All Hallows' Even

Hot off the presses, here are pictures from our Halloween night.

The kids in front of their jack-o-lanterns.

Tori dressed as Raggedy Ann.

Sitting on the front step, waiting for the sun to set.

Distracted by a ladybug. Tori was apparently excited.

Our two pirates.

The pumpkins aglow.

How do ya like them apples?

This past weekend we were again off doing our favorite thing--exploring. Of course, being zoo nuts who immediately join the local zoo association wherever we live, we joined the Indianapolis Zoo on Saturday. This is the sixth zoo association we've joined since 2000, and I would rank it tied for second with the National Zoo in DC, behind San Diego and ahead of Phoenix, Philadelphia and San Antonio. Yes, I know I am an adult, but I can still spend the day at the zoo, mesmerized by the animals.

I think Tori has now joined the rest of the Kewish family in the 'mesmerized by the animals' stage. Here she is staring at the polar bears.


She was so engrossed, that it took me about a dozen loud "Tori! Look at the CAMERA!" shouts to get her to turn her head. It's subtle with her, but this is her half-second 'I'm going to look at you just to satisfy you, Dad' courtesy smile. I was amazed I captured it.

The boys also enjoyed the zoo. Especially the shark petting tank. A shark isn't the first animal I would pick for a petting tank, but I guess maybe that's the point? No fear--these are smooth dog sharks, and very docile. Joey couldn't get enough, as evidenced by his crazy excited face.

Another thing we did this weekend was go to Stuckey Farm to pick apples. They grow 27 varieties of apples and lots of other stuff there and have amazing apple cider. We decided to pick three different varieties of apples ourselves.

The apples on the left are Honeycrisps. A cross between a Macoun and a Honeygold, they are smaller and very good--perfect for the kids lunches--and usually pretty expensive at the store. I think Tori blew through a few of these walking around the orchard, core, seeds, and all.

The apples in the middle are my favorite--Mutsus. A cross between an Indo and a Golden Delicious, these are big and crisp and a perfect blend of sweet and tart. They are gigantic. After Tori blew through a few Honeycrisps, she picked up a Mutsu and ate on it for like 30 minutes--and still only got 2/3 of the way through it.

The apples on the right are more well-known Jonagolds. A cross between a Jonathan and a Golden Delicious, we picked these for apple crisp and apple pies. If you have recipes, send them Liz's way because, as the picture attests, she is a little overwhelmed. We ended up with about 24 pounds of apples, all told. All of the U-pick apples are 62 cents per pound--a steal for what we picked.

One last random picture of Tori from the other morning. She is still in exploration mode around the house, as there are many new nooks and crannies for her to occupy. This morning she sat under the kitchen desk with her crazy bedhead and mewed like a cat for 10 minutes.


BONUS PICTURE
Just thought I'd throw this one in for fun. Anyone who likes either sailing or the Bay Area should appreciate this stunning shot:

Pumpkin Soup

Yesterday was kind of a long day. Nothing that I would necessarily complain about, but a busy morning in the office followed by a trip to a neighboring city for a lunch meeting and to try to get a church to sell me their excess land.


Luckily, when I got home I found a warm house full of happy kids and a beautiful wife putting the finishing touches on some pumpkin soup. The boys were excited about having pumpkin soup...until they tasted it. I guess pumpkin soup is somewhat of an acquired taste? Then again, Tori scarfed two bowls of it and kept asking for more. Doesn't it look good?

That's it, that's my house, I live there.

We have been in our house for just over a week and are slowly getting everything put in place. I am lucky to have Liz who is such a great manager of our home. We are loving it here so far and enjoying the great fall weather. We are still without TV, which was annoying until I realized I was spared watching the BYU game last night. We just got internet service but haven't set up the office downstairs yet. However, we do have a camera now, so we are back being able to take pictures, as you'll see below.

This past weekend we had fun exploring our new area and spent part of Saturday at a farm with a corn maze, pumpkin patch, hay ride, etc. We'll post the pictures soon. After church on Sunday we went to Eagle Creek reservoir to explore (below). Charles started school and "likes everything more than his old school." Joey spends lots of time in the backyard, in the basement, and watching movies. Tori just follows everyone around and NEVER STOPS TALKING. We still miss our friends from San Antonio, but we're looking forward to living here for a while. Here are a few pictures of our house. Oh, and 5 bonus points for whomever can place the title of the post.

Our house from space: Tori in the front of the house.
Shot from the sidewalk.
Tori posing again on our front step.
The boys playing in the backyard. Here are some pictures from our fall foliage Sunday drive to Eagle Creek.





