The Big Apple

James took a trip to New York City for an IB training last week. The meeting was held at the American Natural History Museum - talk about a place you could spend a week in! Saw lots of great stuff, and survived riding the subways!

Silver Dollar City!

We have been getting some good use out of our SDC passes this year. Any chance we get we're running down for some family fun time!




Look closely and you should be able to find three of ours in this one.











Kimberlie and Hannah got to join the cloggers on stage in the ampitheater's evening show.

No beach trip is complete without building some sand stuff! We made 2 turtles, an alligator, a dragon, and a familiar looking mermaid. Then it was time to bury Dad!

Took a dolphin-watching tour and tried our hand at body-board surfing. They even let the kids drive the boat on the way back up the bay!

Having a wonderful time in Hilton Head, SC this week! Going to the beach (and pool) every day, and seeing some great stuff. Be sure to notice the momma alligator that lives in the pond behind our resort! She likes to swim up and watch us on our back deck...

Kimberlie goes to the Temple

We took Kimberlie for her first visit to the St. Louis Temple on Saturday. It was a very special experience for all of us!

Sorry, no snazzy pictures in this post, but plenty worthwhile in my opinion. I've just been searching about on the web for info on the new family search site and found a bunch! Our temple district is apparently going to be pilot testing the new system; and it looks way cool!

A few links for you to explore:
http://familysearchlabs.blogspot.com/
http://labs.familysearch.org/
http://planet.kzion.com/?author=122
http://www.surnames.com/new_familysearch.htm
http://rzamor1.livejournal.com/50295.html
http://www.familysearchindexing.org/en/index.jsp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FamilySearch

Lots of enthusiasm for getting family history high-tech!

Tonight was the last symphony concert of the season, and what a treat! A whole night of John Williams movie music - even better, the whole second half was all Star Wars. The local fan club dressed up and provided some of the entertainment (read here 'sideshow') that was the biggest hit with the kids. The pictures should be self explanatory.

April, Right?

Saturday, April 14th - Snow for 2 hours in the morning. Weird, but fun for the kids. In the 60's the next day, but who can resist a snowball fight in Spring?

Ben made this snowman head. He was so proud that he even named it (before smashing it into the front door).

4th Grade Trip to the Capitol

Nathan and James went to Jefferson City with his class this week. We got to see some amazing things! We even had a chance to climb to the top of the capitol dome, tour the governor's mansion and office, sit on the House floor, and use the state seal!

Federal Disaster Area

What a month this has been! We had one of the worst ice storms of the last century! Lots of damage and destruction - tens of thousands without power for many days (some still out now).
We were without power for only a part of the first day - one of the blessings of underground utilities - and ended up housing several others for a time. The last two just moved back home today, in fact.

More Ice Storm Pictures

More ice storm pictures. I don't know what the official total was, but our branches had at least an extra 3/4 inch all the way around. The grass would shatter when you walked through the clumps; not from cold, but from the added weight of the ice itself. When the tree limbs were falling (most of two nights!) you would hear a loud pop, then a shattering noise of the ice breaking off the limbs when it all hit the ground. The weirdest part was that the roads never accumulated the ice - just everything else. No school for the whole week, panic buying all over the city, generators going like hotcakes (some people made big bucks there), and transformers popping like fireworks. Some of our kids watching one night actually thought there were fireworks going off.

Girls' Winter Concerts

Here are the two budding musicians at their 6th and 7th grade concerts at Carver Middle School. They are really getting to be quite good!

Hannah is 4!

We had a fun time with our little 'dancing princess' this Saturday as she turned four. As you can tell she is all about the pink dress-up princess look.