Iceland & Easter

Lincoln, Lydia & Henry really enjoy cousin time with the Hopwoods, and Ella's birthday party was a good time for them all to catch up. And Em made a darn good cake with some good coaching from the family cake guru.

The next country in Jenn's homeschooling/cooking adventure was Iceland. Iceland has some, shall we say, interesting cuisine. It was a two-fer for the kids, in that Jenn made a really neat dinner with lamb & Iclandic bread and then followed up with a traditional breakfast of Icelandic pancakes and yogurt. And it's amazing what these kids retain. Lydia walked up to the globe the other day, pointed out Iceland, and said, "Here's Iceland. And there's the glacier." And her finger was in the 100% correct spot!

We're liking the more spring-like weather. Between the hiking and playing outside, it's gonna be a good year, and we're even planning a real garden for the first time in this house. Photos to follow when it's through.

Mossy Log, Spring 2015

Of course, the kids are always looking for things to do around the house, and out and about.

The above photos are from Easter at the Parkinson's in Dublin. I'd like to draw your attention to the long bubble container, Lydia's is pink, that each of the kids got. This is the subject of a big first that I heard just a few days ago.

The kids were talking about wanting to blow bubbles outside, but I was in the middle of something in the kitchen and I couldn't go outside. Henry said, "Aw, now I can't play with my bubbles."

I asked him why not. His reply: "'Cause I can't hold the container with my other hand."

And that represented his first actual complaint about his hand. It made my heart sink a bit. I wonder how often these moments will happen in the future. But on the flip side, it's pretty darn amazing that he's made it to 4-and-a-half years old before voicing his first real complaint.

Jenn and I also have what may be an uncomfortable situation coming up this week. You may or may not know that we've decided to move Lincoln to a new school next year. Most of what we wanted to see out of his current school has simply not panned out. He's had two amazing teachers who have really connected well with him. The overall school environment is just not what we were looking for, and certainly not what we wanted to pay for. Lydia & Henry will join him next year, giving Jenn one destination (cue Handel & his Hallelujah). This Wednesday is our exit interview with a board member and principle of his current school. There shouldn't be too much of a discussion beyond us listing our reasons. I hope I'm proven wrong on my suspicions of it being uncomfortable.

Brazil!

In an effort to further expand the kids' tastes and palates, Jenn has taken them to the grocery store to pick out various food items and then has included them in the cooking process as they learn that the same items can taste differently when prepared in different ways. On top of that, she's even incorporating geography into the project! This past Thursday night it was Brazil night, as the kids made their own Brazilian flags, colored a map of South America, and learned about the Amazon river and the coffee & beef industries of Brazil. For dinner we ate feijoada (faze-wah'-dah) with plantain chips and agua de tamarindo to drink. Wow, was it good!
Jenn's latest cake creation was for the son of a friend, and it was very well-received.
And Lydia has been picking up a number of things lately. First, her ability to puzzle is beyond what we've seen from the boys. She doesn't start with the edges, but just works with finding matches, and she's really good at it. She's also been getting her letters lately, and it's something that just seemed to click overnight. And we've enrolled her in gymnastics again, and she's loving that.

#Gymnastics @RiverfrontYMCA.

A photo posted by @rggates on Feb 28, 2015 at 6:28am PST

Zion & Western

A few catch-up items before we get to the most recent events…

In mid-January we took the kids to see Frozen on Ice, which made at least the third different telling of the story we’ve seen before us. The kids were totally into it, and it made for a nice evening out as a family.

Showing our #disneyside in #Cleveland at #Frozen On Ice! A photo posted by @rggates on Jan 10, 2015 at 5:11pm PST

I started practicing with some night photography, using the intervalometer that the Parkinsons gave me for Christmas. This one was a 2:30 exposure that turned out pretty cool.

Beautiful #winter #night @CCChapel. A photo posted by @rggates on Jan 28, 2015 at 4:30pm PST

Mid-February came and it was time for Jenn and me to go out west for some continuing education. Prior to that, though, we spent an evening in Boulder City, NV, a morning at the Hoover Dam, and then a few days in Springdale, UT, hiking Zion National Park. The Dam is nothing short of unbelievable and Zion is simply amazing.

The engineering feat that the Dam represents, and considering that the Dam literally feeds the country fruit and vegetables year round, and not ignoring that it was a project that finished ahead of schedule, under budget, and then paid the Feds back in full with interest… it’s just unreal.
I hired a professional photographer, Seth Hamel, affiliated with Zion Adventure Company, to teach me how to be a night photographer and to take good star trail photographs. Seth was not only a good teacher, giving me tips and tricks that would have taken me weeks at best to discover, but he was also a lot of fun to spend those hours with as we took a bunch of photos of the stars. (It would have been a downer to get stuck with someone without a fun personality!)

After we were through in the field, he took me back to his studio and showed me how to use Lightroom (been putting this off for a while, but it’s high time to pull the trigger) and how to stack star trail photos. Here’s what I got (and the stack is at the top of this post):
We hiked nearly 30 miles in 3 days in very different areas. The first day we hiked to Observation Point at the top of the canyon, the second day was spent at Kolob Terraces, and the third day we hiked on BLM territory at Eagles Crag. We could’ve spent a week there if our feet could have held up, and Zion (along with Bryce & Arches) is on the agenda for our family when the kids get a little older.

Sunrise in Springdale, UT

First day in the canyon:
Then Kolob:
Then some BLM land:
And all the while, we ate wonderfully. Our breakfasts at Red Rock Inn were fantastic, and our dinners at Oscars, the Whiptail Grill and Amigos were really, really good, as well. And the burgers at Dillinger's in Boulder City were just plain as good as they come.
It was actually a downer to go to Vegas. There was just no way for it to stack up to Zion in our minds. Neither Jenn nor I are really Vegas-type people. After making the mental adjustments necessary, we were able to enjoy ourselves. The conference, Western Veterinary Conference, was first class, and we enjoyed the speakers. I enjoyed the social media aspect, Tweeting with old friends, new friends, and people I don’t even know, and meeting up with people that I’d only ever interacted with on Facebook was neat, too. It was particularly interesting to meet speakers and others and have them say, “Oh, yeah! I’ve seen you on social media.” Cool! (I think.) I got to meet with a focus group for some research I'm working on (well, I co-wrote the survey and I'll be philosophizing about the results, others who are much smarter at statistics than I am will be breaking down the survey results), and the mix of people was really cool. Then I met up with a guy from Nebraska who contacted me after he read my article in Veterinary Economics. He had many kind words for how the article helped him personally and professionally. All of these experiences made for a neat and unique continuing education conference experience.

It was a real pleasure to run into Dr. Threlfall. He's wearing the green jacket of past presidents of Western Veterinary Conference, but he was as humble and friendly as ever. Jenn worked for a couple of years during veterinary school preparing Dr. Threlfall's lecture slides, and he was the one professor with whom we shared meals outside of school. He and his wife, Barb, even came over to our little place on Melrose one evening for a dinner. Good times, those were.

We walked about 2/3 of the strip (in awful shoes), watched a Bellagio fountain show, people-watched a lot (OMG!), held our breaths walking through casinos, and we had a really good dinner at Fleur.

It was good to come back, to be with the kids again, and to get back into the swing. Not sure if we'll go back to Western again. It was a great conference, but Vegas... not sure we want to do Vegas again. But it was nice to get away and to connect with new folks. Many thanks to our parents for watching the kids and keeping up with all that is involved with them. They made our trip possible!