MoaBlog

The United States of America celebrated its 234th birthday on July 4. Indiana (top photo) was among the many children who celebrated with red-white-and-blue decorations. A parade, fun activities, and games were held at the park on Saturday, followed by fireworks on Sunday evening. Jeff's family watched the fireworks from a cemetery at the base of a large hill east of Moab.

Sunday June 20 was Father's Day, and Jeff took his three youngest daughters for a scooter ride. They rode to attend their regular Sunday afternoon church services, which included a special program honoring dads.

Geneva turned 2 years old last weekend, and celebrated with a picnic and presents in the park, followed by fun at home with her sisters. She liked eating cupcakes, wearing the various items of clothing that she received as presents, and drinking water from a new sprinkler toy on the lawn.

London turned 9 years old last week, and celebrated with a party at her house on Saturday. London's friends Haven, Corrina, Eliza, and Ana came over for cake and ice cream, games, and presents. They also played a variation of "pin the tail on the donkey" where they had to stick a clown's nose on his face while blindfolded. After the party, the girls wrote their names in chalk on the front porch (bottom photo).

Last week, there was a Donkey Basketball game fundraiser at the local middle school gym. Teams of faculty members and students from the high school and the middle school played each other while riding atop donkeys. First, the high school faculty beat the middle school faculty 12-6. Then, the high school boys beat their middle school counterparts 18-4. Then the high school boys beat the high school faculty 8-5 to win the championship. Jeff scored a total of 7 points, including a three-point shot in the final game.

Today is St. Patrick's Day, when everyone likes to be Irish for a day. This young man, whose family name happens to actually be "Irish," certainly dressed the part! Green attire was seen on many people around town today.

River slipped and fell on a banana peel in the kitchen recently, bruising her left knee. "I thought that only happened in cartoons," River joked about the well-known cliche, while holding a bag of frozen vegetables on her knee to reduce the pain and swelling.

Penny entered this photo of Geneva in a nationwide "Beautiful Baby Search" sponsored by a popular daytime television show. Jeff took the photo a couple of weeks ago, on a cold afternoon. Despite the cold weather, Geneva smiled and posed for the camera.

Here are pictures taken last weekend of Penny's sister Coral (top photo) and her two daughters, Wynn and Ellie. Their cousin Indy is pictured with them in the bottom photo.

Last Saturday afternoon, Jeff and Penny took portraits of their five daughters, seen here. Penny's sister Coral and her two daughters also joined in the fun. Check back tomorrow for images of Coral and her girls.

On the afternoon Christmas Eve, Jeff's and Kyle's families went sledding on a popular hill in the La Sal Mountains, near Geyser Pass. Adults and kids slid down the snow-covered slope in rubber inner tubes and in foam or plastic sleds. Check back tomorrow for more sledding photos!

Moab doesn't often receive enough snowfall to go sledding, but this group of youngsters recently took their sleds up on the hill by their house and enjoyed an afternoon of fun in several inches of powdery snow.

The snow outside prompted Virginia to stay inside and do this wintry puzzle.

One of Virginia's outdoor hobbies is Letterboxing. Using clues found online at the Letterboxing site and a compass, she searches for these plastic containers which include a specially made rubber stamp and a little notebook. Carrying her own notebook, she uses the stamp she finds to stamp her book, then she takes her own personal stamp and leaves an image in the notebook provided. For more information, search Letterboxing online. This letterbox is a bag found in a tree.

The stamp and notebook for the letterbox Ropin' Wranglers.

Penny and her daughters had fun trick-or-treating in Moab on Halloween (Saturday evening). Penny dressed as "Blue" from the TV show "Blue's Clues," River was a vampire, and Geneva was a sunflower. Two other daughters not pictured (London and Indiana) were also vampires, and Brooklyn wore a costume that looked like a giant slice of pizza.

At a statewide convention for high school leaders in the Future Business Leaders of America organization held in Provo earlier this week, students were taught how to twist balloons into animals and other fun shapes. The easy-to-learn technique was touted as a fundraising and/or service project opportunity.

Jeff had what is sometimes called a "Kansas City bankroll" in his pocket the other day. The term refers to a wad of paper money that is actually comprised of $1 bills, with a larger denomination bill (such as a $20, $50, or $100) wrapped around the outside, to give the impression that the wad of money is actually worth a lot more. In this case, Jeff had a $20 bill wrapped around 32 $1 bills, or $52. If they had all been $20 bills, the wad of cash would have been worth $660.

