Jason's 8th Birthday at Chuck E. Cheese

On Jason's actual birthday, we had a small celebration just with the family. For this cake, Jason requested a vanilla cake with peanut butter and Reese's Pieces. Felicia made a SpongeBob SquarePants cake decorated with shells, seaweed, sand, peanut butter and chocolate frosting, etc. The inside was vanilla cake with embedded Reese's Pieces and chocolate mousse filling baked so that it formed a heart in each slice.

To see the photos, click on Jason's 8th Birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. It should start as a slideshow, but if it doesn't, click the "Slideshow" button in the upper left.

Jason's 8th Birthday Party at the Jungle

Jason recently celebrated his 8th birthday by inviting classmates to join him at the Jungle. Apart from all the fun of crawling through tunnels, heading up and down ramps, sliding down slides, etc. the group had fun in the "Monkey" party room.

There the group had pizza, played several rounds of "Cat Bingo", opened presents and ate cake. For the cake, Jason requested sky blue and red frosting, a cat, chocolate inside and Oreo cookies. Felicia was able to incorporate every element and you'll see that in the pictures.

To see the photos, click on Jason's 8th Birthday Party at the Jungle. It should start as a slideshow, but if it doesn't, click the "Slideshow" button in the upper left.

Mini-Vacation Luau Party at Work

When you can't afford to send everybody off to a tropical vacation to celebrate their hard work, what's the next best thing? How about a fun "virtual" vacation luau party?

A group at the office organized a fun celebration with Hawaiian music, a slideshow of vacation photos, a raffle, best Hawaiian outfit contest, real luau food, etc. It was a great way to take a break from work.

Here's a few photos I took of the Mini-Vacation Luau Party!.

Chicago - Sights and Sounds - June 2009

In June 2009, Blaine spent two weeks in Chicago. The primary purpose of the trip was for work, but there was definitely time to explore the city of Chicago and to see the sites (Navy Pier, Shedd Aquarium, Art Institute of Chicago, The Chicago 'Bean' in Millennium Park, etc.)

It's taken a couple months, but I've finally created a movie of the fun that was had. Take a look at the video Chicago - Agile Bootcamp.

Production Notes: The introduction (spinning and scrolling pictures) was created in After Effects. The rest of the video was put together using Sony Vegas. The HD video was shot on our Canon HV20 HD camcorder, mostly with a wide-angle lens.

Easter Fun 2009 (Video)

Okay, a slideshow is okay, but wouldn't you like to see some video from Easter? Well, here you go!
Easter Fun 2009 - 4m 31s

Easter in Full Bloom!

It was a fun-filled Easter.

There were easter baskets, egg hunts, colorful dresses and ties, good food, playing games, and spending time with our family.

Check out a slideshow of the Easter 2009 Fun!.

Can you solve our Colorful Christmas Crossword (2008)?

This year's Christmas puzzle is a fun, themed crossword. And there is a secret holiday surprise if you are able to solve it. Take a look at our Christmas Puzzle for 2008.

Note: if you need some hints on solving the puzzle, post your questions here. But please don't give away any of the secrets, especially the final solution website address.

Thanksgiving 2008 - Turkey for Dessert

We are really thankful for any opportunities to get together with family to talk, laugh and play. This year there were 16 around the table(s) at Mum & Dad's.

If you'd like to see some of the photos, click the link to our Thanksgiving 2008 Photo Album. You can view individual photos, or you can click on the "Slideshow" button.

By the way, the photo above is of Felicia's croquembouche dessert (chocolate and orange filled cream puffs), decorated as a cute turkey.

We won Best In Show for our Halloween Costumes

As part of our annual Halloween tradition, we come up with a "family theme" for our costumes. This year we went as the Characters from Clue. We entered in to two local Halloween costume contests and in both we won first place for the group category. In addition, we won a special trophy for "Best In Show".

Take a look at our costumes for this year and years past

Photos from Our Trip Around Iceland

We just got back from a 2-week vacation in Iceland. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking and we saw lots of things on our drive all around Iceland.

To see the photos, click on our Iceland Photo Album. If you want to see it as a slideshow, click the "Slideshow" button. You might want to increase the duration to 5 or 6 seconds per picture if you want to read the captions.

A Windy Day with Granny and Gramps

We went to visit Granny and Gramps last weekend. It was a very windy day, as the video will show. We took a short hike, played croquet and, of course on a windy day, we flew kites. The video was taken with our new Canon HV20 high-definition camcorder so the pictures are nice and crisp. View it full screen for more detail.

A Windy Day with Granny and Gramps 6m 37s

Happy New Year 2008!

Photos from New Year's Eve
While the kids were with grandparents and other family, Felicia and I got to be grown-ups and have an evening out.

It was a great celebration at the Claremont Hotel with jazz, salsa, swing, etc. There was a dinner show with music from the decades, dance lessons, a comedy club and a casino. All in all a fun way to ring in the New Year!

Can You Solve Our Christmas Puzzle for 2007?

This year's puzzle is a change from our usual "word" puzzles. It involves finding the six pairs of matching images. If you are up for a fun challenge, take a look at our Christmas Puzzle for 2007.

When you solve it, please don't give away the answer but feel free to add a comment to let us know that you successfully figured it out. And we are always looking for new ideas for next year's Christmas puzzle, so submit those too.

Halloween Costumes in Outer Space

This is our 9th year of dressing up in a family "theme" for our Halloween costumes. This year's theme is Outer Space.

