Blizzard!

Over Friday and Saturday this week, we had a huge snowstorm that dumped over a foot of snow on top of the 5-6 inches we had leftover from last weekend's storm. Total accumulation is somewhere in the neighborhood of 21-22 inches!

We're very fortunate that we haven't lost power at all through the weekend... we have friends all around in the area that have had to do without.

Here are a few pictures of the "luge" I made in the front driveway for the kids to enjoy, since we won't be driving to a sledding hill anytime soon:

Pioneer Camp 2009

In honor of LDS Pioneer Day, the anniversary of the early saints' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, our family decided to go camping. In some small way, we figured, this would help us to better understand the sacrifices made by these early members of the Church.

In a way, it did: first, we got rained on Friday night as we attempted to cook our dinner. Admittedly it was a short and light rain, but enough to keep the fire from really taking off (Although I suspect lighter fluid would've helped too). We slept on hard ground in the sweltering heat/humidity (it got better as the night wore on, though). Mary and Sarah got woken up in the middle of the night by rescue sirens and a life flight helicopter (we found out later that there was a fatal 2-car collision involving a drunk driver, happening only a few miles from our campsite). Of course the pioneers wouldn't have had that sort of an experience, but I suspect there were the occasional nighttime encounter with hostile indians or wildlife.

Saturday morning we got up and the kids and I went over to the campground playground to let off a little steam before breakfast: orange juice, bananas & blueberry muffins. Mary closed the muffin baggie to keep out unwanted bugs and such, and came over to join us briefly. We returned to find this:



Those are bite marks... clear through the bag and into a bunch of the muffins! (Note there's also a bite mark in one of the bananas, but apparently the bitter outer peel was enough to discourage the little thieves from pursuing that effort any further.) Looking up, then, we noticed the camp surrounded by the perpetrators, who brazenly remained at the scene of the crime:



Apparently 35 years of campground life has conditioned these squirrel colonies to the "easy life" among us careless humans. Next year, we'll know to keep stuff in the cooler!

Anyway, we went on to have a nice morning, swimming in the campground pool and exploring the southern coast of our little peninsula of Maryland.



Happy Pioneer Day, everyone!

Catching up on the picture pool

I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but I set up a YouTube account for our family videos that I want to share with the public. It's at YouTube.com/RyAndMary, and includes a few school concerts the kids have been involved in this school year.

I've also recently done a picture dump from my phone, so here are some highlights from recent months:

The kids at a recent "art night" event at school

Matthew playing Tee Ball

Picking our own strawberries at a local farm

Sarah at the recent Daddy/Daughter Night at church

Matthew at our church fathers & sons campout last weekend

Simply smashing!

Just got home from our church meetings a little while ago and had something to eat, and now the kids are outside smashing rocks with a hammer. Matthew got the idea from something he read recently, I guess, and they're both having great fun with it.

Happy 2009!

So... one of my resolutions for the new year is to blog more frequently. Sunday seems the natural time to do this, so here goes.

Work has been slooooooow, both because a lot of people were out for the holidays, and because it was the end of the year. I expect things will pick up quite a bit when I go back tomorrow.

We had a pretty nice Christmas at Mary's mom's house in North Carolina, seeing family that we haven't in quite a while, and generally enjoying the slower pace of life "Down East." It almost made it hard to drive back up I-95 to the congestion and hectic lifestyle of suburban Washington D.C. ;)

Mary's been feeling a little run-down this past week, so her mom drove up a day behind us to help out around the house, which has been a huge help. Mary's feeling better, so I think she's planning to head home tomorrow before a forecast of snow in this area (which, of course, the kids are excited about... it would be the first real snow of the season if it sticks)

Some friends in our church ward invited us to a fun New Year's Eve party with a bunch of the ward's other young families. Mary stayed home with her mom, but the kids & I went for a while. Then we came back here and watched movies (the DTV Kung-Fu Panda sequel, and the Brandon Frasier "Journey to the Center of the Earth") until shortly before midnight, when we channel-switched a bit to see the various festivities including the ball-drop in New York. One thing I noticed in doing that was just how OLD Dick Clark suddenly looks... I know for years the running joke was that he didn't age, but apparently he had a stroke a few years ago, and now he looks really, REALLY old. Anyway, we had fun.

New Year's Day was pretty fun too... a friend posted something on her blog about a cool park she had taken her kids to, and Mary suggested I take the kids and go find it. After a quick Google search, we found it: Clemyjontri Park, in McClean. It was really cold that afternoon, but we had a great time. The park is neat because it was designed from the ground up to be universally accessible -- kids of all ages & physical (dis)abilities can have fun. As proof, here are my kids, thoroughly enjoying themselves:

• 


• 


• 


• 


• 


• 


• 


• 

Where'd 2003 go?

Okay, so THAT month really whizzed past me. Wow.

Lots to talk about, but I'll leave it for another time. For now, enjoy the pictures we've taken on our new digital camera (thanks, Mom & Dad!):
http://www.geocities.com/ryancorradini

Happy Holidays!

Sheesh, is it really December already? Yowzers.

Here's a couple of photos I took with my kids in the Hobbit Hole over the long weekend, enjoy:



The house painters are here for the next few days. Noisy, reeking of cigarette smoke, but efficient & affordable. Guess there are tradeoffs in everything.

Just so long as they keep the smoking outside, so our new walls don't stink. :-p

My Hobbit Hole

Day two, working in my closet-cum-office. Mary & I have taken to calling it the "hobbit hole", and this pic might illustrate why:


That's my shirts hanging up next to me (at least the ones I don't want to fold & put in a drawer), and insulation over my head (I hope it's not carcinogenic or anything!)

Hot water & gas heat have both been hooked up in the past two days, as has my cable internet... so I'm able to work from this cozy little hold of mine. If not for that, I might actually have to drive to Southern Pines! Sheesh, the very idea of having to drive 6 hours to work, when you can walk there in 30 seconds!

Y'know, it really is amazing how quickly you can get spoiled. >:)