Tyler did a few tricks with his skateboard on the sidewalk after school recently.

Geneva likes to eat with her hands and fingers, which usually results in a messy face at the end of each meal.

Jeff's daughters had fun playing on the inflatable playground equipment at the "Back to School Carnival" held a couple of Saturdays ago.

Penny and her three oldest daughters had fun doing a vampire dress-up activity recently. After applying makeup, they wore black dresses and posed for photos in the road in front of their house.

Sunday was the last day ever for the Moab Swim Center, the public pool that has served Moab for decades. Starting this week, the popular swimming pool is being drained and demolished to make room for a new aquatics and recreation facility slated to open in the fall of 2010. Enjoying the pool on its final afternoon are Kestrel (top photo) and Betty. Betty worked at the pool this summer as a lifeguard.

While at the family reunion last month, Coral took this photo of three of her nieces (London, River, and Stephanie) and a nephew (Richard) posing in the darkened upstairs room of the cabin. Other kids traced the outline of the four with keychain laser lights while Coral held the camera as still as she could and exposed the shot for about 8 seconds. Click on photo to enlarge.

Action figure dolls span a wide range of interests these days. Jeff spotted these two incongruous dolls side-by-side on a drug store shelf recently. At left is the likeness of a teenage rock musician from the California-based group "Aly & AJ," who are now known as 78violet. At right is a "Jesus" action figure doll, which speaks Biblical scriptures when a button is pressed.

Penny's family (a total of 31 people) gathered in Moab last night for a three-day reunion. They spent today doing a river trip on the Colorado River. They'll head up the mountains to spend the next couple nights at a cabin in the La Sals. Penny's nephew Richard caught a horned toad lizard in the yard while everybody was getting packed (bottom photo).

London (third from left) was among four local winners in a statewide writing contest for young authors in grades K-3. Each of the kids wrote and illustrated their own children's story book. Click here to see a list of the winning entries. Click on each story's title to read the stories themselves.

London likes to play with the computer's built-in camera, which allows her to take self-portrait still photos and video clips. Various special effects can also be applied, including black-and-white negative (top) and split screen (bottom).

While at Bear Lake last week, Penny assembled and tried out her new stroller, which seats two small children and can either be pushed by hand or pulled by a bicycle. Indy and Geneva both enjoyed riding in the new stroller!

Indy and her friend Ammon had popsicles on the front porch the other day. It was a good way to cool off on a hot afternoon!

Penny took her four youngest daughters for a ride on the scooter this afternoon. The motorbike is a Yamaha Vino designed to carry one or two passengers, but the smaller girls are able to fit in front of and behind the driver.

Penny's parents also like to do jigsaw puzzles. They started this one in a waiting room while Jeff had a doctor's appointment recently, but were not able to finish it.

While putting together this puzzle of the famed ocean liner, Virginia found out why the Titanic sank. There was one puzzle piece missing in the hull.

London turned 8 years old today. She celebrated by going with her family on a drive to Grand Junction, then coming back to Moab and having cake and ice cream.

Jeff and Penny's nieces Chelsea and Alix came up to Moab from Arizona for a two-day visit last week. Their mom Lydia is Penny's older sister. The girls all had fun playing with their cousins. These photos show them goofing around in Brooklyn's room.

In the English language, double negatives are generally considered bad grammar. That didn't stop well-known food maker Sara Lee from adopting the slogan "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee," as seen on a truck parked at a local supermarket. From a grammatical standpoint, a better way to express this idea is, "Everybody likes Sara Lee."

The local high school recently started a Fishing Club as a joke, but then it turned out to be a real success. Members plan to go on fishing trips together in nearby lakes and streams this spring.

Today, the local high school held a "Pirate and Ninja" dress-up day, just for fun. Several kids (including Braden and Brooklyn, top photo, and Zach and Robbie, bottom photo) dressed up for the occasion. There was also supposed to have been a "rock-scissors-paper" competition between the two groups at lunchtime, but it was canceled. (Japanese people are familiar with this popular game as "jan-ken-pon".)

On his way back to Moab from Salt Lake last Saturday, Jeff stopped in Orem and bought a Rubik's Cube at a toy store that was going out of business. The cube, which cost only $2, is the latest addition to Jeff's collection of similar puzzles. Jeff greased the cube with petroleum jelly when he got home and was able to solve the cube several times in a row in less than 90 seconds each time. His best time was 55 seconds. He first learned how to solve Rubik's Cube when he was in high school in the early 1980s, when the fad first became popular.

