Leah's Piano Recital

Here's some video from Leah's piano recitals from July and November. We are so proud of how musical she has become.

Fall is upon us

Hey folks! Here's the latest with us... Tyus is 8 and is active in Cub Scouts and recently received the Light of Christ Religous Scouting Emblem. The emblem is one of just 3 awards in scouts that can be worn into adulthood (arrow of light and eagle are the other two). He has also been on the vacaville rec swim team in the summer and fall. He played baseball last spring and is going to start basketball in Dec. He loves school, reading and math are his favorites.


Leah is 13 and is avid piano player, color guard letter in her school band, plays soccer, and is the activities director for the Junior Honor society at her school. Melanie is busy coaching a Lego League robotics team, running a school newspaper, and was named Travis Unified's Teacher of the Year for 2010. Doug is busy as a cub scout den leader and committee chair, running a high school robotics team, and launches large rockets in his spare time. Click on the FAMILY PICS link to see some more pics of what we've been up to.

Winter Update.. finally!

Well Christmas is here and I finally have a break for some overdue updating.

Tyus: Ty is doing great at school, and had a fun soccer season this past fall. He is eager to start Little League Baseball in a few months. He is also busy with lots of scouting activities with his Wolf Den. Last Monday, he sang Christmas carols at a local retirement facility for seniors. He is crazy about LEGOs which he recieved many of at christmas.

Leah: Leah has had a great start in Middle School and is about to become a teenager. She had a rough soccer season this past fall suffering a sprained toe, wrist, and an appendectomy! She only played a few games. She is now also on her school band's color guard squad where she works with one of the letters. She continues piano lessons each week and plays often. Christmas spoiled her with tickets to see Taylor Swift this Spring.

Melanie: Melanie continue to teach special need students at the local school. She coached a Lego League Robotics team this past fall and has started a school newspaper. I'm sure you can find out more interesting stuff going on with her on Facebook. Oh yeah, did I mention she actually has a cell phone now. What's going on around here?

Doug: I moved into a new classroom at school that is now right next to the drafting shop, wood shop and robotics shop. I coached a Lego league Robotics team from the local middle school, and a Vex (mini) Robotics Team from my robotics class and am now preparing for our 10th robotics season in FIRST starting in a few weeks. We are competing in Washington DC, 3/4-3/6 and in San Jose, 3/18-3/20. I'm still a den leader with my son's cub scout pack and also have taken on a new position as the committee chair of the pack.

Pets: Belle and Rex are now 2 years old and slowing down, a little. We still walk to the park a few times a week and they love to fetch a ball. Nala is 16 years old and sleeps 23.5 hrs a day. Princess is 4 years old and teases the dogs as often as she can.

Wrapping up our Summer

We got to check out the King Tut exhibit in San Fran last week and it was well worth it. We also saw lots of cool art exhibits at the deYoung museum as well.

Tyus also had his first fly ball catch at last weeks game and on top of that he turned it into a double play by throwing it immediately to first base to get the existing runner out. Ty's last game is Aug 11 and Soccer season is just now getting started. Ty has also been working on his swimming all summer and just did his first swim meet this past weekend.

What's Leah been up to? She's enjoyed a lot of activities with her friends and continues to work on her piano playing. She too is just starting soccer and will compete in the Lego League this Fall. She's getting excited about starting 7th grade at her new school, Golden West Middle School.

Our dogs enjoyed some time at Stinson Beach a few weeks ago. They are just like the kids, they can run and play in the waves for hours.

We did complete one home project this summer... Our kitchen!! We painted all the cabinets, walls, ceiling and installed a new stove and overhead microwave!! We love it!!

Returned from Yellowstone!

We've returned from our Yellowstone trip. We had a great time. Here's a quick rundown of the trip... We drove from home to Salt Lake, stayed the night, and headed to Jackson Hole the next day. We camped two nights in Jackson along the snake river - like 10 feet from it - boy was it noisy!! We took a rafting trip down the snake river.. some pics are here... http://snakeriver.elevationimaging.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?&category=688364

We also went out to eat at the Gun Barrel where I dined on Buffalo Prime Rib - yum. We then headed on to the Tetons and stopped at Jenny Lake and took a boat ride across and hike to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point. Then we made our way to Yellowstone and camped there for five nights. We checked out Old Faithful and Lower Geyser basin, Grand Prismatic Spring, hiked to Fairy Falls, hiked to Mystic Falls, drove through Hayden Valley, checked out Tower Falls and Mammoth Hot Springs, and hiked around the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The amazing thing was all the wildlife we saw. In one hour we saw 5 Bears!! One Black bear along side the road, a mother black bear with two cubs in a valley, and a Grizzley bear just 50 yards off the side of the road. While hiking back from Fairy Falls, we watched an Osprey catch a fish from the Firehole River, just 20 yards from us. Check out the following clip of some bison fighting near our car, I would have kept filming, but someone told me to drive away before they got too close.



Also check out our Pics in my picture gallery...

Ready for Yellowstone Trip

Well we finished doing most of our packing today and are ready to journey out to the Tetons and Yellowstone on Sunday!! A few months ago, Leah did a recital and I thought I'd share the video with you on this blog - hope it works...

New Website/blog is here!!

Well after a year of the old website - I decided to integrate / transition my website more into a blog about our family happennings. It'll be easier to maintain and still is kept on my server where I can tweak it as needed.

Stay tuned...