Hiking

We went to a local nature preserve this morning and had some great family time.  We wore Elle out as evidenced by her having one of the best naps she's had in a couple weeks.  Jack was tired too as evidenced by his crankiness before bed.  Too bad we can get him to nap any more....

It was another good opportunity for me to try the new camera.  I came away with some decent shots though I discovered a couple of my settings weren't ideal after the fact.  Oh well.  A learning opportunity.

Spotted!

I was in the field behind our house taking random pictures and testing out different settings on my new camera.   I tried some action settings - continual focus on fast moving objects with 6 shots per second on some passing cars.  One dude spotted me mid-shoot!

A Review and a Tribute

Yuki has been the most popular pooch on this blog by a long-shot as he made his appearance on numerous product reviews. What better way to say good-bye to this faithful pooch than through another review. In this case, RC Ten.

RC Ten is skippable...While I do like RC Cola and am happy we have it as a fountain drink option as work, I'd just as soon mix RC and Diet RC to achieve a blend with 50 calories and better taste.

As for Yukon, you can't make an offer on him because he was a priceless pup.

2013 Winter Show

Jack and Elle performed in their school's annual winter show last night. It was another music-themed event with Jack's class performing to Elvis' Jailhouse Rock. Jack was kind of in the back so didn't get many great shots...

Elle was placed in a feature spot in her class performance of Britney Spear's (You Drive Me) Crazy and was arguably one of the top performers.

Notice a picture of Elle on the pink wall too!

As an aside these are the first pictures made with my new Christmas camera...

Need a Reason to Visit France?

Shorter versions of this are floating around but I recommend immersing yourself in the full effect for ~3 minutes or so.   It makes me want to visit France to witness this grand feeding of the hounds in person!

A Funeral for a Friend

Erin's Dad helped me send off my old buddy Yuki this this morning. We buried him on the farm down by the pond. It's a final resting place I think he'd like. We'll probably put some kind of stone over his grave in the spring. Goodbye old friend.

Goodbye Yuki

I lost my best buddy Yuki today. He was great dog who led a fantastic dog life. Yuki died in his sleep this afternoon. Even this morning, he was still acting like a puppy. We'll all miss you Yuki. Here are the last two pictures of our friend, taken over the last couple of days. R.I.P. Yuki 2000 - 2013.

How To Train Your Dragon!

We won tickets to see the How to Train Your Dragon live show and went this morning. Jack loved it and even Elle warmed to the dragons after a while.  The special effects were great with huge life-like dragons walking and flying around.

Puff The Elf Says Goodbye

Puff, the name of our scout elf sent by Santa each year after Thanksgiving, left a number of friends upon his departure this year. (he leaves on Christmas Eve night in case you didn't know). He also left a note for the kids indicating he felt sure Santa would be coming to their house and encouraging them to continue to be good listeners and sharers...

Snow Time

We took a quick trip up the hill to let the kids do some sledding (and introduce Elle to the snow).  At first she was a bit leary of the white stuff....

But eventually learned to enjoy some mild sledding...

 



















Jack had a bit more fun...

Holiday Remnants

Here are a few cool snaps I didn't get posted as we cap off a fun holiday season. We had an exceptionally good Santa for this year for the kids' pictures. Elle wanted nothing to do with it though so we gave her a waiver.

Here, Jack is in the middle of his "holiday hop" where he dances around in pure exuberance which he tends to do on Christmas morning and a couple other times of the year...

Christmas morning mayhem!

Ready for Christmas Dinner! Three things to of note aside from the table. 1. Our new purple piano makes its blog debut, feature story to come later, 2. Our new crystal chandelier meant to accompany the piano, and finally, Jack's new Darth Maul light saber in the corner of the window stands at the ready in case in rebels mean to disrupt dinner.