Brooklyn got a new cell phone for Christmas. The first phone she had used GSM technology, which is currently not fully supported in Moab and other rural areas. The number assigned to it also had a Colorado area code. She returned that first phone to the manufacturer and had a new CDMA-based phone sent to her. It doesn't have as many features as the first phone had (including a camera), but it does at least give her a local phone number. She and mom Penny are seen here showing off their respective phones.

Hailey drives a unique multi-colored car to school. A few years ago, her older brother Cooper drove the car. There is no explanation for the color scheme that was chosen for the paint job.

Just for fun, Casey recently allowed his eyebrows and upper lip to be decorated by girls at school using a makeup pencil.

Geneva got a new set of Christmas pajamas in the mail the other day, a present from her grandparents in Salt Lake. She wore them proudly, and modeled a pair of oversized sunglasses, too!

Matt, a high school senior also known as Chip, is well-known for his crazy antics. He's seen in the top photo putting a potted tree on his chest. The other two pictures are from when he allowed classmates to color his face and hands with a black magic marker.

Jeff finished assembling and installing his new basketball standard in his driveway tonight. The device has an adjustable rim that can be set between 8 feet and 10 feet, in increments of six inches. The 8-foot level is the height at which Jeff's young daughters like to practice shooting baskets.

Jeff recently bought a new basketball hoop for his driveway. He made it halfway through the assembly process a few days ago, and plans to finish the project tomorrow. The base to which the pole is attached needs to be filled with over 300 pounds of sand, so Jeff and Penny spent awhile tonight shoveling sand through a large funnel to give the base greater weight and stability.

Tonight is Halloween, when many children like to dress up in costume and go trick-or-treating in neighborhoods around town. The middle photo shows Jeff and Penny's five daughters in their costumes. Indiana is Cookie Monster, London is an angel, Brooklyn is a witch, Geneva is Elmo, and River is dressed as a woman from the 1930s. Everyone had a good time collecting candy tonight!

Jeff's family carved a couple of pumpkins the other day, to decorate their porch during Halloween. The kids designed the faces, gutted out the seeds, and helped carve the pumpkins with a kitchen knife. They then roasted the seeds in the oven and saved them to eat later.

Saturday was the third annual "Pumpkin Chuckin'" contest and festival, sponsored by a local youth gardening group. Contestants used slingshots and trebuchets to fling the orange gourds as far as 100 meters. The middle photo shows a pumpkin being flung by a slingshot device made of old trampoline springs. The bottom photo shows the aftermath.

Another attraction at Lagoon last week was a non-scary haunted house for children. The kids toured various rooms and filled their trick-or-treat bags with candy and toys. The room pictured here had a table set with various disgusting-looking foods and creatures, including eyeballs, frogs, rats, and other creepy items.

The Lagoon amusement park also has many rides for small children. From top: Indiana steers a boat, Geneva rides the merry-go-round, and Indiana drives a small car along a track.

Jeff's daughters and nieces had fun jumping and playing in the leaves at Murray Park this afternoon. Pictured from top: London, River, and their cousin Wynn.

Today, Jeff's family went to Lagoon, an amusement park located about 20 miles north of Salt Lake. These pictures show the park's famous wooden roller coaster. Built in 1921, the coaster is 2,500 feet long and reaches a top speed of 45 mph. The bottom photo shows 7-year-old London smiling after the ride.

Jeff and Penny took photos of their five daughters last night at a nearby ranch. They have taken their kids' own "school pictures" each fall for the past several years.

Jeff's birthday is today. He has worked for the DHC U.S. Office for the past 11 years. He's pictured here with six-week-old baby Geneva making faces during a recent visit to the doctor's office.

Mary’s cabin steward often made animal shapes from towels for her and her mother to find. Above are pictures of a rabbit and a monkey made from folded towels.

Jeff's dad, a self-proclaimed astronomy buff, got a telescope as a Fathers Day present over the weekend. It was a gift from all seven of his children and their families. The device includes an electronic motor drive that will find and track any visible celestial body (star, planet, constellation, etc.) by simply entering in its code.

