Sweethearts

This past weekend was once again time for another school dance. Here's the group that went together.



The theme for the dance was "Chinatown."


Rachel (or maybe Yumiko???) thought it would be fun to eschew the traditional formal dress and go for a Chinese look instead.

I think it worked pretty well. Is she cute, or what?

The traditional, formal dance photo pose.

The traditional goofy Japanese-style pose.

Mugging for the camera.

The group, from a different angle.

It seems the thing to do these days is wrist corsages. We used to think those were kind of cheesy, but everybody does it now. It is a lot easier, and saves the worry of stabbing your date with a pin.

The girls.

With attitude.

More close-ups of Rachel.

With "the boy next door". We lived next to him for nine years. It's funny to see those little five-year-old kids all grown up and going to school dances.

Rachel likes being the center of attention.

Can you tell?

Rockin' some sweet ninja (shaolin?) moves...

And a few bonus shots of Rachel acting silly...

Back to Gilwell, Happy Land

Matt completed his "ticket" and officially completed Woodbadge training, and received the award last week. Here are a few photos of the festivities. And a couple of bonus photos of Natalie, because she's just so darned cute.

Newest Naval Officer

As of Thursday at noon, anyway. Here are some photos of Matt's commissioning ceremony.

The ceremony was held in the newly-reopened Capital building.

Kind of a cool setting, isn't it?

Kelli's dad, who is a retired USAF major, conducted the ceremony...

...and administered the oath. He did a better job than Chief Justice Roberts.

Remember this photo, you'll see it again from a different angle below.

There was a newspaper reporter there doing a story on the restoration of the George Washington statue, so she came over and interviewed Matt and Kellie. Matt got his picture in the paper as a result (see below).

Here's the newspaper article. Notice the same photo as above, but from a different angle. We snapped our pictures just a fraction of a second apart.

Matt also got a couple of medals awarded. Kellie got to pin them on him.

Actually these are given to anyone in the armed services during a war (for the one) and during the war on terror (for the other), but it's still cool.

A family picture with the newest officer in the U.S. Navy.



Finally, as an added bonus, the famous Idaho statue of George Washington holding a light saber.

Daniel's art

Daniel did a kind of Andrew-style paper collage for school. Here's his picture:



And, as a bonus, here's his new personal symbol he's been drawing lately:

Revolutionary War

Here is Andrew's take on the Revolutionary War. Click on the images for a larger view.

Gingerbread houses 2009

Okay, actually graham cracker houses, but you get the idea. Here are some of our creations from before Christmas.

I went with a traditional log cabin look:



Lisa's was also traditional, but more in the conventional candy decorated style:



Yumiko tried something wild and did a gingerbread sleigh instead:



According to Andrew's design, either the whole "castle at the North Pole" legend is considerably embellished over reality, or maybe Santa's out working on his Wilderness Survival merit badge:



And, as is his wont, Daniel kind of went nuts and built a gingerbread mansion: