Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving table

I am so very thankful for so many things this year, but I guess I will have to start with the most obvious....FAMILY

Matt and I...Our First Thanksgiving

Matt and I are our own little family for our first Thanksgiving together and it was wonderful. We even hosted Thanksgiving this year!

Sue and Steve (Matt's parents) in front of the Christmas tree that Sue and I put up and decorated (we also did the outdoor lights along the poarch....brrrrrr it was cold!)

Matt's parents drove from Tenn. on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to spend some time with us. His brother and sister-in-law could not make it due to commitments at work and with the other family. But it was so special for us to have Matt's parents here, to see our house, to see how we live, to enjoy a vacation and just spend time together. They were able to stay until Sunday morning.

Glen and Betty (my parents)

My parents came down from Harrisonburg on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Both of my sisters were busy with their respective in-law families. It was wonderful to have part of both of our families together, and to enjoy each others company. They stayed until Thursday evening.

Many card games were played
Many Wii games were challenged
Many stories were told
Many laughs were had
Many items of food were prepared
Many stomaches were always stuffed!

It was a wonderful time....

"This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: 'Huge success.'"

Qapla!

May it live long and prosper

Hi Everyone,
Well, once again I have commandeered my wife's Blog to bring you this special announcement. She is awesome. Okay. On to the show.

For Christmas this year, Lana decided to get me a present. Not just any present, but a wish long hoped for. I've had a Star Trek (The Original Series) caricature poster for years now. It has lived quietly rolled up and in a dank, dark and musty trunk. I've pulled it out to show to friends and family over the years, and I've always wanted to have it preserved somehow. Well, my wife finally took me up on it. Not only did she frame it for me, she found a place here in the valley that can do archival-quality framing. The poster now has some fancy UV protective glass (98% I believe) and some tender loving care from the staff. Pictures of this amazingly preserved
piece of history are shown below.
Quiz for you - name the main characters above - extra points if you know the actors names too. Mom - You probably know the actors birthdays, so you are exempt from this pop-quiz. (answers below)

Now, this picture may or may not do the thing justice. There are 79 original series episodes - and this picture has a caricature (or three) of almost every single one. You can see a very large "Harry Mudd" in the lower left of the full picture, and the original cast in the picture above.

Every time I walk by this picture, I either focus on a favorite episode and the memories associated with it, or I notice something completely new. For instance, there is a klingon bird-of-prey at the very top. "Really? Where?" says Lana. (She's looking over my shoulder...) I never noticed, but it has a sign on the back of it. This poster is full of such details. Most of it is humorous on its own - but some of it you have to have seen the episode to really get it.

Well, Lana framed this picture as a (BIG and Early!) christmas present to me. It was a great secret until wednesday night when we went to pick it up. We met after work in a parking lot. Of course I couldn't find her car (the honda Fit is in Harrisonburg), so it took me a minute to find her. She found me, hopped in the car and off we went. I had no idea where we were going. I was expecting maybe a Fed-Ex pickup location or something. She had told me how much she had spent beforehand, so I knew it was big. So, we were driving. It was dark, cold, and I didn't know where I was going. Lana was squinting off into the distance trying to find the one little shop. Finally, after a few "Maybe... No. Keep going"'s, she saw it. All I saw was a tiny little parking lot, and an open sign. "Okay" says I. I parked, and saw that it was a framing shop. "Framing shop? What did she frame? Are we patrons of this store? I don't want to get towed. Or maybe she just knows someone here." So, in we went. That confirmed the 'patrons' theory, so I stopped worrying about the car. But what did she frame? My diploma? No, Mom & Dad framed that for me. Hmm... The lady behind the counter greeted Lana and I heard a great big "DONG" in my head. "She didn't...." And here it comes. A 4' x 5' framed picture. I just saw the back and knew what it was. Lana got kissed. I think her toes curled up a little. It was beautiful. And of course, being the geek-ish trekkie that I am, I immediatly started asking her what kind of glass it was, and looking at the small blemishes that I knew were there. This is a thing of beauty.