While visiting the Relay for Life event in Salt Lake recently, Jeff's four oldest daughters enjoyed playing on inflatable play structures, which included slides, mazes, and obstacles to climb. But when it was time to go home, Indiana didn't want to leave (bottom photo).

Eve and Peter are in town this week, visiting again from Boston. They came out to Jeff and Penny's house in Moab yesterday to see the new baby. After eating French toast for lunch, everyone sat down to play a fun word-guessing game called Taboo. Eve is a former staff member of the DHC U.S. Office.

Coral is seen here holding her baby Eleanor, who turned six months old last week, the day before this photo was taken. Coral's sister Penny took the picture.

This afternoon was the annual Devils Challenge, a friendly competition among students at the local high school. Tony (middle photo) won the skateboarding event, but two-time winner Steven (bottom) failed to defend his title in the pie-eating competition, which was won by underclassman Zach.

Someone recently placed a flyer underneath the windshield wiper of the truck belonging to Penny's parents. The flyer was from a business that specializes in hauling off abandoned junk vehicles. However, the truck in question is still in great working order. The only thing it needs is a new paint job. Penny's folks were slightly offended, but laughed as they threw away the note.

Penny lost a button off the front of her blouse while attending a party at Sam's house last month. After a little searching, she found it on the ground. That's enough excitement for one day!

Rusty turned 50 years old last weekend. His family and friends surprised him with a birthday party, complete with gifts and games designed to make fun of his "elderly" status. The top photo shows Rusty using a walker in a relay race. Middle photo shows him wearing his new "flying pig" hat. Bottom photo shows two of his daughters dishing up cake and ice cream for the guests.

Jeff's 5-month-old nephew Makay wasn't too happy at the conclusion of Aunt Reta's funeral. He was tired and hungry, and ready for his afternoon nap.

London's birthday party last night had an insect theme. SHe and her guests made antennas out of pipe cleaners and wore butterfly wings. The cake was shaped like a caterpillar (each segment was a chocolate cupcake covered with green icing, and gummi worms were used for the antennas and feet). London and her friends went on an outdoor scavenger hunt and played bug-themed games indoors. The kids each made their own personal pizza (bottom photo). Cake and ice cream capped off the evening!

London, who turned 7 years old a couple of days ago, will celebrate with her friends and family at a party at her home this evening. Check back tomorrow for photos from London's party!

The largest animal at Jake's birthday party was a 14-foot-long boa that weighed 75 lbs. and required several children to lift and hold it. The snake eats small animals such as rabbits.

Jeff's nephew Jake turned 10 years old last week, and celebrated with a party at his house on Saturday. Two animal handlers brought a variety of critters for a one-hour demonstration during the party. The animals included several snakes, tortoises, lizards, scorpions, and a tarantula. Check back tomorrow for more photos from the party!

Today is Leap Day, a day added to the calendar every four years (because the solar year is roughly 365.25 days long). London celebrated Feb. 29 with her two stuffed "leap frog" toys.

The Moab Diner, a popular eating spot for locals and tourists alike, has an unusual clock on its wall. The restaurant's clock is essentially a mirror image of a regular analog clock, and its hands rotate in the opposite direction of a normal clock. So at first glance, the time appears to be 4:50, but it is actually 7:10.

Today is Valentines Day, a day when messages of love are expressed. Jeff and Penny's daughters woke up this morning to two different types of valentines: (1) hand-made with messages of appreciation from their parents, and (2) strawberry heart-shaped pancakes hot off the griddle for breakfast!

Several male teachers at the local high school have been participating in a "beard growing" contest to show support for a good cause. Students have been voting for their favorite beard by bringing in donations for the local food bank, which helps provide food and groceries to needy people in the community. Click on photo to enlarge.

Today was "Bob Marley Day" at the local high school. Most of the teachers and staff members wore Jamaican-style hats (complete with dangling dreadlocks). Jamaican food was also served in the faculty lounge during lunchtime. The reggae music legend, who died in 1981 of cancer at age 36, would have been 63 years old today.

Dozens of girls ranging in age from 3 to 13 participated in the "Junior Cheer" cheerleading camp organized by the local high school cheerleaders. The girls (including Jeff's daughters London and River, bottom photo) performed during the halftime of the boys basketball game last week, and are scheduled to give an encore performance during the girls basketball game tonight.

