Latest Family News
Fall 2007
Christiaan began high school this year. He started out with marching band camp in the summer (he plays mallets in the pit) and is playing bassoon in Symphonic Band (made it into All State Jr. High Band by audition last weekend). He started learning guitar with us, but will begin lessons with a grad student after Christmas. Jane was trained classically. He wants to play rock guitar (what high school boy doesn't). Jane doesn't want him learning my self-taught bad habits. He listens to a lot of the music Jay and I listened to in Pittsville, including Hendrix and the Who. I always know where to find my CD's if they're missing....ha....ha! Oh yes, and he is about 5' 11" now.
Tori started her junior year (senior in credits earned, but will actually take an extra year to graduate because she can only take some English Honor courses during the semesters). She will write two Honors theses, one her senior year in Welsh music, then the other in her super senior year in Welsh Literature for her English degree. When she graduates, she'll have 251 credits (not counting many zero credit courses as a music major)! She won the Dept. of Music Concerto Competition recently and will perform the Mozart Bassoon Concerto in May. She performed two Opera sketches to round-out her voice minor. She is so crazy sometimes. She was in 7 ensembles (Principal in the Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, Contrabasssoon in Wind Ensemble, Woodwind Quintet, baroque bassoon in Collegium, and sang in University Singers and Opera Workshop). Then she wondered why she had no life! Spring semester won't be as hectic in school. She just started a job as a book cataloguer at Oak Knoll Book Publishing in Olde New Castle. She gets to visit her grandparents sometimes when she's over there.
Southwest Summer 07
We had an awesome trip to the SouthWest in the Summer of 2007. Jane planned a great trip. We visited Valley of Fire SP in Nevada after a "long" night in Las Vegas. We continued on to Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef (follow the link to the park site, we traveled the back-country roads pictured at the top), Arches, Canyonlands (pictures do not do it justice), and Hovenweep National Parks in Utah the first week. After a respite in Durango, we visited Mesa Verde and Four Corners before heading into New Mexico for Aztec Ruins NP and Chaco Culture NP. I thought Chaco Culture was amazing ... you just get this lump in your throat thinking about it. Into Arizona we visited the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest NP. We picked-up Route 66 for a bit on the way to Sunset Crater, Wupatki, and Grand Canyon NP.
After a couple of days at Grand Canyon NP, we picked-up Route 66 again and visited Holbrook to Oatman and all places in between. We decided to scrap going to Las Vegas as early as planned (we hate Las Vegas!). Also, they are building a new bridge and road to bypass the Hoover Dam, and we were hearing about lengthy backups and one hour waits to even get over the bridge. The kids decided that Hoover Dam was lame and we'd been there already on a past trip....so we headed to Death Valley via Pleasant Valley and a lot of back roads.
Yes, we were crazy, but it was an experience! We were at Badwater (lowest point in the U. S., 282 ft. below sea level) on a day they broke temperature records. It was 138 degrees! Christiaan said he now knows what it feels like to be "cooked alive". At 9:00 PM, it was still 122 degrees. Despite cooling our bodies off in the pool, our heads were still burning. It was a very weird feeling! Tori loved this trip. She got to visit so many ancient Native American sites and see a plethura of petroglyphs (remember that one of her minors is Anthropolgy). We ended the trip with an evening in Las Vegas. We did the "Star Trek Experience" . We all had a great time. Chritiaan noted that the bathrooms on that level were decorated in a Star Trek theme. He said the toilet spoke to him when he walked up to it. We did a lot of off road driving on this trip for the first time ever. We drove down some switchbacks that nearly gave me a heart attack despite the fact Jane was only driving 10 miles an hour. On one of the roads, we had to drive over boulders. I said there wasn't any way we could do it, but the kids said, "Oh, dad, we can do it!" Again, Jane was the one who rolled over the boulders in a rental SUV (I kept thinking about that waiver I had signed and the fact that we didn't have cell phone service). We did our first white water raft ride on the Colorado River in Cataract Canyon near Moab. The kids want to do a rougher ride when we visit here again. We did a lot of hiking in some really hot temperatures but had a fantastic time. "It's a dry heat!" It is beautiful country. We plan on visiting this area again.