Monday, January 24, 2011

One more thing from Weatherfest


Intern, originally uploaded by misspudding.

Here's Anthony on the green screen! :)

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Weatherfest 2011

The AMS (American Meteorological Society) has an annual meeting once a year, much like the American Geophysical Union (which I attended at the end of 2009 and years prior).  We're lucky enough that they are having it in Seattle this year because, they also have something called "Weatherfest".

Weatherfest is a science and engineering festival geared towards the K-12 set. Because it is part of the AMS conference, there are tons of of cool exhibits and neat meteorology industry stuff. Much like geophysics - technically, meteorology is a branch of geophysics - there is so much technology. And much like all things earth science, it impacts us every single day. Our local weather anchors, from all of the channels, were there. There was also a Weather Channel anchor. I counted three "green screens" while we were there.

Here are some pictures from the event.






















Kipper!

Pretty much everyone knows this, but for Christmas this year, our big surprise for Anthony was to get him a dog. If you know Anthony, you know he's been begging for a dog since he's known what a dog is. We finally broke down and brought Kipper into our life, right before the new year.

Kipper's story is this:  A man who lives in the Seattle area was down doing business in Chinle, Arizona for a few months. He stayed in a hotel while he was down there and noticed that there were feral dogs roaming the area around the hotel and begging for food. Kipper was in this pack, along with his litter mates (4 puppies, total) and his mom and at least one other older male dog.

At some point, Kipper's pack was attacked by another pack of dogs, killing one of the puppies and injuring one of the adult males. The business man figured that he'd seen enough and decided he'd rescue the dogs, get them medical care, and take them back with him to the Seattle area.

Kipper is presumed to have been born around June 1, 2010. He's no more than eight months old now. We know his mom was a pure bred (or pretty darn close) yellow lab. His dad was most certainly part collie. He has very strong tendencies of retrieving and herding, both of which are fun, interesting, and somewhat challenging. He's a smart dog, but he really wants to herd us around. He will attend obedience school to help bring out the positive attributes of his personality, as well as tone down the stronger breed characteristics that we don't really need (such as nipping to get us to move faster...we're not sheep).






Christmas 2011

It was another wonderful Christmas for us. Unemployment hasn't stopped our family from trying to make the most of things.

First, Anthony waited, very patiently, to meet Santa for the first time. Talk about EXCITED!


Maybe Santa listened because Anthony totally cleaned up.













Anthony's 6th birthday party

Anthony had his 6th birthday at home. We then celebrated his party, about a week and half later, with all of his friends!

We had his party at the local Michael's craft store. "What?" you're probably wondering, "Why would you have a birthday party at a craft store?" Well, you can make really cool things and make a big mess, and mom and dad don't have to clean it all up!

The kids got to paint birdhouses! Here are some highlights.