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:

Violin recital

Here is a video of Lisa's recital a couple of weeks ago.

Recitals Galore

Last weekend was packed full of recitals and performances.

Lisa kicked things off Saturday morning with a violin recital. I was busy taking video (which I may get around to uploading someday), so no photos of the performance itself, but here she is with her teacher and the other students who performed.



Then everybody (but me) played a couple of songs each in a piano recital, some solos and some duets. Again, no photos of the actual event (but you can come over and watch the video if you'd like!), but here are a few shots from after the event was over.

Rachel and her duet partner:



Looking like she's concentrating:



All the performers (with Jim Brickman looking over their shoulder). They enjoyed playing on the Yamaha grand piano behind them. These pianos are WAY expensive. Some of the ones they had on display were listed at over $60,000. You can buy a Ferrari for that! (Okay, a 20-year-old used one, but still...)



What the heck, might as well get me in the picture, too, for no particular reason...



We went straight from the recital to our ward Christmas party. During dinner, the kids (and Yumiko) played some of their recital pieces as background music. Here they are lined up for their eight-hand version of "O Holy Night".



Later in the program, the Primary sang, and some of the kids (including Daniel) accompanied the singing with bells.



And finally, Lisa played as part of our "ward orchestra".



She played again on Sunday as part of a musical number in Sacrament meeting. No photo of that one...

Anyway, it was a busy weekend! Everybody is glad it's over.