More FL pix

Here are a few more Florida pictures for your viewing pleasure. We had a great time and it was fun seeing so many people again. We counted up 26 different people that we spent time with on this trip. Seeing Eric, Lori, and Jananne was a complete (and great) surprise for us. We wish they could have spent more time but the couple days we had were great. It was also nice to let the kids play with their West cousins since they hadn't been together much before this trip. Mason and Kylie were still trying to work out some 'issues' when they left. (I'll have to try to scan the letter she sent him)
I found 997 shark teeth this year including 4 of the biggest ones I've ever found. I have to thank my little brother, he told me where to look and then didn't find any for himself. I was sure I would break 1000 but Arden came down with an ear infection the morning of the day we left so I spent several hours in the Urgent Care Clinic with her just before we left. She is getting better, taking antibiotics externally for a week.

Slow day

At the beach....

Baby Gopher Tortoise

Here's the baby Gopher Tortoise that was found crossing the road. He was released to be eaten by a raccoon later.....

Sharks teeth

These are the biggest I've ever found here.

Florida pix

Here's a few:

Interesting, very interesting

So I was doing a little on-line research tonight and looking at snow fall data for our area. When I looked at this winter as compared to others with high totals, I got this graph. It looks like every 13-14 years we get hammered.

Some more snow.

So we went for a little trudge today; I would say walk, but the snow makes for challenging walking.

We walked to the old Catholic Church in town which suffered a roof collapse under the weight of all the snow. Looks to be a complete loss as the whole building is pretty much a pile of rubble now.









We fared a little better since ours slid off. It is fun to watch the kids climb from the snow bank up onto the roof without a ladder. I've lived here 11 years and this is the most snow I've ever seen. The old timer down the street says this is the most he's seen "since '57". I'll have to take his word on that!

Global Warming....

This Global Warming is really annoying...
I wish Al Gore would come help me shovel out our windows, my back is killing me.

Looks good....

Here's what we got:
Tonight
Snow Likely. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 70% Lo 14°F
Sunday
Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 80% Hi 32°F
Sunday Night
Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 100% Lo 16°F
Monday
Snow Likely. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 60% Hi 33°F
Monday Night
Chance Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 40% Lo 8°F
Tuesday
Slight Chance Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 20% Hi 31°F
Tuesday Night
Partly Cloudy Lo -6°F
Wednesday
Slight Chance Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 10% Hi 40°F
Wednesday Night
Slight Chance Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 10% Lo 2°F

Word up, homies!

Whut up? A little Egyptian breakin' for yall'

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Finish what you start....

Well, about a week ago I got started on a bowl from some beautiful Apricot wood Scott Simmons gave me from a tree they had to cut to make room for a garage at their renovation project in Durango. This wood is really something special, incredible color and fun to work with. I got pretty far into it but had to stop for dinner. I didn't get back down to the basement until recently and found that the wet wood had split as it dried while still on the lathe. I was so sad to have wasted such a precious piece of wood that I quickly cranked out another bowl out of some scrap Aspen wood. I've wanted to try woodburning the sides of some plainer wood for a while so this was the result of taking a soldering iron to it.

Wicked cool !!!!

Take THAT

Don't call me an infestation!

Sawyer jumping

Roof video

Roof Jumpers

I had to shovel some snow and ice off the roof this morning. The boys "Reeeeealy" wanted to come up and check it out. When we were done, to my suprise, they jumped off. Sawyer without any hesitation..... Of course they had to come back up and do it a couple more times too.

Amazing contrast

Check out this map of two stops on our trip. Point "A" is in the lava beds outside Carrizozo. Point "B" it in the heart of White Sands National Monument. The contrast between the black of the lava and the white of the Gypsum sand is amazing! The two points are less than 100 miles apart by road. You can zoom in or out using the small "+" or "-" buttons on the left side.

View Larger Map

The Mystery Destination

So we had a long 3 day weekend looming on the horizon with no plans made. On Thursday I started thinking about going someplace a little warmer and out of town. I asked Sara what she thought about taking the kids on a trip back to White Sands Nat. Monument and she thought it would be fun. We decided not to tell them where we were going except to say that it was a "Mystery Destination". I took a 1/2 day off from work on Friday and we headed to Albuquerque for the night. Saturday morning we went to the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History to catch the "Tombs and Treasures" exhibit of Egyptian artifacts from the British Museum's collection. The kids were super-excited to see things related to mummies (even though there weren't actually mummies in the exhibit). No photographs were allowed in the exhibit hall, so sorry to disappoint.
We headed for Alamagordo and stopped at the lava beds outside Carrizozo and the petroglyphs at Three Rivers Canyon.... amazing, both.
Sunday we got up and had a little meeting and then headed to White Sands. It was 39º when we arrived at the Park entrance and headed in. We drove to the end of the road, 8 miles in and the temperature was 29º...... so much for going someplace warmer. We spent most of the day hiking around, having sand clod fights (the whole family was involved), and carving into the giant pillar of packed sand we found. By the time we left it was 57º and very nice. We drove back to Albuquerque for the night and took our time shopping and eating out today and got home in the late afternoon.
Here's the pix:

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Drive home

On the way home from work on Friday night.