Visit to Pennsylvania

We traveled to Paul's home town of Washington Pennsylvania to spend the holidays with Paul's family. Paul's dad celebrated his 80th birthday just a few days before Christmas this year.


Nicholas bought Paul's dad an ice cream at Dairy Queen for his birthday present


Katie and Nicholas playing a game with Paul's parents


Katie and Nicholas in front of the retired USS Requin that can be toured at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Science Museum


Paul's parents, brother, and sister-in-law join them at the church in Washington where Paul and Whitney were married twelve years prior to the day

Paul's Favorite Kids' Presents

Paul's favorite gifts that the kids got (in no particular order) are:

Hydrodynamic Building Set from Bridge Street Toys
Even though it is rated for age ten an up, five-year old Nicholas did fine with assembly of the girder support pieces and making modifications to the piping. The starter set has a hand pump instead of an electric pump, which was probably more fun for Nicholas.






Young Architect Kit
It turns out the scale of the kit matches up well with Lego people.






Lego Mindstorms
Katie did really well at a daddy-daughter robot building class in December, so we decided to go for it.

Christmas Traditions

Some of our Christmas traditions involve items from Christmas' past. The train under the Christmas tree is Paul's old Lionel train, and the manger in the creche was hand made by Paul's father when Paul was a child.

Christmas Eve Pageant

This Christmas Eve both Katie and Nicholas were part of the Christmas Pageant at our church, St. Mary's in Newton Massachusetts. Katie was a sheep, with a singing solo, and Nicholas was a non-speaking cow.

You can see pictures of pageant practice here, and pictures of the church on Christmas Eve here.

To see Katie's solo, go here and advance the video to the 35 minute mark.

Our Christmas Tree in Apple's Photobooth

First Snowstorms of Winter 2007

The first snowstorms have left well over 18 inches of snow in our front yard. This past Thursday we had about 8 inches, followed by another storm that started last night and is now coming down as freezing rain. Fortunately this didn't stop Katie and Nicholas from building a snow fort in our front yard.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Season's Greetings!

Here is our 2007 Holiday Card...