Ticktock

Let me just start by saying that I have absolutely no free time on my hands anymore with school, work, and family. So in my free time, I've been constructing a grandfather clock out of K'nex (Dad's thrown in some good pointers too). So far I've got the escapement (the thing that actually makes the tick-tock noise) working almost perfectly. I've got it ticking at 559 ticks per 560 seconds, so it only loses a second every six minutes or 10 seconds an hour or 4 minutes a day and so on. It only runs for about15 minutes at this point but that should change once I get more parts. My weight right now is just a water bottle...can't find anything better.



That's about it really, once I get more gears I'll be able to make the weight drop slower and create a second hand, minute hand, and hour hand. I could still work on perfecting the timing of thependulum but I think I'll probably wait until the end of the semester. Oh, and my latest endeavor, at least that I've been thinking about, is making an escapement gear with more teeth since mine only has 8. The problem is knex are some what limiting when it comes to shapes, but I'm sure I'll figure out something. There ya' go; ain't I a nerd :).

Spontaneous Temple Trip

So on the way home from church today we randomly decided to go to the Washington DC Temple Visitor Center!
So we came home, ate lunch, packed a lunch-like dinner and set off.













The temple was beautiful and it was very peaceful. The visitor center was nice, and extremely cool compared to outside. We met a very nice sister missionary who sat on the edge of her seat for Katie's conversion story. Lily was uber happy the entire time and kept pointing at the statue of Christ and saying "Ho Ho" (Santa). Ain't she great! Elder Allen would have been proud of our little adventure.Oh, except for the part where we had to stop and get gas on the way home. Plan? What plan? We're like dogs chasing cars, we wouldn't know what to do if we actually caught one. We just do.

Just a little post

Okay, so it's been a long while, again, since we have posted anything new... This was brought to our attention on numerous occasions and we are sorry. :) So here's a little update that I hope will suffice. Isaac had his orientation today at UVA and there are no night classes in his schedule. YAY! Actually, it doesn't look too shabby. 16 credit hours, Monday-Friday. So a little frustrating that it couldn't be more consolidated, but I am not going to complain. I need as much help as I can get right now. :) I am starting to feel better, but am still very tired ALL of the time... But you guys know I am just a sleepy kinda person, right? Lol.

Lily is doing great and loves her wheelchair. She can get into so much more trouble now! And she is talking all the time, it amazes me how much she already knows. She looked at me tonight and said, "Mommy, I'm thirsty, I want milk." And I was like, Wow, here I am still calling it her mimi. Mommy needs to work on her vocabulary. ;)

So it begins...

Wii

It all started last Friday when I received a frantic call from my father informing me that he had made a purchase, or several purchases actually. He told me excitedly that he had bought a Wii gaming console, games, nun chucks and steering wheels. My only question was what did martial arts weapons and automobile parts have to do with a "nintendo".
He showed up that night at 8:30. We commenced in non-stop gaming, even though the console actually promotes you to take breaks every once in a while, for the next three and a half hours. We rounded out that night with a nice game of settlers and called it good.
<--Boxing
I think the best part was when Katie, who previously stated that she would have just as much fun watching the two "boys" play, was demanding equal time. She would even shoot me cute, little looks when I would jump up off the couch when it was actually her turn to bowl.

Catch Up!

Okay, we realize that we haven't posted anything for months and instead of trying to go back and do a post for each event we're gonna do a really quick catch up/ketchup/catchup.Adam came and spent a weekend with us in Feb. (or was it March...?) and all the local family came for an afternoon/supper thing. This is a really cute picture of Katie and Angela. For some reason Adam decided to jump in the background and do something...interesting.
Same with this one...
...we're seeing a theme...or a disorder...
...and it's contagious.
What can we say, we love him.

















































We also went to the DC zoo with Adam and
Angela (she's like our little side kick).















<--Adam telling Lily the hippo likes to play with his big red ball in warmer weather.
The tamarind (who speaks Mandarin) was one of Lily's favorite animals at the zoo.

















Amazingly, a few days before we went to the zoo and it snowed, it was actually warm and we had a family day at the park.


















This is Lily's playmate Hannah and her "Mimi" Melinda, who watches Hannah for her friend. Katie is best friends with Melinda's twin daughters. The funny thing about this picture is that Hannah doesn't use a binki and that's not Lily's cup...kids like to share. Yay germs!