Aren't we a beautiful family?

Some parenting tips . . .

Here are a few helpful parenting tips we came across . . . (click on the picture for a larger version)

Pup tent

Well, I've been hearing from a couple friends that they'd like to see pictures of Spartacus in his tent. I have the distinct feeling they are asking this so that they can tease me even more, but I'll oblige anyway . . . =)

He's actually been sleeping in the tent every night for the past couple of weeks (Greg and I have been amping up our running to get ready . . . and the dog gets to practice sleeping . . . something is not quite fair) but the only picture I have of him in the tent is with our friend Alathea who had some fun playing in it the other night. Greg's hand is in there holding Sparty's collar, that was just so that we could actually get Alathea in the picture =)

She's laughing, not crying, I promise!

When geeks say I do

What happens when 2 math majors get married? Well, I could make a pretty good sized list by this point (gas mileage is calculated "just for fun", items are hung on the wall in very symmetrical patterns, we create formulas in excel for pretty much anything, and it goes on). Our latest addition to the list is the Rubik's Cube. Greg got one for Christmas and his record so far is 2 minutes, 50 seconds. It's really too bad that we're not going to Rekindle this year, because it could so be his talent. Sunday night, in true geek fashion, we got all cozy on the couch and Greg talked me through solving it. I'm still awfully slow . . . but I'm a geek . . . I'll get faster!

Results . . .

Last night was the actual competition for our gingerbread houses . . . the competition was fierce. We were up against 5 other houses that were very well made and decorated. A lighthouse, a castle, a house complete with swing set and garage, a skyscraper and a Who-ville house.

For before pictures, check out Greg's post below.

The movie of our blow up is kind of fuzzy, I was filming on my little digital camera. But Kiernan was filming on his much nicer video camera, so hopefully we'll get some of that footage eventually.


And here's what it looked like afterwards . . .














Thanks to everyone on our team that put in so many hours (during finals no less!) to build the pagoda and assure that the blow up would be dramatic!! (Kiernan, Rachel, Jonathan, Rannon and Jessica especially . . . thanks!)

Gingerbread House

Yes, this is actually Greg posting...maybe this will be an annual event that everyone can look forward to.

In Mission 28, we're doing a Gingerbread house construction and demolition competition. In another week or two we'll post the video of it blowing up.

With Kiernan and I leading the way with our nerdiness, we designed a very mathematically beautiful...thing. I called it a Ziggarmydagoda. To the response of many rolling eyes, Kiernan brought in his scroll saw to make precision cuts on our graham crackers.



Thankfully God made girls with some creativity, because there was no way this thing was going to win any kind of cosmetic competition. They decided to turn it into just a pagoda (Buddha included) and it turned out very nice!






Oh...and Greg <3 Spartacus!

Yankee Test

Greg and I took the Yankee test. Greg confirmed that he is truly a yank and I confirmed that I am his southern girl =)

Take the test here.

Just for kicks and giggles

We're coming up on year number 1 (yay!) and I'm realizing what a poor job I've done keeping our friends and family who are out of town updated on what's going on in Ross-land. Mostly because people have told me "you are doing a poor job keeping us updated." We shall see if this will work (as in, will I remember to post). There may not be many posts because, hey, stories about vacuuming are not all that interesting.

Pictures are always great though and here's a fun one to start it off . . .

This is from our wedding (we don't normally dress like that, but I thought I'd clarify just in case), our first dance to be exact. It's my favorite picture from my most favorite day of my life.