Saturday was the regional competition for Destination Imagination. The kids did a really good job and we are very proud of them. They placed 2nd in their challenge. Their performance went really well except they didn't check their robot before the performance and it didn't work correctly. Oh well. Live and learn.

More pictures here.
[Submitted by tami]

We are back home after our drive to Denver. We had a good time seeing Scott's family. We went ice skating, to the Mint and played a lot of games. I think that Scott new favorite is Rockband. I think that Graham had a good Christmas. He got an iPod Touch that he hasn't put down for very long since he opened it. I think it was a winner. He had an electronic keyboard waiting for him when he got home. It will take a long time to figure it out completely.
[Submitted by tami]

We survived turkey day. We had ham. I didn't feel up to turkey. I got a lot of programming for school done yesterday so that was good too. Today we actually ventured out for a little bit of shopping. I had reserved a game for the Wii that we had to pick up and then we went hunting for an electronic keyboard for Graham for Christmas. We also looked at TVs. We ended up with an electric guitar for Scott and a synthesizer workstation for everyone. That is a fancy keyboard that we can compose music on. Graham does a lot of playing around at the piano, but he won't write any of it down. Maybe this will help if he can save it and the get it printed out. This is more keyboard then we need, but we will have fun with it.
[Submitted by tami]

Graham had an 8am soccer game on Saturday, but he and Scott went back later to see if he could get a pick up game. They took both jerseys (he has a white one and a blue one) since they didn't know what team he would be playing with. He wore the blue jersey, the same one he wore in his 8am game. For some reason when they got home, the white jersey ended up on the kitchen counter in the butter that someone hadn't put back in the fridge. Why the jersey went into the kitchen, I have no idea and I don't know why someone would put it in the butter once it ended up in the kitchen. Fast forward a few hours. Scott realizes that the jersey is in the butter and gives it to me. I wipe off the butter and put it by the washing machine for the next time laundry is done. A little bit later, Scott is throwing the tennis ball for Pahu to chase. The tennis ball goes in the utility room where the washer is and after it goes Pahu where she encounters butter soaked soccer jersey and proceeds to eat a hole in it. Sigh...
[Submitted by tami]

We haven't been out on the bikes for about a month. While Scott was in New Orleans, I took all of the bikes to the shop for a tune up. This was the first time we had been on them since then. When I came out of the house with the water bottles, Scott was fixing a flat on the back of the tandem. He said that he had picked a couple pieces of glass out of the tire. After the tire was fixed we were on our way. The tandem was much noisier then it should have been. Scott was not interested in stopping to see what was wrong. There isn't a breeze when the bike isn't moving. Not too far down the road, the chain locks up on the tandem. It wasn't thread through the derailleur correctly. We aren't sure if the tire change or the bike shop messed it up but it seems unlikely that a tire change would mess it up quite that badly. Obviously we should have stopped to figure out what the noise was. It wasn't something that Scott wanted to fix on the side of the road with the tools that we had with us and the possibility of losing small pieces. I started for home to get the van. Then my rear tire went flat before I could get home. I was not happy. I set up shop on the sidewalk and started fixing it. A nice gentleman came out of the house that I was in front of and offered assistance. I told him that I was good unless he had a foot pump. I hate using the frame pump. We had the new tube in and the tire back on the rim when Scott and Graham pulled up. Scott laughed at me because I didn't make it very far. He managed to get the chain sorted out without losing all of the bits and pieces. The nice gentleman suggested that we check out the cart paths on the golf course. The course has closed down so there wouldn't be anyone out there golfing. That is what we ended up doing after all of our bike repairs. It wasn't a hard ride, but good for a Sunday morning casual ride. We'll probably go do it again. Hopefully without all of the mechanical problems.
[Submitted by tami]

Graham is back to school today. Scott took him in this morning, but he is supposed to catch the bus home. Hopefully he remembers. The bus comes about 10 minutes earlier this year in the mornings. Of course it showed up earlier then it was supposed to today. We walked down to get Graham bus form and meet the driver. The regular driver wasn't there so I guess it didn't matter. We took the dog with us and she got a morning walk which will probably become the regular thing now.
[Submitted by tami]