Jeff's family had fun at the local bowling alley last weekend. The children bowled in a lane that had adjustable metal bumpers to keep the ball from landing in the gutter (thereby improving the kids' scores). River (top photo) managed to roll a 115. Her dad Jeff, meantime, bowls in a Monday night league and currently averages 135.

Jeff, who can solve a standard 3x3 Rubik's Cube in less than one minute, received two additional cubes for Christmas. He has not yet scrambled the faces of his two new cubes, the 4x4 "Rubik's Revenge" and the 5x5 "Professor Cube".

During tonight's high school basketball game, Daniel and Carlin engaged in a lengthy sword-like duel outside in the parking lot, using the "Star Wars" lightsabers that Daniel got for Christmas. When they strike each other, the sturdy plastic lighted toys make futuristic sounds like the sound effects in the films.

Jeff and Penny's family recently went sledding in Salt Lake, near the home of Penny's brother-in-law's brother. Kids and adults spent an hour and a half riding down snow-covered hills on sleds and inner tubes. Afterward, everyone went inside and warmed up with hot cocoa.

Jeff and his family attended a Grinch-themed Christmas party at their church building tonight. Folks dressed in "Whoville" costumes patterned after the Dr. Suess classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". Ryan and Todd (top photo) portrayed the Grinch and his dog, respectively. After everyone finished a delicious dinner of ham and baked potatoes, Santa Claus made a surprise visit to the children, including London (bottom photo).

Last night, around 100 youth aged 12-18 gathered at a local church to play a version of "Fear Factor." Teams participated in three events. The first two events were a rock climbing wall, followed by a timed race where team members got small candies from a plates covered with flour using only their mouths. The final event involved eating and drinking disgusting foods (green gelatin with anchovies, and a blended mixture of buttermilk, sardines, navy beans, and peas). A few of the participants became nauseated, but the two-hour event was a fun and entertaining evening!

After last night's basketball game, Ryder and Jake were goofing around in front of the school, playing with the head of a cow elk that their friend Stephen recently shot during the elk hunt. They enjoyed making the cheerleaders scream!

Several hundred people attended Moab's second annual "Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival" last Saturday. Several groups built trebuchets or other devices designed to fling pumpkins. The teams were judged on both distance and accuracy. The "Super Slingers" (top and middle photos) didn't achieve much distance, but they hit the target dead center to win the accuracy contest. A different trebuchet managed to fling a pumpkin over 300 feet, but it was a pressurized air cannon that achieved the greatest distance (over 1,500 feet)! In other action, Penny (bottom photo) took second place in the pumpkin seed spitting contest, winning a T-shirt (Jeff took first place in the event last year).

Many residents around town have been putting up elaborate Halloween decorations in anticipation of a big night of trick-or-treating on October 31. This local front yard is filled with dozens of decorations, including several inflatable figurines and a castle.

This afternoon during lunch, the high school tennis team held a "car bash" fundraising event. For a dollar a hit, students and teachers were allowed to smack a junk car in the parking lot. Folks used sledgehammers, mauls, pickaxes, and crowbars to inflict the damage. The money went to help send the girls tennis team to the state tournament this coming weekend in Salt Lake City.

Hal's truck wouldn't start last week, so he had it towed to the garage. The mechanic used an electronic tester to pinpoint the source of the problem: a squirrel had crawled inside the engine area and had chewed some of the wiring. Bryan spliced the old wires together and the truck was as good as new!

Penny got a new scooter for her birthday recently. It is a Yamaha Vino (125 cc engine). It has gotten 90 miles per gallon over its first three tank fill-ups.

Jeff (pictured here with daughter Indy) recently uploaded his photo to the website www.simpsonizeme.com, which is being operated by Burger King restaurants as part of their promotional campaign for the new "Simpsons Movie" that just came out in theaters. The bottom image shows what Jeff might look like if he were a "Simpsons" character.

Jeff's family went on a river rafting trip today. They floated down a 13-mile stretch of the Colorado River (from Hittle Bottom to Takeout Beach) in just under five hours, counting time stopped for lunch.

The night before Audrey and Chris's wedding, the family gathered at the newlyweds' new home north of Salt Lake and played a friendly game of driveway basketball. The four-on-four game took over an hour to complete, with Dave, Steve, Paul and Gerry finally defeating Audrey, Chris, Robert, and Jeff by the score of 66-62. The rim had been lowered so that it was 8 feet above the ground instead of the usual 10 feet, making it possible for the players to dunk the ball (bottom photo).

