Spoiler Alert, Turkey will be awesome.

Lady Grizz Season in Review

Hmmm, so much to say, so much to say. The first game of the season was Sugar Salem. I got my hopes up thinking there would be a win against the smaller 3A school. Not so much. I, along with Todd and the girls, walked into the gym to see not only thousands of fans in the bleachers, but walls lined with girls state basketball and volleyball banners. For the past three years to be exact. I still saw hope. I commented to Todd that if they were that good for three years in a row, then probably most of the girls had graduated...maybe leaving this team weak and inexperienced. Not so. We lost by thirteen, which was respectable. Morgan played well, took care of the ball, and had six points.
Game 2: At Burley. Mom and Dad were still in ABQ, so there are no eye witnesses. Loss.
Game 3: Bonneville. Bonneville won girls state basketball last year, and they have won volleyball state the past three+ years. Things didn't look good. They started looking even worse when Lacey, the best player on our team, got benched for failing her ONLY two core classes. Lacey is looked to for at least 50% of the teams scoring, rebounding, assisting, and single handedly breaking the press, etc... Bonneville had their subs in 95% of the game. They were still much better. We lost by 15 or so. I remember Morgan taking some really good shots, but things weren't falling for her.
Game 4: At Hillcrest. I wasn't there for this one, but Mom and Morgan refer to it as a heart breaker. I guess it was tied at half and going into the fourth, but then some girl from Hillcrest that had to leave in the first half to have stitches returned to score ten in the last few minutes. We lost by ten.
Game 5: Blackfoot. Wow. Things are looking good. We are up by six at half. I lean over the aisle to ask a Blackfoot parent how many games they have won. He asks me if I can count to zero. I offer condolences and let him know we haven't won yet, either. However horrible it sounds, Skyline has played some really good teams. Blackfoot parent tells me, and I quote, "Well, we lost to the Fort Hall Blind and Deaf team, then another to the Kilgore Paraplegic team. I think next week we've got the Young Mothers of Utah. It's been rough." Late in the third quarter, we are still up by six. I hear the same Blackfoot parent say that they (Blackfoot) had given this one away. "Don't count yourselves out yet," I commented. At the beginning of the fourth, a stalky Indian girl nailed three 3's in three possessions, then they had a made 2 and a made foul shot. Game over. Loss.
It's been real exciting. Lacey will be back after Thanksgiving break since it will be a new semester. That will help.
Morgan's comment on the year this far, "I hope things get better."
I am pretty sure they will. I don't think it can get much worse.

Here are early pictures of Violet.

This was in the hall outside our recovery room.

I took this one, thank you!

Bringing Violet home was very exciting. About an hour later, Morgan was whinning. About 10 minutes after that, her finger got cut. So I hope she doesn't associate Violet with these things!

They have gotten along pretty well so far. Let's hope that holds up!

Here's the video of the first encounter:

thanksgiving

We had a great time in Albuquerque! Brooke was awesome in her soccer game.

We had fun playing games with the kids and going out to eat!

For anyone coming up for thanksgiving, Morgan has a home game on Tuesday at 7:30pm

We will be having Birthday breakfast party on Wednesday, her birthday. Hope some

can come to that!!

Typical...

Macie woke up Friday morning and the right side of her face was all sticky, and her hair was a sticky mess. The night before she had taken a bath and gone straight to bed. Confused, I asked her why she was all sticky. She said it was from the candy. What? I had no idea what she was talking about because she hadn't had anything since her bath. She had breakfast, then we went in to clean her up. After cleaning her face and hair, she informed me that her ear was sticky inside. Once again, I asked her why. This time she said it was because of the candy in her ear. Huh? I proceeded to Q-tip her ear out, not really thinking much of it. Some purple junk came out, but on with the day. That afternoon I found an empty purple NERDS box, but still didn't think much of it. At about 5:00 she complained again, "Mom, the candy in my ear still hurts." All of a sudden things fell into place. The sticky mess, the NERDS....me cleaning out her ear. I quickly realized she had put NERDS in her ear and I feared that when I used the Q-tip I had surely forced the nerds deeper into her brain! I called the pediatrician, and we went straight over. I thought for sure they were going to have to extract a box of NERDS from deep within. Luckily, there was nothing in there. The doctor said that with the bath water and the heat from her ear, they probably melted and drained out during the night. Hence, the sticky mess. Nice. All in the day for Macie.

