Lake Tahoe

(This post was genuinely started back on August 14, but I didn't get around to actually adding pictures and finishing it until much later.)

Well, we're here at Lake Tahoe now, enjoying ourselves immensely. Ben's grandparents got a place right on the beach for all of his posterity and families, so here we are. I am right now staring out at the lake, with views of the nearby and far away mountains. We have been coming to Tahoe for five years now, and this place tops them all, in my opinion.

Here are some favorite pictures from the trip.

Elliot and Grandpa John playing in the water. He was hesitant at first to go in the water but soon got used to the coldiness. Elliot eventually got used to it too. ;)

Elliot and buddy Uncle Daniel

Elliot catching a football (Yes, he can regularly catch a full-sized football. Pretty strange for us, considering that I can barely catch a full-sized football.)

We rented a canoe and paddles to take a trip out on the lake. Of course Aaron's number one goal was to catch some fish.

The fishers Ben, Aaron, and John out on an expedition. The boat had a 2.5 person maximum so I had to stay behind. John is wearing a long-sleeved shirt because he may or may not have something fishy up his sleeve...

And, lo and behold, Aaron did succeed in catching "a already de-gutted fish" (as Aaron says) out on the lake. It was, by all reports, a very exciting adventure. Aaron spotted the fish, they all took turns trying to grab it out of the water, almost capsized several times until finally Aaron succeeded. Aaron knows that somebody must have bought the fish and brought it out there... he just doesn't know exactly who did it.

The matching hosts John and Ru

Preparing for our nightly circle of prayer around the dinner table. For the first time, the table was too big for all of us so here is Phil performing acrobatics in order to complete the circle.

Elliot-height hand prints all over the mirror


Taking a slow spin around the block

Why is it so quiet? Where are all the kids? Aha, watching Dora and Diego, I see. (I love the way Elliot is snuggled up with Rex.)

Elliot can be very diligent about goodnight kisses. Often he has to be sure and get everyone in the room. We did manage to get several pictures of Elliot kissing various family members goodnight, but this is one of the best.

A set of "traps" created over a few days' time, by Grandpa John, Aaron, and me. I believe the pine cones were grandpa's idea for bait, although later Aaron said, "Did you know that grandpa thinks pine cones are bait?" I thought it was a good idea.

Aaron spent hours 'hunting' ducks. Here he is attempting to chase one down. He actually got pretty close sometimes. The funniest thing was the way the ducks sort of casually swam away from him, wondering what in the world this kid is doing. He got really into it though. When he wasn't hunting, he was planning attacks. Regrettably to him and thankfully to us, he didn't have any actual success.

Hunting knows no curfew.

North Carolina

Here are a few more pictures from our trip to North Carolina

Elliot and Uncle Matt playing (the hat was a big hit). At a bluegrass concert on the lawn.

Telling a "secret" (which consists of unintelligible whispering)

Kissing brothers-- well, at least Elliot is trying to kiss Aaron. Aaron is, obviously, being silly.

Kissing mama

Hanging out on UNC campus at the little arboretum

Fishing in North Carolina

Aaron living his dreams

Elliot wanted to fish too, but we figured out that he was mostly interested in the 'balls' at the end of the string, so we attached one to the end of this broken fishing pole and he was quite satisfied to just throw it in the water and pull it out over and over again.

Elliot and I went to search for bugs (a.k.a 'buh!")-- here Elliot is studying and chasing an ant he picked up from the ground.

The first catch of the day-- caught by Matt (actually, Matt and our resident local expert/friend Brian were the only lucky ones that day). Brian said it was a little small to take home and cook up, but Aaron of course the look of utter disappointment on Aaron's face changed his mind really quickly. So we packed it in the cooler, where Aaron kept a close eye on it. Aaron announced we needed to catch seven fish, since there are seven of us. They caught four, but we were very pleased regardless.

The Dirty Work...

It was a good thing we had Brian there because none of us knew how to properly gut a fish.


Brian teaching Aaron the ways.

When we had several minnows leftover at the end of our trip, Aaron decided he wanted to eat them. Of course, we couldn't say no to such an innocous request, so Brian told him he would help him gut and fry the thing. So here is Aaron beheading his minnow.

And here's the final product, fried up. To his credit, he did taste it. Most of us did, actually. Pretty gross. In Brian's words, "In all my days of fishing I have never seen anyone take home the bait and fry it up."


Matt and Kerrylin with one of the beauts, pre-cooked. (Yeah, we know they're small-- but so what; they're ours!)
(Actually, we knew we wouldn't have enough meat for all of us so we stopped at the store and picked up some catfish, and pretended that we caught those too. They were super good, and a whole lot less work.)

Guitar Hero!

At nights, while the kids snoozed in the next room, we rocked out to some Guitar Hero.



Ben and Kourtney jamming out.

Matt and Kerrylin rockin' it. Matt was jamming so hard that he pulled out his cord and got the following message...

Other NC pictures

Kerrylin ("Aunt Zeta") reading Calvin and Hobbes to the boys. It is their favorite set of books, which simultaneously delights and frightens me.

While we were at a market in Chapel Hill (where Kerrylin goes to school) Aaron wanted to buy some meat. Then when a friend told us that there is a butcher's shop down the street, Aaron nearly jumped off of his seat in excitement. So we went down and let Aaron pick out a piece of meat-- he chose a $1 pork chop, which he proudly flung on his back, like a backpack for easy carrying.

We hunt out at the pool a lot but didn't get many action shots. Here we are on the sidelines.

Uncle Zach's Visit

Ben's longtime friend Zach visited us a few weeks ago. We didn't really take a ton of pictures, but here are some from the night we went to see the Philharmonic play in Central Park.


Picnic with the people. There were several thousand people in attendance. More than came to the free Bon Jovi concert a few nights before. Gotta love NYC!

Aaron being goofy.

Elliot using some borrowed binoculars.

And this is Aaron's attempt to photograph the moon, without flash of course. Slightly wobbly hands.

One tradition that Ben and Zach have is playing chess in a twisted way-- usually involving some sort of space warp. In the one below, there is a wall down the horizontal center of the chessboard, and pieces move backwards until they get to the end of the board, then they go in the opposite mirror position. Kind of like a twisted taurus, or maybe a mobius strip. Ben is insanely good at construing, and seeing these things. Please Ben, clarify the details of how this mobius board works because I can't quite remember which variation this was.

The weirdest checkmate ever, by Ben playing black.

And here they were brainstorming how they would play on a sphere.