Winter in Tucson

Jer and William

Dave and Ben

Dave and Jill (slowly!)

Alex and ?

Jer and Elaine

Tinkerbell and Butterflies

Jill and I spent a few hours at the Desert Museum on Halloween morning. The butterflies were out in full glory. I didn't get any shots of the black and blue ones. I guess they are camera shy.

Halloween Pictures

The Ninja Brothers, A and W

Frost Giant from Thor, B

Tinkerbell

Nurse Elaine

Jer, the Red Wonder

Halloween FoodFest

The Scary Hostess

The Barfing Pumpkin

"Boo"glers

Ghostly Graveyard

Bony Brew

Mummy Dogs

Molted Cheese Maggots

Festering Fangs

Bones 'n' Marrow

Bloody Mummys

Corpse Fingers

Cute Kiddy Cupcakes

Christmastown Treats

Beach 2011

Jill loves Olivia (it's on the shirt!)

As usual, we had a great time in Mexico. The kids played wonderfully with their (2nd and 3rd) cousins. The bioluminescence in the water was not as pronounced as last year, but still way cool.

Alex and his not so secret admirer.

Sweet Shades

Hard Drive Heartbreak

I actually have done a decent job of backing up all our photos to Shutterfly, and getting my favorite videos uploaded to my Youtube account, but still, when the hard drive died I realized I hadn't finished backing up all the vacation media. But the worst part was that I had just barely taken all the photos off my phone from the past 1 1/2 yrs and put them on the computer. And erased them from the phone. Sigh.

So, apple-philes out there, do we update to Snow Leopard and leave it at that? Or do we go all the way to Lion? Do we then rely on iCloud as backup or subscribe to Carbonite?

On a separate note, the electric company is taking its sweet time responding to my email letting them know that not only have they been giving us free power since December of 2010, but they have been crediting us for power that we have used. The more we use, the more we save! (We have photovoltaic panels tied in to the grid and they are reading the meter wrong. Or they set it up wrong.) I have tried calling them, using their "we'll call you back when a service representative is available" feature, but they have never called. Wish us luck.

Unbalanced Antlers

Found today on our hill.  5 bucks to whoever finds the other one. (Pun intended.)

Tortoise Season

Cute little guys.

Comfy

Only a 2 yo could be comfortable sleeping on a hard wooden bench.

Random pics

Where's William?

I don't have any pics of William since the cabin!!!! Better post his birthday pics soon.

In Love With Math

Jeremy wrote this at the end of last school year. I just noticed it in the recycling bin and thought I should post it.

Have you ever fallen in love? Well, if you haven't, you're totally missing out. I'm eleven years old and my heart belongs to math. We met six or so years ago on my first day of kindergarten and we've been close ever since. "What a sight! What an answer to my problems!" were both things I thought that day I met her.

Now, I don't want to bore you with all my information about how we met; there's enough stuff to write a five hundred page book. But now is time for what I love about math. I love her curves, and figuring out her tricky questions. I love her logic, her answers to everything, but most of all, I love her infinite smile. I love how everything she does has a pattern.

But, as strange as it seems, our relationship wasn't always as smooth as her slopes. We've had our rocky times, a couple chasms have come between us, but nothing we couldn't scale. There were times when she'd tease me for hours on end, when I couldn't solve her riddles. In other cases, I'd get mad because she wouldn't let me find the answer to a division problem, but we've got past that now, and we're even engaged!

Lastly, I'll tell you about our future. I'm sure we'll get more and more involved with each other as time goes on and eventually I'll know her better than I do now. After our carefully measured and structured wedding, we'll go numerous places. She'll learn more about me, vice versa, and I'm positive we'll enjoy googolplex of happy moments.

T-Storms in Tucson

The deluge had passed and only light sprinkles remained. You can still hear the thunder.

Red Boots

Jill kept herself busy whilst Dave, Elaine, and Jer shopped for camping gear.