trimming the tree

ok, so the tree was trimmed today and here's the picture shoot in reverse order

the completed product, angel and all...
my super, elf finding new ways to use a tree skirt.

and the angel is up!
here's our elf bel taking the skirt part of tree skirt a little too literally. she looks great, though!


shh... don't tell the girls, but they're actually working TOGETHER!

elf em is helping to sort out the lights.

c'mon, with socks like that, who needs lights on the tree?

we tend to start our lights at the bottom.


stand back, the light ninja in action. if chuck norris was a fan of Christmas, he'd take tree trimming lessons from em.

advent activity sunday

bel reached 5th grade this year and got to take part in the advent wreath project. this is a FUN activity, it even includes the use of power tools.

the weatherman lied

c'mon it cannot be due to inaccuracy. at 10:20 last night, the weather dude on ch 4 said "nothing major" and "only a dusting" in regard to the overnight snow. not that i'm complaining about the snow. it's winter, we might as well have it. i just can't believe that the weather guy could've been soooo wrong by accident.

tree huntin'

we went out to the tree farm and found this beaut just standin' there waitin' fer us. here we are with our trophy field dressed and ready to haul to the cashier (and the professional net and tie guys).

late season trail ride

hoo-yeah, had the day off of work and the house to myself, so what did i do? i went for a ride. i overdressed a little as the midday sun actually warmed things up a few degrees. anyway, i had a pretty good time tromping around in the woods. i stopped the bike to listen to the wind at this spot. it wasn't an extremely strong wind, but it had quite a voice where i was. it was blowing across the lake and into the pines around me, but it had a percussive quality to it. i wondered, "what's that clanking?" heh... it was ice. see it in the background?

just when you think there's nothing green left in the world...

i stumbled across this bright green moss in the woods on my trail ride today. it was so cool to find something GREEN.

skyviews to the east

a couple of snaps from different times looking at the eastern sky from our house.

when i see the moon in the sky wile it's light out

i always think it looks so lonely without any stars to accompany it.

'sploded deere

had to pull the tracto apart this much to get it fixed today. not a big deal if i'd kept all the skin on my knuckles.

toolmaster o-o-o-of...

roseville? well, my mad skillz aren't being applied at the buckeye creamery and i don't play guitar "like a master,but faster," but I will say i'm doin' ok in the garage. i had to improvise severely on a tool to hold the back of this pulley still (the rest of it is free floating on the shaft) so I could loosen the bolt that held it to the shaft. tada, vise-grips to the rescue! i squeezed a bolt in the pliers and wedged that into one of notches on the fixed plate on the pulley and it held things in place. i just hope it'll work the same for putting it back on.

spooktacular drawing contest

bel organized a spooktacular drawing contest at our house this year. here was my entry. i called it "one smart pumpkin," but i didn't win.

tracy's awesome, van-gogh-esque entry of a fall landscape won instead.

pumpkin rage

during a party @ our house yesterday, people pulled out knives and did horrible things to innocent pumpkins...

wrapped around the axle

figgered out why the deere died a few weeks ago. now just a few hrs of trickle charge away from seein' how easily it can be salvaged.

the sun may set over minneapolis, but...

it rises over st. paul.


i actually had to stop, pull off the road, and grab my camera when i saw this this morning on my ride in. i wanted to wait until i got to a better vantage point, but i knew i was too far away from where i wanted to take the photo.

swing again

bel and i fixed the swing in the back yard. we used to have a 1x8 as the board for the swing, but that broke. we went industrial strength this and used a 2x10.

soccer aftermath

my stats: no goals (technically one for the other team when our goalie bobbled a pass i gave him) 1 assist FOR our team. we lost by 4, but we gave 'em two of those 4. heartrate? we only had 2 subs, so my heartrate was rather "spiked" for a whole lot of the game.

fred's pretty sure

that we created this garden for his enjoyment

tracy said the mower was making a weird noise

i wonder why?

morning shadows

bleary-eyed as i may be on my ride to work, i noticed myself plastered on the side of a warehouse building.

whoops, caught myself taking the picture...

night pics

i just like these shaky night pictures because they capture a sense of motion in a still frame. everything else about their quality kind of sucks, but i can admit that ;-)




here, though, i wish i had a better camera on hand. the moon was a-freakin-mazing this night and seeing it "next to" the radio tower when i pulled into the parking lot of the Y was cool. again, sorry for the substandard pic. this camera does not take expressive landscape pics.