A new year

The first week of 2009 is behind us -- we've been busy making plans and generating ideas for the months to come. Bob's mom had to spend New Year's eve (and her birthday) in the hospital. She was there for 7 days with pneumonia and is now thankfully at home.

On New Year's Day we did a hike at Harper's Ferry and ran into a climber friend of Bob's from back in his Seneca Rocks climbing 'hey-days' in the early 1980's. It was cool to catch up with common friends we all know, and I enjoyed hearing some new stories from Bob that were sparked by meeting this old acquaintance. Here are the train tracks at Harper's Ferry, with a view of the cliffs which are on the hill that we hiked up.


Some things we are looking forward to...

• Our ski trip to Colorado in Feb/Mar
• Many home-improvement projects
• Work challenges and learning opportunities
• Local activities and trips
• Pursuing our hobbies
• Time with friends and family
• Our big summer trip
• Physical fitness goals
• etc...
  

Stay tuned!

Day in D.C.

One day we went down to DC to visit the National Building Museum, something Bob's been wanting to see for awhile. We arrived just as they opened on a Sunday morning, which is a mellow time to be in DC; we parked right in front of the building. The displays they had were pretty good, but the building itself is most impressive. This is the inside...


Afterward, we wandered down to the Chinatown area and browsed a street market, where a funky band was entertaining the crowds. Here's the one man rhythm section.


DC has started to use smart bikes, in addition to their Zip cars. About half of the bikes were missing which is a good thing (assuming they were being put to good use).

Christmas is behind us

So now we can show you the woodworking projects we've been up to. All this staying home and off the hiking trails has been mostly good for Bob's knee, and for building woodworking skills...

Here is Frank helping Anna with a pear bowl she's turning for her mother-in-law, Sylvia:

And the finished product:

This is the tractor seat stool that Bob made as a special gift for his niece Laura. This is the first piece of seating furniture he's made, and presented many new learning opportunities: the hand carving of the seat, the compound angles of the legs, figuring out where to drill the holes, and turning 4 matching legs and 4 matching spindles on the lathe. The seat is mahogany and the legs are ash.

Anna learned how to use the router to make the mortises for this table, and she also used chisels to square up the mortise holes. In addition, she turned the top on the lathe and spent many hours sanding and finishing this traditional round cherry table for her sister-in-law Gayle:


Bob drew up the design and built this Stickley-inspired cherry footstool based on one that we own. He also did the cushion and upholstery. Anna helped finish it...

And finally, a true collaboration of skills went into this brass hammer for Bob's dad, Stan. The brass came from a job site of Frank's, and his old friend drilled the hole in it. Frank graciously gave it to me and Bob to make a hammer out of it. Anna turned the handle out mahogany, Bob finished turning it and put the designs on it, and Frank put it all together with the wedge.

Christmas Day

What is Christmas without the smiles of little kids? Here is our neighbor William, who is almost 4, thoroughly enjoying his Thomas the Train set that his aunt Lois stayed up all night creating!


Bob's sister Vonnie wrote a book that was published this past October, and is shamelessly promoting it through this Christmas gift t-shirt. I actually started reading the book and have never seen the show, and I can say the book really is good!

'Tis the season...

...to go cycling. This past week has been a good cycling week. Our friend Taz, who lives in Colorado, has been back east visiting friends and family. She came over to our house last week and we managed a 26 mile ride. About half of it was to Mount Vernon and back, and then Bob joined us for a ride into Old Town. It was supposed to rain, but it turned out to be partly cloudy and about 50 degrees. I've found it's usually best to just stick with any outdoor plans, even if the forecast is against you, because the weather predictors seem to be wrong a lot of the time.

We biked over the weekend, and today it made it up to 66 degrees, so another bike ride was in order. A holiday gift from mother nature. While riding I couldn't help but think of family and friends in Colorado who are currently freezing their butts off and enjoying lots of snow. Maybe on my upcoming January birthday I too will get to enjoy some snow, rather than enjoying freakishly warm days. Last year I rode my bike in shorts and a T-shirt on my birthday! It's all good...

This is also the season for spending time in Santa's workshop. Bob and I have both been busy making gifts, no pics though, because we don't want to ruin it for anyone.

Holiday Time of Year

We put up our christmas tree and the lights on the outside of the house. I crammed an excessive number of lights (4 strands of 450) on the tree which is only about 5 feet tall, but ran out at the top. I decided to go with it and put on the ornaments anyway -- it looks good enough!

We went down to Old Town Alexandria for the annual parade of boat lights. I've lived here over 20 years and have never seen it, so it was time to cross it off the list. It started snowing before we left, and it was cold windy waiting on the dock for the show to begin. We saw two of the boats as they left the dock, but they headed upstream... apparently they all meet up there somewhere and then parade past the Alexandria waterfront. We got tired of waiting so I didn't get to check it off the list after all.

However, we met a guy who swears he's the real Santa, and I got a picture with him. His beard would not come off if you pulled on it, that's for sure! (the white blobs are snow flakes)

Skiing in November!

We decided to take advantage of the snow that's been falling in Canaan Valley, so we drove up to Whitegrass on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was a sunny day, not crowded and the snow wasn't skiied out yet. We went up to Roundtop then on to Bald Knob, then up to Weiss Knob via the gas pipeline and did the first tele turns of the season... not bad for the first ski day of the season.

We camped at the State Park, and discovered the bar in the lodge that had $2 WV brewery beers. Then back to van for a celebration dinner and fun tunes on the satellite radio. It was 11 degrees outside when we woke up Saturday morning.

On Saturday we did the "around the world" tour, up Falls Overlook to 3 Mile to Powderline, then up into the "wilderness" area, over cabin mountain to Bald Knob, then down to Boundary trail and Upper Springer then through the woods back to the car.

The snow is great up high, and gets sketchier the lower you get. Here's a bunch of pictures from Saturday...

Bob on 3 Mile trail


Anna going up Wilderness trail


Where am I...


Bob breaking trail toward Bald Knob, wearing his blaze orange shirt
(hey, it's deer season after all!)