After going over the details with her, I started to hear the story behind the framing of the Matt - or is it conspiring? Anyway. Lana had walked into the framing store with a rolled up poster and a question. Before long, the entire staff was helping her out. They had the poster spread out, and everyone - even some of the customers - were examining this thing. I found out that the lady who did the work was a trekkie, and her son was fascinated by the poster. He'd apparenlty stare at it for long stretches of time. He was sad when he found out that Lana would be picking it up soon.

So now, my well-wrapped treasure (Yes, Lana, it is now wrapped in 98% UV protection - and I had to un-wrap the plastic-bag off of it) is now hanging in the living room above the entertainment center. It looks really good, and is ready for lots of guests to enjoy and admire. And examine minutely for their favorite episode's representative.

Well, Lana is making noises like she wants her computer back, so I'll sign off.

Until next time!
-M

Ack! I forgot to give the answers to today's quiz!

From left to right:
Dr. "Bones" McCoy played by DeForrest Kelley,
Christine Chapel played by Majel Barret,
Mr. Spock played by Leonard Nimoy,
Captian James T. Kirk - Captain of the Enterprise played by William Shatner,
Yeoman Janice Rand played by Grace Lee Whitney
Sulu played by George Taki

You can sorta see Scotty's head in the first picture - played by James Dohan (R.I.P.)
Sitting on the Nacelle's in the bigger picture is Uhura played by Nichelle Nichols
and Pavel Chekov played by Walter Koenig - Bonus points if you got the character's middle name: Andreievich.

The one sad thing about this poster, is the one person who is missing. Anyone guess his name? He is very important in Star Trek.

Bye!

Play

Look closely, you can see a swing set. That single swing set was all that there was of this structure before Matt, Mike and Dad got a hold of it. Now let me make sure that you know taht this is not at my house, this is at my mom and dad's place.
Mike and Matt acquired these playground pieces one weekend. Two weekends later they were out there with Dad and Mike's friend Brent to build this playground. This was completely the brain child of all of the guys, and it is AMAZING!
I think that the guys had a great time playing while building this. And I know that the kids (my nephews, and my kids...eventually) are going to have a great time playing on it too.
But I am so amazed at what they were able to put together, I just had to share.

Happy Ending

I just finished all 200 hours that are needed to volunteer for my librarian "student teaching." Time to jump up and down and celebrate! :)

Sad Ending

We just finished Star Trek: The Original Series (all three seasons!)

Now for the movies.... :)

Fall

I love the colors of fall. And I especially love it since we live in between two (or more) mountain ranges. This top picture is of Read Mountain. It was taken from our back yard. We actually live at the base of Read Mountain though it looks very far away, but we are actually close to the mountain and we have just discovered there are hiking trails up there.... :)
This is from the front yard. I have recently learned that this is "Stewart Knob". It is nice to look out of our house and see the beauty of fall.

Trick-Or-Treat

Happy Halloween (a few days late) Everyone! Matt and I decided to host a dinner party for Halloween. We were originally expecting about 12-15 people and everyone in costume. What actually happened was...well, life happened. One person was able to make it, but we did not know that till about two hours before the party (so all of the food for 15 was made). But we had a great time with Matt's co-worker.

While waiting for Paul (Matt's co-worker) to come. I had fun carving the first pumpkin that I remember carving...and I did it mostly by myself! I think he is very cute :)
Then Matt and I sat on the front porch with hot cider, and vegetable soup waiting for both Paul and all of the about 100 children that came to our door that evening.

Paul finally found our house and the pumpkin bread was not quite done, so Matt and Paul carved their pumpkins while I handed out candy and talked with the neighbors. Paul did the top on in the picture above, and Matt did the lower one. I think they both look great! Oh, this was also the very first time that Paul had ever carved a pumpkin. I think he was a bit unsure about it all, but he had a good time doing it.

Great food. Great conversations. Great friends.

It was a nice evening. I just hope that our next party has a few more people.

Paris

Well, not quite. But we do now have the Eiffel Tower in our living room. Mike (by brother-in-law) had purchased this lego set a long time ago. But he got another very large set recently so this was dismantled and he let us borrow it.

We decided on Saturday night to start putting it together. We made this decision at 7:00 pm on Saturday. We did not finish till 3:00 am Sunday! (and that is not counting for day light savings time). We worked straight for all of those hours, but we finished the set in one night. And might I say that was a very fun time working on a set with Matt.