Yumiko's Snow Adventure

Here are a few photos from Yumiko's first (and last???) ski trip...

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...

Okay, so it's a couple of days past Christmas, but it was a white one, and the white stuff kept on accumulating. Here's what it looked like two days after Christmas, when we added 4-5 more inches to what was already there.



That pile by the garage is over five feet tall. Andrew and Lisa later tunneled a snow cave into it.

Of course, Boise winters being what they are, it warmed up within a day, and and now the majority of the snow is gone. Oh well.

Speaking of Christmas, just for fun here are some photos of some of the Christmas lights we went to see. Somebody has way more time on their hands than I do!




And finally, on an even more Christmasy note, here is our Christmas Eve re-enactment of the Nativity scene.


I'm not sure what's up with the gangsta wise men, but at least the rest of the kids are playing it pretty straight.

We hope you all had a great Christmas!

Gingerbread houses

One fun Christmas tradition is making gingerbread houses. Of course, we're lazy, and make them out of graham crackers instead, but it's still fun. Here are the kids' creations for this year.

Yumiko made a girl in a forest of Christmas trees. Not a house, but if nothing else an honorable mention for the rose the girl is holding.



Rachel was going for a snow theme.



Andrew was going for the log cabin look. And a pretty detailed tree, topped with a star.



Lisa selected a rainbow motif on the roof. That's a person in front of the house, next to the small gumdrop tree.



Daniel really got into it. He did a "gingerbread" hospital. That's a Christmas tree on top, and "life flight" helicopter on the landing pad on the right.



Here's what it looks like from the back. That's a person on a trampoline on the left, in the therapy yard. The enclosure on the right is for growing flowers.



Here's a closeup of two people on the balcony.



And a closeup shot of the helicopter on its landing pad.



It's good to know that if there are any injuries in Gingerbreadland this Christmas season, they can be taken care of. :)

All is calm, all is bright

Just goofing around trying to get a reasonable representation of what the house looks like with Christmas lights and snow... kind of a kludgy handmade HDR (high dynamic range) image.

Japan portraits

Rachel and Daniel got to show off their portraits from Japan this summer on their birthdays, so in the interest of fairness, here are Lisa and Andrew, and them all together.





I wish I could show you the ones of Andrew and Daniel with swords, but we don't have rights to post those, unfortunately...

Andrew takes on Homer

For all you classical literature fans, here is Andrew's comic-book style interpretation of a story from The Odyssey. Click on the pictures to get a big enough version to read...

iTunes milestone