Once again, Felicia deserves all the credit for sewing some difficult costumes. My astronaut jumpsuit was a faux white "pleather" and the girls had sequin material that required Felicia to go really slowly when sewing. Numerous times she had to deal with broken thread and needles. As always, I am proud of the final results. Take a look at our costumes for this year and years past

Photos from Yellowstone National Park

Here are some photos we took on our Yellowstone trip recently.

Click on the photo, or the following link for our slideshow of Yellowstone

Family Camping Vacation to Yellowstone

The title pretty much says it all. We've packed the mini-van and we are driving to Yellowstone National Park in a few hours. Just wanted to keep you updated. Expect some photos on our return.

Blaine and Felicia Vacationing in Puerto Rico

We've just returned from a spectacular 10-day trip to Puerto Rico. Apart from fabulous restaurants and hotels, we had a great time enjoying picturesque beaches, a lush rain forest, breathtaking scenery and historic fortresses.

Click on the photo, or the following link for our album of Puerto Rico. If you want to see it as a slideshow, click the 'Slideshow' button in the upper left.

Rosemary is an Ambassador to Washington DC

Last year Rosemary was nominated to be part of the prestigious "People to People" Ambassador program. She was the only student from her school to travel to Washington DC as part of the program.

Click on her photo, or the following link for a slideshow of her trip to our nation's capital.

Christmas Puzzle 2006 Now Uploaded

Our Annual Christmas Puzzle is now available on the Christmas page of our personal website. The theme is "Close but No Rhyme"

We won First Place for our Halloween Costumes!

As part of our annual Halloween tradition, we come up with a "family theme" for our costumes. This year we went as The Holidays. We entered in to two local Halloween costume contests and in both we won first place trophies and prizes for our group theme.

Once again, Felicia deserves all the credit for her hours (weeks) of meticulous sewing of all our costumes. And each costume was varied in terms of fabrics, patterns, sizes, etc. A few of the costumes had no patterns (April Fool, Leprechaun) but that didn't deter Felicia. I am so proud of what she created this year. Take a look at our costumes for this year and years past

Blaine and Felicia off to Cancun

While the kids are with grandparents, we've decided to take a quick trip to Cancun. Obviously we'll see Chichen Itza and other sites, do some snorkeling, take a jungle adventure, perhaps some parasailing (if I can get up the nerve), etc.

As usual we'll take our camera and camcorder and see if we can't post some images after we return on August 15th. Check back for that...

Edit: We are back safely. Only minor delays with the increased security at the airports. We had to transfer all our liquids to a single bag that was then put in checked luggage. We skipped the parasailing and jungle tour but went to Tulum, Ek Balam and Isla Mujeras instead. Photos to follow.

Rosemary is Graduating from 5th Grade!

Rosemary is graduating from the 5th grade this year. As part of the promotion ceremony, the class will be showing this "slideshow" that I created of the entire 5th grade. Parents submitted photos of their children as babies or toddlers along with recent photos. This little montage is almost 13 minutes long but is fun to watch. By the way, it starts out with a little homage to Mission Impossible followed by music from the Shrek 2 soundtrack...

5th Grade Promotion Video 12m 51s

Finally! Pictures from our trip to the Big Island of Hawaii!

Click here for the slideshow
For those of you that have been waiting, here are the photos of our trip to the Big Island. While we were there, our main camera got wet and we almost thought we had lost the bulk of our photos, but both the card and the camera survived (after a couple weeks of drying out). Fortunately we had a backup camera (and our two video cameras) so we were able to capture all our memories. Enjoy the show!

We're back from Hawaii

We spent the weekend unpacking, reorganizing, etc. I've downloaded our 1200+ photos and we started previewing our 6+ hours of video tape, but that's as far as we got. Maybe we'll get back to the photos this weekend so we'll at least have something to show next week... stay tuned!

We're on the Big Island of Hawaii

We'll have many more posts, pictures, details, etc. once we return. We've spent the last few days in Volcano and Hilo looking at Kilaeua Crater, lava fields, waterfalls, botanical gardens, etc. Today we are in Kona in our luxury condo. The kids are in the swimming pool and I'm researching things we can do including snorkeling, a submarine ride, a luau, etc. More details to follow!

Our Trip to Egypt - Amazing Race style!

Well, I had planned to finish editing all our Egypt video (all 5 hours) into a nice movie to show off. It's not done, but here is the introduction done in the style of the Amazing Race. The movie is 45 seconds long.
Hi-res version (768kbps, 4.5MB)

Snow Tubing at Kingvale

We took the kids snow tubing a couple weeks back. The last time we went to the snow, Jason was a baby while this was the first time for Amara. I put together a short Family Snow Tubing video for your enjoyment. It's about 4½ minutes long, but it flies by.

2005 Christmas Puzzle (and answer) now uploaded

Our Annual Christmas Puzzle is now available on the Christmas page of our personal website. The theme is 'homophones' and it should be fun. At the same time, I finally took the time to convert our 2001 anacrostic puzzle to a PDF (along with another PDF for the answers). If you missed this one, it is now available!

Halloween Costumes 2005

Photos of our Halloween costumes are now online. Before clicking on the picture, however, see if you can figure out our theme. All our costumes are related if you look closely. Or if you give up...

Photos of our trip to Egypt!

Photos of our trip to Egypt
It took awhile to sift throught the 900+ photos that we took on our trip to Egypt last month, but we've finally whittled it down to the 178 best photos of our trip. Take a look!