Kauai Part II

As promised, here's the rest of the story. First, however, some video I just got of the waterfall we hiked into. This is my first post with video, so I hope it works.

After finishing up our hike we had a late lunch, then went sight seeing some more. A member of our party, George, tells us, "Hey, there's this really neat place called Queen's Bath not far from here, let's check it out. There's these large tidal pool basins where the sea water just laps over the edge. You can swim in them. Last time I went there were whole families with children enjoying it."

OK we think, sounds nice, let's go.

The place isn't marked, but our guide book has a description of how to get there. You drive into this REALLY nice neighborhood called Princeville and park at an unmarked lot. You then hike down a little trail for about 10 minutes to reach the shore. The shore is a lava rock outcropping that extends maybe 20-30 feet from the hills we walked down out to the ocean. At the ocean it drops off maybe 10-20 feet to sea level. We walk maybe 20 minutes along the edge of the ocean to reach our destination.

Once we get there, it's not quite like we had expected. The "calm tidal pool where the water gently laps over the edge", is more like a washing machine of death. The tide comes rushing into the pool, then gets forced through a channel and splays wildly up on the rocks. It was really quite dramatic. Here's some video that kind of tells the story, the 'tidal pool' is visible in the lower left corner just as the video begins.

Needless to say, we did not go swimming.

Ed and George (my fellow travelers) take up residence out on the end of the ledge, as indicated in this photo, watching the tide churn against the wall. I stand out on the edge for a few moments, but aren't quite as brave, so I step back about 15 feet. I'm standing back there looking down at the ground all around me and realize it's all covered in water, and there's no stream or creek feeding it. How did this water get here? I start to feel like I'm about to be in one of those videos you see on TV occasionally, something like 'look at these stupid people'.

Sure enough, a few moments later a larger wave breaks and sprays Ed and George pretty good. It gets them up and running. Which turns out to be really good, because the next wave comes crashing over where they were just sitting with about 5 feet deep of water. If they had still been there they would have been pulled out to sea, then likely crushed against the rocks.

So now we are all standing as far from the ocean as we can, up against an unclimbable hill where the lava rock meets the shore. I notice that none of the rocks here are wet, so I feel somewhat better, but the water has gotten a lot closer. In order to return the way we came we'd have to walk across rock that is now routinely getting pummelled with waves. George advocates waiting for a 'break' then rushing across. I'm thinking maybe that's not a good idea. We can walk along the shore for a little ways before a decision has to be made.

Lo and behold, we come across some rope leading down the hill, apparently put there for just this reason. As we start to climb the rope we notice another group of tourist making their way towards where we had just left. Ed yells at them, but they can't really hear him over the roar of the waves. Through much gesturing and yelling Ed gets his point across that it's not safe. We climb up the rope, end up in somebody's backyard, and make our way back to our car. Very exciting.

Arav-C Launch

Yesterday we launched Arav-C. The best part is that I get to go home. I don't yet have the standard photo of us standing in from of the rocket. To get some perspective the top of the rail is something like 40 feet off the ground.

Spin motors fire.

This is how they roll in the ABQ. . . .

Is this aunt Morgan? In a wig?

I am using the new Picasa program, which has a feature that identifies faces so you can quickly identify and label people. It is pretty slick. But this face popped up and I thought, "Oh, Morgan. With brown hair? Huh?" Is this some weird look a like?

I've been in Kauai for the last two weeks, working on a rocket launch. The first Saturday I went and hiked Waimea Canyon, also known as 'the Grand Canyon of the Pacific'. It was pretty cool, but I have no pictures to share. If you're interested do a google search. We hiked into a small waterfall that you could see. Then the water fell off a several hunded foot cliff, but there was no view. You could stand out right at the edge of the fall, but there was nothing to see.

This last Saturday I went and hiked the Na Pali Coast (north shore). We hiked in 4 miles to a 300 foot waterfall. Pictures follow.

The beach, halfway to the waterfall. Still relatively clean.

Large spider. Other than a few birds, this was the only wildlife we saw. Unless you count tourists.



We passed through a few bamboo groves after the beach on the way up the canyon.

This is the final destination. The waterfall falls 300 feet into a large pool We swam out and you can stand under the waterfall. I've got some pictures of that too, but I don't think anyone wants to see that. The total trip lasted about 6 hours. After we hiked out we went to another local attraction and had an exciting (read rather scary) adventure. I'll post more on that later.