Church was cancelled, so . . .

Everybody at our house was all dressed up with no place to go today. I had early meetings, so I briefly went to church. I found the largest hazard to be all the rock they put down on the roads, but it was pretty cold/frosty/snowy too. Anyway, after I got back home, hilarity soon ensued. Before long, we had glasses-trading going on between Grandma Z and little E. Whoa guys, take it easy!


So young and studious!


L recently made a cool Valentine's scrapbooky fold book thing, and it has several pictures of us together in it. This helped her realize that we need to more frequently get pictures of just us. Today was a good opportunity.


Grandma and Grandpa Z taking advantage of the photo op with the kids.

Frigid Beach Getaway

My older sis and E cozy up in the kitchen.


This follows "don't touch the sand!"


My sis and W pose near the Peter Iredale.


Never turn your back on the ocean, even for pictures!

Evergreen Aviation Museum

Three other leaders and I took 6 members of our Venturing crew to the Evergreen Aviation Museum. Although we met early (6 AM on a Saturday), it was well worth it. I was surprised at how many really cool planes they had other than the Spruce Goose. They also have a separate IMAX building and are constructing a new space museum, too. For many more photos of this little trip, check out the Venturing blog here.

You Know Your Camera's Getting Old When . . .

Our 3-year-old daughter got ahold of the camera (and we didn't stop her) on Christmas day. She's got some pretty good little photo skills, and she did a nice job of capturing the true flavor of our low-key family Christmas.

It was great to not really do a lot all day and not feel like you had places to go and stuff to do. Here's the day's version of multitasking: talking on the phone AND playing my new Lego Star Wars game on the Wii (and probably eating chocolate). Two of my favorite toys growing up were Legos and Star Wars, so this was absolutely something I had to partake in. And yes, those are my pajama bottoms, thus revealing that I kept them on for quite some time and just put on the new sweatshirt of my favorite Las Vegas Bowl-winning Cougars over them.

W got a new book of Thomas the Tank Engine stickers, and here he is in action. He didn't much get into opening presents this year, and was very insistent on first eating his cereal. E, however, was happy to open his presents for him in the meantime.

E took a LOT of pictures (like maybe 40) and a great many of them were of her new (imaginary, but I'm sure herbal) tea set.

The co-Santas stayed up late the night before doing things like putting together that little trike. Here's a nice off-kilter "Hi" from L and I'm sure also from the unborn/unnamed (but I'm voting for Cordelia :-) child. L's very happy because I went all-out this year and got her (among other things) SIX tubes of her favorite Listerine Tartar Control Essential Care toothpaste (gold in gel form and priced accordingly . . . even for people with dental connections, dang it!). She, in turn, went correspondingly over-the-top and (again, among other things) purchased me a jar of Burgerville Spread (seen in the picture where I'm on the couch in all my slobby glory).