Merry Christmas from the frozen wastelands of the North.  I don't know how much new snow we received last night, but the wind definitely rearranged the foot we received on Monday.

Since it's Christmas, there have to be cinnamon rolls.

Sunrise Picture

OK, after much pressure and a little applied guilt (Heather), I'm posting the sunrise pictures that I took the last time we were in Salt Lake. These were taken from Heather's back yard on Oct 31, 2008.

Not for the faint of heart!

I am posting a couple of disturbing yet interesting photos today. This is what happens when other people don't post interesting and pleasing things for the family to look at. I get desperate.
The first photo is of some cheese slices that I found in my garage fridge. It has been in the cheese drawer ever since we moved in 2005. The cheese is three years past it's expiration date. If you ever wondered what three year old provolone slices looked like, this it your lucky day.


The next photo is of something Kaelin found on her plate after eating some flounder that I bought at Wal-Mart. Yes, I do believe that is a parasitic worm. Needless to say, we ended up having cereal for dinner that night.

Heather's pastoral view...

Test your skill...

I came across this little eyeballing game today. Give it a whirl. My best score was 1.84. (Lower is better!)
http://woodgears.ca/eyeball/

Heather

Doman update

Tom's still cannot move his finger on his own, but the Dr.s think that eventually he will be able to. There is a possibility of more surgery, but that will be months away if it happens. I (Heather) am still working out and using my bodybugg. So far I have lost 12 pounds of fat and gained 2 pounds of muscle! The kids are fine and happy. And today I found out via x-ray that before we got our dog Stewart, someone shot him repeatedly with a bb gun! He has 6 bbs in his chest and one is lodged in his heart muscle. Who knows how many other ones are in him. Pretty sickening, huh?

Adventures in Idaho

We had an adventure over the past weekend ... the kids just love adventures. Here are a few photos from the trip to visit Craters of the Moon National Monument.

Before we got to the park we had lunch at the Pickle Place in Arco which has a very large rocking chair out front.


Arco also has a submarine memorial which includes the sail from the Hawkbill. Kyle wanted his picture taken as soon as he saw the boats number was "666".


Arco, population 400 or so, is clearly a random kind of place. But on to the park.

These are a series of spatter cone volcanoes.


This is a closeup of part of one of the spatter cones.


There are pines in the park that are infected with mistletoe. The mistletoe causes the excessive growth and branching called witches broom.


Some lichen that is trying to turn the park into dirt.


This is a section of Big Crater, which is a cinder cone. It's like climbing a mountain of foamed glass. Falling down is not recommended.


We didn't bring flashlights so we weren't able to go through the lava tubes. Morgan wants to go back this weekend to remedy that. Kyle is too cool to say that he liked it and wants to go back as well, but he does. So there will probably be another trip to the moon in the near future.