Alex's Holiday TV Appearance

Alex is in the 3rd-6th grade choir this year and they went to a local TV station and were recorded singing a song that aired after a newscast. They had been practicing with a piano, but found out when they got there that they had no piano in the studio.  They sang it a capella for the first time and did pretty well.  The TV station has made it available online at

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/video?id=6516614

if you want to check it out.  Look for him in the lower left of the screen at 37 seconds into the clip.

Aaron Flipping Over

Becky took this video during swim lessons today.  We've been trying to get him to flip over for weeks in the pool.  He has a good freestyle stroke, but wouldn't come up for air and keep going.  He would exhaust himself trying to swim as far as he could without taking a breath.  OK for short distances in the pool, but potentially dangerous if trying to swim to safety. His swim teacher, Monica, has been trying to get him to take some forward strokes, flip over into a back float to catch his breath, then flip over to a freestyle stroke again.  She told him to take as long as he needed to catch his breath before flipping back over, which is why you see him staying in that back float for a minute or so, gathering his nerve.  He does even better when he swims back from her to the steps, doing the flip over routine twice.

Melinda's Memorial Video

Mark, along with help from Melinda's family, helped pick the pictures and I helped scan in the prints. Friends from his church, Pam and Adrian, came over the day before the funeral and put the slides to music. It was a perfect song. Melinda's legacy lives on in the hearts of the family and friends that she touched, in the man that she loved, and especially in the children that she brought into this world and loved so fiercely. It played on big screens at the front of the church during her funeral. It was a beautiful moment, have her big smile shine down on us there. Making it simultaneously made me very happy to see her smile, and hurt my heart that all I had were these pictures and my memories of her.

A Person's A Person, No Matter How Small

As we left Suessical, The Musical a few weeks ago, Aaron was singing this refrain from the show. It sounds beautiful coming from a small person, so today I got it on video.

Aaron's New Toolbench

I Am The Champion, My Friends!!!

Finally Snow!

Today we got to play in our first decent snow of the season. Unfortunately, it wasn't the right consistency for making snowmen, but the kids loved it nonetheless. They pulled out small snow shovels and flung the snow around a little, though Aaron had a hard time holding his because of his mittens.
It was still snowing lightly when we were out, so Aaron caught a few on his tongue.

In the absence of "snowman snow", the kids entertained themselves by spinning and falling a lot. Eventually we got too cold and came in for hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Let's Dance

Our Year in Pictures - 2006

Rocking Christmas Display

This was filmed at the Toledo Zoo.

Alex Swimming Video

Did I mention the Pentax shoots video too? Check this out. Press the play button in the middle of the picture.

Idlewild - Carousel

As our last stop before dinner, we rode a huge carousel. It even had its own organ complete with percussion. You can see it on the video.

Idlewild - Life Is A Highway

Idlewild - The Land of Make Believe

After lunch on a picnic table under the trees, we took a side trip to the nearby Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood – The Land of Make Believe - ride. This was our longest wait all day, but it wasn’t too bad. Becky and I grew up watching Fred Rogers on PBS, but our kids have only seen repeats. However, they are not too dated and still teach great lessons about self-confidence, respect, and trying new things. Before he died, he supervised the building of this life-sized attraction at Idlewild. This video will show you the drive into the Land of Make Believe and the welcome speech by King Friday, voiced by the Late Fred Rogers himself.

Idlewild Air Balls video

Aaron Singing his ABC's