It's a BOATING Life

A new addition to our family life in 2014 was the purchase of a little power boat.  It has opened up a whole new way to enjoy Lake Roosevelt.
Here are Mark and Lilly getting their first look at the  boat.

And here she is in the water.... 

And of course most everyone wants a turn to drive the boat....

Lucas has a turn...

 Josie has a turn

Mark has a turn.... 

Tim has a turn.... 

And Mark has more turns.... 

The rest of us just enjoy the ride

The really nice thing about having a boat on the Lake is that you get to see a whole different view than what you get on shore. 

 this is a little island called French Rocks- It was often our destination when we were out in the boat.

 This is a view of our home from the lake.  House on the left and shop on the right

And we can explore different beaches than the ones we usually drive to. 

 swimming and fishing from the boat was also a hit.

 

The Angel Oak near Charleston SC

I was fortunate to be sent to Charleston South Carolina on a work assignment.  While there I visited The Angel Oak.  This is a truly amazing tree.....

 The main trunk is gnarled and huge...

Here are some facts about the tree.  The one I find most amazing is 17,000 square feet of shade under this tree! 

It is great that you can walk up and all around this tree.  You have to to really get the perspective on how huge it is.  Many branches go underground and come up again. 

and the massive limbs go everywhere

 You have to stand way back to get the whole tree in one frame

Horse rides at Camp Matter-2008

Another overlooked post from 2008. 
Mark gets his first horse ride with our neighbor, Zara,

28-year old Sharon gets her first horse ride...

Mark isn't so sure about the big horse

Sharon gives a nibble to the horse after her ride.

Excavator lessons at Camp Matter from 2008

Found this unpublished blog post from 2008 and decided to post it now.

We rented an excavator to start building a road on our undeveloped property. Some of the Camp Matter campers tried their hand at operating the big machine. Here are Tim and Mark.

Here is Lisa

And here is Sharon

Christmas in Denver

We had a wonderful Christmas shared with our children and grand children, but pictures were somewhat sparse. 
We did manage to get all four grands to sit with us briefly on Christmas eve.  We really were all as happy as our expressions show...

On Christmas morning we got to enjoy the opening of gifts at both homes.  Lucas and Josie were the first to get started.

Here is Lucas....who was, of course, perfectly happy with the empty boxes......

But he also enjoyed playing with Josie's gifts....

Josie and Grandma made a set of garden stakes for Lisa's garden

and Lucas just continued to be cute......

And Josie was delighted with anything what was  pink or "Hello Kitty"

Lucas got his own picture book featuring his family- he recognized Grandpa right away

Then it was on to Mark and Lilly's for more gifts.  The kids were only moderately cooperative to have their picture taken in their matching pj's......

Mark got a Harry Potter magic wand from his dad- a perfect gift as the family is reading and rereading books one and two right now....

and somehow I got this picture of the wand in action......

Later we were joined by the rest of the Cichan family and we had breakfast and cinnamon rolls....