Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning is here at last!

Legos & Bionicles...look at the size of that grin!

Talking to Grandma Williams about his cool new Bionicle!

Angela, Teresa, Jeremy & Adam....the Settlers of Catan.

Visitors from The West

Crystal, Cassia, Amber & Ryan all came back to Virginia to visit this month. It was great to see everyone and get to know Cassia a little bit.

We actually had everyone all together for dinner at a Mexican place. I don't think we have had everyone in the same place since Isaac's wedding. It was awesome. We didn't get a lot of pictures. I guess we were busy catching up, but we did get this short video of everyone's little face. Janell is a cheese ball.

Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens

We got to spend an evening at the Botanical Gardens. They do a huge light display for Christmas all over the grounds. It's hard to take pictures of lights in the dark, but it was absolutely beautiful.

Richmond Christmas Parade

A week and a half ago was the 25th anniversary of the Richmond Christmas Parade. My boss and other Dominion employees chaired the event. For the last few months, I've also been assisting with the preparations, such as making ID badges for volunteers, coordinating the printing of promotional materials, writing scripts for the parade, etc. This was the big day! It was about 34 degrees. COLD. We got to sit in the VIP grandstands, drinking hot chocolate and eating donuts as the parade went by.

Richmond was the first city to implement a public transportation system using the electric streetcar in 1888. Streetcars were discontinued around the 1940s, but there are still a few converted cars still kicking around...

Parker was FREAKING OUT when the Star Wars characters rolled through. There were tons of them, and Parker was yelling out the name of each one at the top of his lungs in excitement. I didn't even try to apologize to the guy sitting in front of Parker. I mean how can you ask a kid to bridle that kind of excitement?

The grand marshal for the parade was Leland Melvin, a University of Richmond graduate who is a real, live astronaut. He resembles the balloon only slightly.

About 90 minutes into the parade, my boss said they needed more banner carriers, and asked Parker and I to help out. Little did we know what we were getting into!

It turned into a 3-mile walk down Broad Street in that 34-degree air. We waved at the camera crews taping the event. Parker's little legs carried him for 2 solid hours. At the end of the parade route, we looked for a shuttle to take us back, but we couldn't find it. Chagrined, we made it about halfway back to the starting point (another mile or so) before Jeremy came to rescue us. (He'd been at home to pick up his sister from the airport). What a day. Later, we watched the tape of the parade and couldn't believe how long it was! There 89 units participating this year. The turnout was terrific- more than a quarter million families lined the streets, bundled up, but cheering.

The Piano Project

We bought a piano for $100 bucks. It was a great deal, but a poor neglected, sad piano. The first picture is what the keys looked like when we first pulled it off the truck.Once we got the keys cleaned up and about forty years of dust vacuumed up both inside and out it looked a little better. The keys were still a nice coffee-stain brown.

So I set about replacing the keytops. I had to remove the old keytops with a razor blade. I only sliced open two fingertips. :)

The piano already looks WAAY better. My tuning tools are supposed to be arriving today and we will be refinishing the cabinet eventually. Yeah, Piano!

Jingle Bells, the Warm Up

Parker preparing for his performance at the Landmark Theatre in downtown Richmond.

4 classes in the 4th grade were chosen to play between scene changes at the Ballet Petit's performance.

Jingle Bells, Part I

Part II won't load, so just listen to this twice.