Sunday, January 04, 2009



Photo taken by Melani on her PALM CENTRO mc phone at the January 2009 novice fencing tournament. I think when you win all of your matches, no more fencing novice.

Fencing Victory




Here are just a couple of the great photos that our family photographer, Chris Jr., took at the last fencing tournament. Apparently the boys found it much more exciting to take photos of the lego figures from their pockets than to record Chris Sr's total shut out first place victory in the novice foil portion of a local fencing tournament. For those of you who might ask "What is it like being married to a champion?" -- I would answer that it has definite perks -- not the least of which is the honor of also not having been photographed by Chris Jr. on that particular day. Obviously, C3PO and Yoda can't say the same.

Modern day Prometheus



During our campout at Mammoth caves, staying warm was paramount. As soon as we arrived at our campsite, we busied ourselves with collecting wood and making sparks with the boys new flints and steels that they got from Grandma MaryAnn. The actual fire (which was later banked and used three other times) was started with a spark from Melani, using Chris Jr's flint. However, as that fire started to die, Tobin stole a piece of it! He started a beautiful fire with his bundle of flaming dryer lint, the beginning of which is pictured above. Chris and Melani's feet froze practically solid during the night -- the dogs water froze completely solid. Still it was a beautiful campsite. When you go camping when no one in their right mind would go -- you have the woods all to yourself!

Winter Backpacking?! What will they think of next?!







Our trip to Mammoth Caves National Park just before the new year. It was cold but not too cold. The caves were really great. We went on a tour where the ranger turned out all of the service lights and all of us were left in total darkness. I really enjoyed the ancient graffiti (we were admonished that it is now a federal offense to write on cave walls) The backwoods campsites there are absolutely wonderful.