February 2013 - Including Avril's 4th Birthday

 

Sister McCabe, Gayle's assistant for her Activity Days calling in the Primary (8-11 year old girls) tells the girls about exercise.   Julia McCabe leaves with her husband to go to Guam on a mission next month.

Next the group went to Eastridge ward building gym to do a Zumba class.

 McKel poured her second bowl of cereal all by herself.  Can you tell?

 The little ones enjoyed some Valentine's Day suckers (or as Avril called it, "Balance Times" Day).

 What's a little pure sugar gonna hurt anyway?

 In spite of the sisterly rivalries, they have a lot of sisterly love.  Here they are in some Valentine's outfits.
 
 Dressed in some new dresses and showing affection.
Here is what they do for most shots, before we select the good poses!

 For Avril's birthday she had requested a Princess theme.  Here is a pineapple/orange cake that Gayle made for the occasion.

 Another view of the royal princess cake.

We set up for a royal banquet.

A fruit plate that was part of the feast.

 Gayle decorated like the Renaissance period. 

 
 

 
 The royal throne for Princess Avril to sit at the banquet.

 One of the Fair Maidens at the Princess's birthday party.

Princess Avril and Princess Sierra from a neighboring kingdom.

 McKel was running in her royal dress and tripped and hit her chin on something.  It cut her chin and she bit her tongue and she bled from both.  Here she is with her chin bandaged up.

 Here is Alicia, another Fair Maiden of the court.
 
 A good sorceress came to the kingdom to participate.

 Group shot of the ladies.

 Three granddaughters.

What is a magical kingdom without a dragon?

 Getting into character, scaring a Fair Maiden.

 And of course there were crafts in the kingdom.

 Papa Bryan comforting the injured princess McKel.

 Some of the feast.

 The Princess's birthday request of spaghetti was honored.  She is now four years old!

 And also from a royal family, Duke Jared came by for the festivities as well.

 Duke and Duchess Adrian and Arleen attended the celebration.

 The sorceress Brittney brought her friend Jamie along too.

 The Princess blowing out the 4 candles (not all at once though).
 
 A Fair Maiden and the Princess look at the royal birthday cake.

 A birthday party means royal gifts.

 Opening another gift on the royal sofa.


 Back in time...guess who else liked to dress up like a princess.


And here's another girl celebrating her 4th birthday!
 
 After snow most of the 23rd, Sunday the 24th was a clear but cold day.  We have lots of snow around the house.

 Looking out our front door.

 The piles are still growing, but March comes next week and they will soon shrink.

January 2013 - A cold start to the year

Early in January I attended a week long "commercial meeting" in Boston at the Sheraton.  One evening our group ate at the Smith & Wolensky's a short ways away.  Here I'm "horsing" around with a moose head in a very historic room (lots of historic sites in Boston).  The building had belonged to a military group, founded in the 1800's, and whose name I've since forgotten.

 Stretching prior to a large meal.  The fire felt nice that night.

With two of my work colleagues, Dan Nelson (Logan), and Margarita Hunter (Boston area, originally from Russia).  We're in the restaurant atop the Sheraton, overlooking Boston.

Looking from the Sheraton directly across the St. Charles River toward Cambridge.  It's January, so it looks pretty bleak.

 Looking a bit further up the St. Charles River.

 Early January had some snow.  But for several weeks we had bitter cold inversions.  Here's a shot of our Mountainer earlier this month.  We recently finally got some more snow (shoveled twice yesterday and this morning).  We expect more tonight.

Again, we actually have more snow than this now.  About double, in fact.  With more coming overnight.


Alicia got her Acura stuck while backing out of our driveway and a neighbor up the street, Colton Parker, stopped and used his pickup truck and a chain to pull her out.



The girls love sitting on Nana's or Papa's lap for us to read them stories.  Here, when we weren't around, Avril was filling in and reading a story to McKel. 

Rest of Christmas and December 2012

Many visitors came up over the holidays to visit with grandma Joyce and to see grandpa Spencer at the Legacy House.  We saw Carl and Susan and some of their family, and Nancy and Brandon and some of theirs.  And of course Robert and Tracine and the boys.  However, we didn't get shots of all the relatives.  Here are some we did snap over the holidays though:

 We opened gifts with grandma Joyce at her house with Robert and Tracine's family.  Here we are listening to Tracine tell a wonderful Christmas story.

 Sam reads the story of Christmas from Luke as his brothers listen. 

 Brian accompanied us on some Christmas music.

 Arleen, Brit, and Adrian, loving the Christmas spirit.

 Robert and I, basking in the Christmas glow.

 Joyce, Sam, and Tracine, before we opened gifts.

Gayle and Jared.

Spencer L., hamming it up.

 Alicia and the girls came over the next day to open their presents.

 Avril got a princess doll from Tracine!

 And McKel got a cabbage patch doll from Tracine!
 
 Christmas night papa read books to the girls in their new reindeer Christmas pajamas from Jared.
 
 Avril loves books!

Earlier on Christmas day the group went down to the Legacy House to visit grandpa Spencer to sing carols and give him some gifts.

 Grandpa Spencer and Jared at the Legacy House.

 Adrian and family also visited with L. Spencer.

 Spencer L. says hello to L. Spencer.  Spencer K. was not in the shot.

 Ali and Avril visited with grandpa Spencer too.

 Dad got a Naval Academy blanket (we lived there for a year).
 
 Also on Christmas day we opened gifts at our own house.  Here are Brit and Adrian waiting to see what they received.
 
 The excitement was building for the little ones.

 It's almost too much stuff at once!  What to play with?

 Even the big kids had a good time.
 
 Lately the weather has been high pressure with strong temperature inversions and bitter cold.  In spite of this, we took the bundled girls out for a walk around the neighborhood.

 Arleen and Gayle played with the girls in the cold and snow.

 When you wear layers, it's not so bad.

 Arleen and McKel had fun too.  But the snow was too cold and dry to pack for snowmen.

 Oops.  McKel dropped a mitten. It's hard to get them on right!

 I let my hair and sideburns go over the holidays.

But got it cut in time for a business trip I'm taking to Boston tomorrow.