Brooklyn celebrated her 13th birthday last night. The family went to the local fun center and played miniature golf (top photo), followed by laser tag, air hockey, and go-cart racing. After they got home, they had cake and ice cream.

At a multi-family overnight campout in Colorado last weekend, a pudding eating contest was held. Each competitor got their own snack-size pudding cup (either chocolate or vanilla) and had a minute or so to eat as much of the contents as possible, without using their hands. The winners got candy bars, but even those who didn't win ended up with a tasty (albeit messy) snack.

Penny's sister Trudy and her family are building a large "Swiss Family Robinson" style treehouse in their backyard in Payson. They're using scrap lumber and tree limbs lashed and nailed together. The structure includes a nearby rope bridge and "zipline" (bottom photo).

Monday afternoon, Jeff taught a two-hour photography class to a dozen kids in the local 4-H club. Armed with several digital cameras, they went on a short walk and took a variety of interesting pictures outside.

Also at East Canyon on Friday, Jeff's family had fun in the resort's splash play area that had an assortment of small fountains. The top photo shows individual water droplets captured with Jeff's new camera's highest shutter speed (1/8000th of a second).

Jeff and Penny spent the day in East Canyon Resort with Penny's parents. They went swimming and had a picnic lunch. Then, they played horseshoes. Each team has two people who each try to toss two large metal horseshoes onto a metal post about 50 feet away. A "ringer" is worth three points. Horseshoes that come close to the post are worth one point, but the other player's throw may cancel it out. The first team to score 21 points wins the game.

Jeff's family went swimming a few days ago as a way to cool off from high temperatures (over 100 F). This indoor pool includes a children's play area and a large waterslide. Monday night featured a special price -- the entire family got in for just $5.

Teenagers at the local teen center put together a maze-like fun zone last weekend, using mattresses, fabric, and other donated materials. The unique attraction, which took nearly two weeks to build and will soon be dismantled, was called the "Galactivation Fortal." These photos were taken during a sneak preview tour shortly before the attraction opened Friday night.

Last night, the staff of the DHC U.S. office got together for a backyard barbecue at Sam and Virginia's home. Several current and former employees were in attendance, including Jacci, Christy, Yoko, Jeff, Mary, and Sam. Folks ate barbecued hamburgers, veggie burgers, and hot dogs. Christy (bottom photo) was awarded a special certificate in honor of working the past dozen years as a grader.

Seventh-grader Matz had his naturally brown hair bleached blond at a local hair salon after school yesterday, in order to fulfill a promise he'd made last week during the local middle school student body elections.

After the middle school's field trip to Arches National Park last week, the busloads of students stopped at the Bar M Chuckwagon north of town and had lunch there. Brooklyn and her friends took turns posing with their faces inside a humorous wooden cutout made to look like a cowboy (wearing red underwear) sitting inside an outhouse reading a book.

Another fun game to play is tetherball, which involves hitting a volleyball-like sphere attached to a cord, which in turn is attached to the top of a tall metal pole. Two people try to hit the ball in opposite directions so that it wraps around the pole. The winner is the person who gets the ball wrapped all the way around the pole until the end of the cord is reached. River and Brooklyn played several games of tetherball at the campground in Cortez last week.

Indy enjoyed going miniature golfing in Cortez last week. She helped the ball go in the hole by pushing it with her hands. Her dad Jeff recorded the best score of the day -- 47 strokes for 18 holes -- on his third and final round.

Easter Sunday (yesterday) was London's 6th birthday, and she celebrated with her sisters by hunting Easter eggs out on her front lawn. The kids found both plastic eggs (filled with candy and coins) and hard-boiled real eggs which had been dyed.

The Easter Bunny made an early visit to town last weekend, posing for photos at a local flower and gift shop. Jeff's daughters each had their pictures taken, including Indy, 23 months, and London, 5.

With spring just a few days away, Indy recently enjoyed a visit to the park, where she played on the slides and other playground equipment. She turns 2 next month.

Cheyne zapped JJ on the left shoulder with a large rubber band this afternoon.

A new large yellow plastic barrel (meant to hold used motor oil) arrived at the high school's office the other day. Chad hid inside, hoping to surprise another student who came in to get her birthday balloons.

Brooklyn, River, and London did one of the oldest camera tricks last year, making it seem as though one girl was small enough to stand on another girl's hand. Jeff found this image (taken almost a year ago) buried in the internal memory of his digital camera.

