science night 2014

Margee coordinates a science night event for Matts elementary school. Here are some fun pics of the event.

Matt with several of his best buddies.

Kyra with aqua duck.

Mad scientist from Mobius Science center

Jan 2014

Grampy visited in early January. We all had a great time hanging out, building a RC sailboat and walking on Manito Pond - it was cold enough to freeze over this winter!

New Member of the Family -A Cat!

We adopted a cat the other day. His given name is Woodsman. Maybe the middle name is Guthrie, and we call him Woody Guthrie?

Not what we'll do with the name. Kyra is super happy to have a kitty.

He's still a bit shy and skittish and hasn't met the dog, Ginger, yet!

Festivities

We had a great trip to Seattle. But, we weren't super good at taking photos this time around. Missing photos of aunties, grandparents and cousins. The photos uploaded out of order as well. Darn.

Xmas at Uncle Marty's. Didn't take many photos. Whoops. There's Krya, Marty, Lincoln and Matthew.

Jaguar kittens.

Matthew, Kyra and cousin Carter.

Kids were all excited about seeing the gorilla siblings groom each other.

Kyra in a Brave costume.

Zoo lights

Kyra slept through most of it.

Ice skating with a hockey friend from Spokane.

More zoo photos.

Yaseen and Mateen, 2 of Matt's oldest friends came to the zoo lights with us.

Pacific Northwest Ballet and The Nutcracker.

We met up with Curts relatives - here's cousin Aiden with the kiddos at intermission.

Cousins Alicia and Cynthia with Curt

Big family dinner at The Crab Pot.

Aunt Becking entertaining the kiddos with videos on her smart phone.

We spent New Year's Eve at the First Night celebration. It's a blast. Lots of bands and arts going on in different venues all throughout downtown. But, first you have to make a mask for the Maqurade Parade!

There's always a balloon sculpture that leads the parade. This year it was a Luck Dragon.

Holiday Happenings

We have some fun family holiday traditions.

New this year, we went to North Idaho to see that bald eagles. They come every December for the Kokanee Salmon run. This is a bad photo, but the eagle is to the left of the flag pole, about center photo. You can see a white dot for the head and brown body.

Manito conservatory Xmas lights are a blast.

This year we met up with a good family friend and his son (in the blue coat).

We went to the Hutton Settlement to get our Xmas tree. The settlement is a safe place for children to live when they can't live with parents or relatives.It's a beautiful facility, and reminds me a bit of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter stories. They do some neat stuff with the kiddos, including kids managing their Xmas tree farm. Anyway, while the kids were looking at trees, I got a neat photo of geese eating grain in a wheat field.

We invite neighbor kids over for a gingerbread house destruction party. Fun, fun, fun.

Matt is center, we other third grade buddies.

Kyra is in the red shirt, with our neighborhood twins.

Kyra is a master ice skater now. We have a family seasons pass to the outdoor ice rink in downtown. We have a blast skating there!

Missoula Fun

Matt's hockey team played in a tournament in Missoula Mt in early December. We had a blast! Even out playing in negative 6 degrees F! It was when that cold front hit most of the western US.

The town is nestled in a broad river valley surrounded by mountains.

Matt is center photo, red.

Matt and his defensive line mate, Kiya, are  an amazing team. Matt has the stick in the air.

Matt is center red jersey.