Can anyone name these two species?

And they're off!

Some of you may already know that I am a sailing nut and follow a few things in the sailing world religiously. One of these things is the Volvo Ocean Race (formerly the Whitbread 'Round the World Race). I've posted previously about this 10-leg race around the world that just started in the Spanish Med city of Alicante and will end next June in St. Petersburg, Russia.

This first leg takes them from Alicante to Cape Town, South Africa, except rather than going out the Med and down the African coast, they have to sail around Fernando de Noronha, which is an archipelago off the Brazilian coast! That means that to get through the 'scoring gate' they have to sail through the Doldrums, the infamous zone of dead air that can park sailboats for days at a time. Back before boats had motors, satellite phones, freeze-dried food, and fresh-water making capabilities, the Doldrums struck fear in the hearts of the world's mariners. Luckily for these guys, it's now just a matter of trying to get through them the fastest.

But the race is spectacular. The Volvo 70's are marvels of technology, with canting keels, twin daggerboards, and radical power to weight ratios. They are built to fly and most people expect the 24-hour monohull record to be broken more than once during this race. On Saturday, the boats blasted out of Alicante at over 20 knots and have been going flat out, 24-hours a day, since the start (and will do so until they arrive in Cape Town around November 3-4).

This edition of the race features some unorthodox leg finishes in places like Singapore, China and India and omits some of the traditional stops in places like Australia and New Zealand. It really is an amazing event and the latest technology on the website gives anyone the ability to follow it with stunning detail (check out the 3-D raceviewer).

I am rooting for the Puma team with American skipper, Ken Read. Their boat, il Monstro, has been doing well so far in the leg, battling it out with Ericsson 4, another of the pre-race favorites. The race is so close between these two that they actually engaged in a gybing duel in the middle of the night last night as they passed the Canary Islands to leeward--like they were in an inshore match race or something--after already sailing almost 1,000 nm. A new feature this year is the ability for a boat to go into "stealth" mode, effectively hiding themselves from the fleet for 12 hours by shutting off all their satellite and GPS data. The Green Dragon team, a bit of an underdog who has been holding her own so far this leg, just pushed the stealth button last night. It will be interesting to see where she pops up in 12 hours...

Okay--enough indulgence for now. I'll end this post with a beautiful shot of il Monstro blasting at 20+ knots shortly after the start. Isn't she beautiful?

Temple in Philly!

At the most recent LDS General Conference, the Church announced that a Temple would be built in Philadelphia. Temples are an integral part of LDS worship and having one built is a great blessing for the people of the area. Having lived in Philadelphia while we were at Wharton, we have an enduring connection with the city and were thrilled to hear the news. Most surprising to me is that the temple will be built just around the corner from where we lived in Center City on a fairly recently purchased site, rather than in the suburbs where there are more church members and where land would ostensibly have been cheaper.

Here is a map of the site, looking east toward the Delaware River.


And another from the site looking toward Center City and Penn in the distance across the Schuylkill (you can even see dear old Huntsman Hall!)

We've arrived (but not our stuff...)

Our apologies for the lack of posts lately. As some of you may know, we are in the middle of a transition between cities--moving from San Antonio to Indianapolis. I started a new job at Buckingham about six weeks ago and we finally made the move this past weekend.

While our stuff is somewhere between Texas and here (we hope), we actually rolled into town late last night. It was an easy and largely uneventful trip across much of our great nation. We got away from San Antonio a little late on Saturday but still managed to make it all the way to Little Rock, including a stop to visit our good friends the Stanworths in Dallas. It's so nice to have friends where, no matter how much time passes, you always feel comfortable. We wish we could live closer to them sometime.

We spent the night in Arkansas (State motto: No shirt, no shoes, no problem!) and had to compete for breakfast with a very messy-haired soccer team. It was strange fighting over powdered eggs with a bunch of Zac Efron clones, but we managed. The second day we made a quick detour into Memphis to see one of my old projects and then worked our way up the Mississippi river valley, across Illinois, and into the Circle City.

This morning we took the kids over to our new house and they were very excited. The new house earned an assessment of "great" from each of the boys, and they have already picked out their rooms. Tori has already discovered the ubiqitous Canadian Geese that inhabit our neighborhood and swim in the ponds behind and across from our house. When she first saw them today on the pond, she yelled "HEY CHICKENS...BAWK BAWK BAWK BAWK". . . close enough.

We are staying in my corporate apartment for now and are hoping we hear from the moving company sometime soon. But we are here, together again. We still have a bunch to do to get settled, and will catch up on our posts later, but are doing great and excited about this next chapter in the Midwest.