowboarding muscles.

Sam and Cooper, heading back up the slope.

Anthony (in the foreground), working on his turns.

Kenrick and Anthony both did really well, considering that they've only been on snowboards a couple of times before and not at all in the last two years! It had been even longer for Andrea, but once we figured out that her stance had changed directions from the last time she'd gone she did great. I was worn out after the third run.

The slope off the front of the house offered plenty of opportunity for digging and sliding as well. By the time we left we had a sled track that passed under two tunnels before dropping off the edge to the driveway down below.

Dorian helps his mamma pile up more snow.

All that activity required some R&R. Sam's in charge of reading. Sally and Dorian look pretty relaxed.

We took an afternoon between reading, eating, and sledding to go to the McCall ice rink.

Anya gets a hand from Uncle Sam. She did fantastic for her first time without supports. What a trooper!

Anthony concentrates.

Paxton helps Uncle Matt around the rink. Oh wait, I guess it was the other way around.

The Sam Fam.

It was time to pack up all too soon. Better get a picture before everyone heads their separate ways.

We spent one more night in Boise, the piled all our luggage back into (and on top of) our poor van and headed to the other side of the state to spend a few days with Andrea's parents. Yes, that's five snowboards up on top! (Dad found an extra at a pawn shop that was too good a deal to pass up)

Andrea's brother Byron and his family joined us and we had a nice time with them.

Playing a game of Outburst on New Year's Eve.

We managed to get one more day of snowboarding in, at Grand Targhee, just across the boarder in Wyoming. Steep!

That's Andrea and Anthony way up on the slope, waving at us as we go by on the lift. It was a beautiful day; a nice way to start the year.

Heading back from Targhee we got treated to a spectacular sunset against the Teton range.

We also managed to slip in an early birthday party for Paxton before we had to head home. He was delighted of course. Thanks for the cake Grandma!

Keeping Track

Anya enjoys tracking the date on her calendar and marking off the days as they pass, but she's still a little confused about how to describe some of the numbers. This morning she asked, "Is today the twenty-oneth or the twenty-twoth?"

Two-thless

Anya's two bottom front teeth were starting to wiggle soon after she started school. By Halloween, the first one was ready to come out. She was delighted.

Then a few days ago I noticed her fingers in her mouth working the second one back and forth. Now she's double toothless.

Down Under

Sorry for the long delay since my last post. Seems like we've been going full tilt since the middle of August and I just haven't had a chance to catch up. The end of August saw the beginning of school and soccer and marching band. I spent the first half of September in Australia for work, the last half trying to recover, and then October was more band competitions and homework and yard work and the last of soccer and trying to catch up on sleep on the weekends.

Did I mention that I went to Australia? That was quite an experience. Flew to Sydney then west to Perth then up to the middle of nowhere to a mine site to do some testing for some customers. Saw lots of Australians, but no kangaroos.

The flight from Dallas to Sydney was 16 hours on board the world's largest airplane, the Airbus A380. This is one BIG plane.

The pictures out the window on the way into Western Australia pretty much sum up the terrain of the whole area. Red dirt, scrub brush and eucalyptus trees, a few dry creek beds, and an occasional dusty track that serves as a road to who-knows-where crisscrossing the bush. There's a reason most of Australia's major cities are along the coastlines.

The plane to Newman was almost entirely filled with miners wearing their high visibility, or high viz, orange and yellow shirts and pants. The little airport pretty much exists to serve the mines in the area. The miners fly in and stay for a week or so in the camps that have been set up to feed and house them, then head home for a break before coming back to do it all over again.

I had my own high viz. The end of a 14 hour day makes me a tired boy.

I had one evening in Sydney on my way home, so I took the train downtown to try to see a few of the sights. It was dark and rainy, but I wanted to at least see the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The Opera house was pretty cool, even in the rain. The bridge was neat too, but somehow smaller than I'd imagined. I didn't get a chance to climb to the top - maybe next time.

Heading home. Only 8,500 miles to go!

Big Steps and Butterflies

The first day of a new stage in life. All four, ready for the school bus!

Anya's been so excited to start Kindergarten she could hardly stand it. I think the countdown has been going since Paxton started two years ago. Today she said she missed her mom a little bit, but was busy making a card for her teacher this evening so I think she got over it.

And Kenrick started High School, a fact that I'm having a hard time coming to grips with.

More than a few stomachs had the butterflies...

Tree House Done(ish)

The Tree Deck is decked!

I finished up the decking for the tree house/platform this week. I do intend to put some kind of a rail or net around the edges, but not sure how or when just yet.

Looking from the "stern" (the deck is roughly boat shaped)

Looking from the "bow"

The ladder

Tricky 'Wich

Paxton was helping toast the bread for BLT sandwiches the other evening. I had him get the butter and the Mayo to spread over the toast while it was still warm, but I told him that I didn't like a lot of Mayonnaise, so "just spread it on one side. Then you can put butter on the other."

Shortly afterword I looked over to just in time to see him happily spreading Mayonnaise on the other side of the piece of bread that he'd just buttered!

I think he was wondering how I was going to eat the sandwich without making a mess! I turned that piece of bread into the middle layer of a double-decker BLT. Yum!

Not Reversable

I usually carry a writing pen and a notebook with me at work, and it's become a habit to just slip the pen into my front shirt pocket whenever I get up from my desk. A few weeks ago I noticed that my pen didn't go in right. "That's odd," I thought, "I was pretty sure this shirt had a front pocket. It has an outline of a pocket, but where's the opening? Oh. My shirt's inside out!"

I guess that's why it didn't button quite right that morning.

Overload

This summer's road trip generated 1,484 pictures. Approximately. I don't think I'll be able to post them all here.

The short and sweet: Andrea and the kids leave me at home and drive to Montana for Ronan convention. Visit Glacier Park after and Crater's of the Moon on the way to Boise. I meet them there and we catch Parma convention, then head west into Oregon. Spend a day at Crater Lake, two days in Northern California to see the Redwoods. Visit Lassen Volcanic National Park on the way back west, stopping briefly to peer across the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and testing the brakes in the Colorado mountains before dropping back down onto the Long Flat of Kansas and Missouri. Home. Whew.

A few highlight pictures:

The Crew at Craters of the Moon

A quick break before heading down the trail to Crater Lake from the rim

The scale of the redwood tree is hard to capture.

Parking the van next to one helps. Kind of.

A happy pair, ready to head home.

More Toothless-er

Poor Paxton, he's got hardly any teeth left!

Tree House Update

It probably would be more accurate to call it a Tree Deck...

Anyway, lots of work to do yet, but I did get the ladder finished this week.

(See Mom and Dad In May for early construction pics)

Mom and Dad in May

The month of May was marked by a very special visit from my folks. Mom and Dad packed up the camper and headed east during the first week of May, showed up at our doorstep a couple of days later and then stuck around for the rest of the month (with a brief trip up to Wisconsin in the middle). We loved it. Illinois or bust, here we come!

Dad had to stop a few times to try to frighten a fish or two, of course. Not sure what he scared in the mighty Mississippi!

It was fun to have them there during Mother's day. Everyone helped with Sunday Dinner. Even the Mothers! (Yes, that's Kenrick at the sink. He's officially Taller Than His Mom)

I grilled. Kind of predictable for Mother's Day, right? But hey, do what you know.

Mom attempted to tackle our dandelion "problem". I think the dandelions won.

And Dad tackled the little tree house project that I've had stewing in the back of my head for a few years. Turned out not so little. And it's not yet done (my fault, not his - some of the details were not ready to leave my brain), but he definitely helped get things off the ground. Literally. Thanks a bunch Dad!