One of Jeff's friends e-mailed him a picture of a rather ominous but funny "Private Parking" sign (actual location unknown). The sign reads as follows: "Unauthorized vehicles will be worked over with a sledgehammer, flipped over by an angry mob, set on fire, and spray painted with rude slogans immediately after being used as a getaway car in an incredibly daring daylight robbery."

Today is Groundhog Day, a strange and unofficial holiday involving a rodent's prediction about the length of the winter. If a groundhog sees his shadow on the morning of Feb. 2, it supposedly means that at least six more weeks of winter lie ahead. The country's most famous groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil (pictured here), who reportedly did not see his shadow this morning from his home in Pennsylvania, which apparently means that spring will come early this year. For more information about Groundhog Day, visit the the Punxsutawney group's official website at www.groundhog.org.

Several members of the DHC U.S. Office gathered at the home of Sam and Virginia last week for a company party. Folks ate Domino's Pizza and played games.

River celebrates the New Year this morning by riding her new bike that she got for Christmas. The weather in Moab today (Jan. 1) is overcast with a current temperature of 2.2 C (36 F). Jeff's family arrived back in Moab last night (New Year's Eve) after a 10-day vacation that included a week in Southern California. Check back this week for photos of their trip!

Jeff's daughters made Christmas popcorn balls the other night, one of their favorite family holiday traditions. The candied treats were made using flavored gelatin mix, raspberry for the red ones and lime for the green ones.

North of town, near the entrance to Arches National Park, there is a large hillside covered with sand, next to the roadside, Many families like to park their cars for awhile and let their kids play on the steep hill.

At the end of the parade was Santa Claus riding atop a fire engine and waving to the crowds below (bottom photo). Instead of reindeer, Santa was preceded by a series of John Deere tractors, each adorned with strings of Christmas lights (middle photo).

Saturday night's Electric Light Parade ushered in the holiday season. The popular parade has become a local tradition over the past several years, and hundreds of spectators lined Main Street to watch the brightly lit vehicles of all sorts pass by during the hour-long event. Check back tomorrow for a few more photos of the parade.

London likes to play hopscotch on the school playground. The game involves jumping on the numbers in succession and picking up a marker from the ground on one of the numbers.

One of the activities at the recent "Pumpkin Chuckin" event was a pumpkin seed spitting contest. Two separate contests were held: one for small children, and one for teenagers and adults. Jeff (far left in top photo) won the adult division by spitting his seed a distance of about 30 feet (9 meters). He won a $20 gift certificate to a local restaurant. Photos by London, age 5.

Today was Election Day, which made for some hectic moments for those 18 and over trying to get to the polls either before or after work (the polls close at 8 p.m. in most places nationwide). Here in town, a group of local teenagers found a fun way to spend the evening by gathering inside the gymnasium at a local church for a pajama party. Around 70 youth plus 20 or so adult leaders attended the event, which featured snacks such as popcorn, soda pop. potato chips, and candy. A DVD movie was shown on the big screen, but many people preferred to visit with their friends instead.

Today was Halloween, when kids don costumes and parade through the streets calling out "Trick or Treat!" and getting candy from people. Jeff's four daughters brought home roughly 700 pieces of candy (a small part of it pictured in the bottom photo), the result of about two hours worth of trick-or-treating.

Saturday was the inaugural Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival, which was held at an old airport runway several miles south of town. Teams used a variety of devices to launch pumpkins weighing 8-10 lbs. (3.5 to 4.5 kg). Categories included trebuchet, catapult, and slingshot. Children even lined up to throw softball-sized gourds as far as they could into a nearby field. The best toss of the day was by a truck-mounted trebuchet resembling a small oil derrick, which launched one pumpkin an amazing 364 feet (110 meters)!

One of the most popular attractions at Lagoon amusement park is the Colossal Fire Dragon, often simply called the Colossus. The 85-foot-high ride is a metal track roller coaster that includes a full vertical loop 65 feet (20 meters) in diameter. The cars reach a top speed of 55 miles per hour (90 kph) during the ride, which lasts 1 minute and 45 seconds. Built in 1983, the Colossus can carry up to 1,600 passengers per hour.

Today is Friday the 13th, supposedly a day for bad luck. River, who considers herself a lucky person, had fun with the digital camera, taking these self-portraits of her eye, nose, and face.