John's Birthday

For John's birthday last week, he chose a visit to the Air Force Museum as a special way to celebrate the Big Eight. Here are a few photos we took that very cold day. (Happily, it's warmed up nicely now!)

John, the pilot:

The Spitfire is one of John's favorite airplanes:



Just for fun, here's an image of some legumes, as they used to travel to space.

John's birthday dinner choice was pizza. Dessert was a vanilla cake with lemon curd filling and a lemon frosting. Yum!

Yes, I'm blogging here under a different name than before. It's still me, in case you couldn't guess. I need my Blogger account for another project, where it's more appropriate and professional to use my given name. ;-)

Victoria Sandwich Cake

Success!!!!

We haven't eaten one of these since leaving Britain. But, I found a few recipes online and gave it a go. It was quite delicious!

Snow photos

Well, the winter drama seems to have passed. Steve ended up with two days off; extra-curricular activities were cancelled both Tuesday and Wednesday. Things seem to be back to normal today. However, many of the schools were still closed down. I understand that the weather was more harsh to the north of us, but I'm not sure why the local schools were closed. We were out this morning and I know I've driven in much worse conditions than this! The sloping driveway was very easy to get into, thanks to a husband who did a marvelous job in keeping it cleared and salted/sanded! Hurrah!

As promised, the photos . . .

Madeleine and John cleared the snow off the slide with their backsides:



Clare's first real play in the snow.

The neighborhood stray, who eats nothing at our house except what he finds in the compost pile (ahem). He came for a bit of a play in the fort the girls built, before retiring under the back deck:

"I can't put my arms down!!" Maybe not as dramatic as the movie, but funny enough:

Here you can see the snow collected on the swings. Notice the very back corner of the yard. It's just a young butterfly bush, so it's not all that tall. Even so, it's a few feet off the ground. It's funny to see the top of it, sticking out of the snow:


This photo probably isn't as impressive, if you haven't seen our butterfly garden in person. But, for those of you who have, you can see how buried it is:

That's about it. I know, it seems much ado about nothing to those who live in harsher climes. But it was an exciting few days around here!

SNOW!

We're snowed in for the day!

Lots of snow yesterday. Then sleet. Then snow overnight. And it's still snowing now.

I've taken photos, which I hope to post later. I hope the camera does justice to the amount of snow we've got. The butterfly garden, for example, has an 8-inch wooden edge in front of it. That edge is buried under the snow.

Happy Snow Day!

Updates from Sollingerville

It's been a long time since anyone has posted, I can see. Here are the updates:

It was a hard time, getting back into a routine after our Christmas break. We're doing better at that.

Lydia was ill at the beginning of the week. She almost got sick at church! But, after hurrying outside to make it to the shrubbery, (which doesn't sound fun, unless you consider the indoor alternative) she felt better. And was able to wait until she got home. That took a few days of recovery.

Now that we finally have accumulated snow, it's easier to track the wildlife visitors to our backyard. No more signs of mice in the compost pile. The cat tracks aren't around the compost any longer, even though the snow reveals that the neighborhood stray does still visit. So, if the owls didn't take care of the mouse/mice, I guess the cat did. Not sure what we're going to do about the compost pile now . . . .

It's been very, very, very cold. But it's meant to be in the 20s again today. It's interesting, though, that the smallest amount of sun does make a difference. Yesterday, some driveways and sidewalks were melted free of snow, even though it was only TWO DEGREES FAHRENHEIT! Incidentally, those driveways shoveled by hand are cleaner than those done by snowblower. Our efforts did not go to waste.

Our gently sloping property is a good thing during the spring and summer rains, keeping water away from the house. But the gently sloping driveway is tricky when it's covered in ice. I've used most a bag of kids' play sand so far this winter.

That's the brief summary. My apologies for once again lacking in my e-mails. I've spent quite a bit of computer time this last week, getting ready with the first batch of promotional e-mails for the Homeschool Conference. Spam filters are complicating the process. Maybe they help stem the tide of unwanted e-mails, but they don't help those who need to send large amounts of e-mail to people who are genuinely interested in hearing from them!

Back to Routine

Christmas vacation is over.

And we're having a hard time getting up in the mornings, especially since it's still so dark.

Here are some photos that were taken the weekend between Christmas and January 1st. We had a spell of warmer weather and took the opportunity of walking on a trail where we've biked in the past.

Yes, Steve is on the walk, as well. He was the one with the camera, so he's not featured in any of the photos!

New Photos in the Album

In addition to making some cosmetic changes to the look and function of the entire site, I have uploaded a number of photographs to the photo album page. You can now view a selection of family photographs from 2008. I have also added a separate page containing some scenic photographs we have taken over the years during our travels. Enjoy!