Jack-O-Lantern Time

One a frigid, snowy, windy Sunday afternoon we braved the elements to pick out our pumpkins for Halloween this year. We did a fine job in spite of being bundled up and in a weather-induced hurry. What you see at left are the fruits of our labor. Nice don't you think? Remember, you can click on the picture for a larger view.

More Art

The second installment of Kaori's art. This one isn't a reproduction but it focuses instead on perspective. See how things in the distance are smaller than things closer up? Like the small tree on the opposite shore versus the taller cattails. She's a budding artist.

Yellowstone National Park

I recommend a trip to Yellowstone National Park but must add that ours was definitely enhanced by kids that behave and travel well in the car. We did a fair bit of driving throughout the park and Cole and Kaori were so good the whole time.

Highlights of our trip were seeing the animals, scenery, geysers in Yellowstone and playing Uno at night. Surprisingly, seeing Old Faithful erupt was a bit anticlimactic. Maybe my expectations were too high or the rest of the park just outshone its most famous member. Evidently Old Faithful is neither the biggest nor prettiest geyser to watch. And ever since an earthquake in the park in the 80's is it not the most reliable. Now it erupts every 90 minutes give or take 10.

Click here to see our pictures from Yellowstone. Fair warning here, there are a lot of pictures. You will see many buffalo, elk, bighorn sheep, rock formations, waterfalls, kids and hot water springs. Unfortunately no moose or bears.

Old Faithful

As the countdown on the left says, the kids have a couple days off from school this week. So we've decided to take a little mini-vacation to Yellowstone National Park. We'll be staying at the Snow Lodge near Old Faithful. The lodge is appropriately named since they do have a couple inches of snow already. Might be a little chilly but we're planning on having fun anyway. Pictures to follow.

Kaori's Cats

Kaori started a new drawing class last Thursday after school. She enjoys art so much and really enjoyed her art class in Tokyo that she wanted to do another. This is a drawing of Charles Wysocki's "Kitty's Treat". I think each week they'll do another drawing of a famous painting or piece of artwork. See the original here.