December 2025

It's cold out there!  The weather was dropping and we were feeling the winter blues, all bundled up, here in West Virginia.

It made for spooky, winter moonscapes.

And time for snuggles.

and yummy soup.

But we were feeling COLD!!!

To add to our blah feelings was the fact that Robert was scheduled for a surgery for his shoulder mid-December.  Facing a whole 2 months all shut in to the house seemed a little miserable.   That surgery was going to be in Georgia, so we were facing a 10 hour drive for the surgery and a 10 hour drive back home.  UGH.

So, we decided that we were tired of living in a house

So we packed our backs with sweaters and socks, 

and dogs and a lizard and decided to drive to Georgia!

We made our way to our old stomping grounds in Georgia and 

decided to live in a hotel.

We visited our old Sims park, 

and took walks with the dogs

We visited old restaurants that made us smile at the memories they brought back

and even drove past our old house,

Remembering all our experiences in that beautiful house, and lamenting the trees the new owners stupidly chopped down.

Robert got his shoulder worked on and when he was good and bandaged up, we decided that 

We were tired of living in a hotel.

So we packed our bags with hotel soaps and leaves of gold and brown.

and decided to drive to Florida!

For our homeschool science, we found this awesome bridge-building book that teaches the boys how to make supports for different types of bridges, all set in different challenges.

 

December

Lego-Robotics 4-H Stem, FIRST State Championships.

Lego FORCE group.

Lunch break.

The Lego-Robotics competition has four different parts that is judge on.  The first, and most visible part of the competition is the actual movement of the robotics on the battle mat.  The second part of the judgement is determined by the actual design of the robot that they made.  The third section is the presentation of the boy's invention regarding the theme that was given at the beginning of the year.  Their invention was a type of invisible fence that could protect artifacts in archeological digs.  This 'invention' had to be researched and carefully designed as a group.  The last part of the competition is an oral presentation of their idea before the judges.  Those scores are kept to the judges, so when we got to the end of the night, we were pretty sure that the boys didn't win due to their robot competition points.  They had scored above average, but not high enough to win.

Imagine our surprise when the boys won second place.  Apparently, after all the other scores were added together, they had pulled their score to nearly the top.  Apparently, they had knocked their presentation out of the park.  To make things even more exciting, the girls team in our same group won first place.

So, this summer we will be taking a trip to Boston to watch the boys compete in a world competition.  Jason is so excited, and we are so excited for him.

Celebration ice-cream.  (This might qualify as the most heart-stopping ice-cream ever made.)

 

December 3rd, 2025

Happy Birthday to This Guy!

Robert turned 50 this year!  Oh, my, my.  So very, old, Bobby.  Well, I was starting to feel a little lonely on this side of the hill, so I was glad that Robert finally made it over the hump, and we can tumble down the hill together.

He looks pretty awesome for 50!  It must be the lighting (Robert was, in fact, not pleased, that I put all 50 candles on the cake.)

We went to our asian all-you-can-eat for dinner.

And the boys gave Robert a giant, candy poster to celebrate their favorite dad.