Working from Home

One of the biggest changes for us with this move is that Drew works from home quite a bit now. He supports field engineers at different locations all around the area....but he doesn't have a dedicated office at any customer site or company location. So, the basement corner is where he spends portions of each day.

This is quite often the view that greets him when he comes upstairs.

They can hear him down there.....and they want to spend time with him...but dark barking is not conducive to conference calls.

A Wordle.

Have you ever played with creating a Wordle? Go to http://www.wordle.net/ and click create. Then feed it a bunch of words or paste a URL of your blog or whatever. It creates a nice picture of the words that are contained in what you post and sizes the words based on frequency.

As an example, below is a link for one for our blog.


And here is an example of Moroni 10 from the Book of Mormon.

CODE RED!!!

So twice now since living here in Virginia we have experience what we like to call Code Red Days. When the weather gets bad the schools close and if it's really bad, or what they think is really bad, a Code Red is called for all the teachers. Meaning they don't have to come to school.

Our First Code Red

The first time this happened was after about 2 inches of snow fell during the day while the kids were in school. School was let out an hour early that day and then simply didn't open the next day. CODE RED! CODE RED! We can't help but snicker after shouting that.... Now, keep in mind the roads were clear that next day when the schools were closed. And by 11:00, there was no snow to see. Even then the sky was blue and clear. Drew ended up taking a half day off and we all went shopping.

CODE RED #2

Today was another CODE RED day. It started to snow last night....then some rain...then everything froze over night. Today could actually be considered a bad day. There was a thick layer of ice on everything. Our black driveway was white with ice. The back roads were still covered in ice and it was thick and frozen enough that the cars didn't break it up. Yet the main roads are just wet.

The kids love CODE RED days since they get a day off from school....and the weather is usually fine compared to Utah standards. Sure enough - by about noon is was all melted and everything was fine. So? Time for another trip.

Megan took off with some friends but the rest of us went out to lunch then to Skyline Caverns.

Not the cheapest caverns around but from the reviews we have read you need to see this one before you go see the larger caverns in Luray.

This thing looks like an eagle...can you see it?

And these crystals, called Anthodites, only exist in two other places in the world, but where discovered at this cave.

So in our house - CODE RED usually means let's go out and have some fun! It's not like the roads will be bad...ha ha ha.

Printers Chest Refinished

Drew's company normally takes the week off between Christmas and New Years. He needed to burn a few extra hours and ended up taking a few extra days prior to Christmas.

One of his projects was to refinish and old printers chest that his parents owned. He stripped it all down. Sanded out the rough spots then stained and finished it again. In the process he found a few odd things. First, while most of it appears to be made out of oak the bottom piece in the front appears to be poplar. Drew was tempted to remove it and replace it with a piece of Oak but decided against it. The back of this never looked very nice. Yet a coat of stain and lacquer did wonders and made it look really nice.

Sanding almost done and ready to be stained again. You can seethe bottom piece and how the grain doesn't come close to matching. Yet to preserve it the way he had it, Drew left this as is.

Only the top drawer has the separate spots for type. The remainder are simply big empty drawers.

Finished project. With dog posing in picture. We might just add a few legs to this. Nothing permanent mind you. What we are thinking is making a small tray with feet and simply rest the chest on top. Just to give it a bit more height.

This is a Hamilton Printer's Chest. Original hardware on the handles.

Ben's Chili and Norman Rockwell

So for the Christmas break our little Christina has been a bit sick. Yet the other day we decided to test out her stamina and run to DC for a quick trip. We started off a little late so we ended up eating lunch first. Over thanksgiving we saw something on the Food Network about Ben's Chili and decided to try it out. We actually missed the real Ben's Chili experience and ended up next door at Ben's Next Door. Same food, yet you get to sit down and relax...which is what Christina needed.

And their chili cheese fries were pretty good as well.

After lunch we jumped back on the metro and ran over to the Smithsonian American Art Museum for the Norman Rockwell exhibit which goes away January 2, 2011.

The museum is a large square building with a center courtyard. A few years ago they built a covering for the courtyard. This is actually where we spent about 30 minutes waiting in line just to get into the exhibit.

We couldn't take pictures inside of the artwork.....but here a few we gathered from the internet so you can see what we saw.

Afterwards we jumped back on the metro and headed home. Christina didn't make it very far before she was out cold.

The on the way home we stopped at one of our favorite yogurt places called Pinkberry. It's a nice replacement for our Utah yogurt stop SpoonMe that we miss.

Neat Discovery

So we have an old family bible that we have restored. We've kept each and everything in the bible in the same place where we found it. For example, there are pressed flowers, a peacock feather, a piece of paper for a latin lesson. We also had a calling card from John R. Becker.

We have no idea who John R. Becker is. We know of no relative named John R. Becker. Yet we know that for some reason Llewellyn Z. Gehret (Drew's Great Grandfather) kept this card. It has always seemed like a plain and ordinary thing to keep until....

...the other day Megan took the card out of the bible. The light caught it just right and she noticed a slight image was in the card and flipped. She raised the card to the light and found this hidden in the middle of the card:

So we see a man standing on the shore. One hand on his head and the other pointing to his hat floating away down the river. The phrase "Shall we meet beyond the river". And also rather strange a Copyright of K.

So now we are overly curious about these little cards. We've only see one other sample on the internet and they were called "Comic Cards" or at least we think they are. The card is placed back in the bible right where we found it, right between the 9th and 10th chapters of Exodus.

Thanksgiving 2010

So here is the short version. Over 1000 miles in five days. Lots of turkey. Lots of fun with family....and let's not forget 2010 Pie Fest!

So this year for Thanksgiving Drew's brother Ray and his wife Mary invited us up to their place in Ohio for the weekend. We left Wednesday and drove the scenic route from Virginia over to Ohio via 28/55 then 32 up to Lancaster.

Being recently settled in Virginia we haven't found any dog babysitters yet. We did find a group of nuns that offer a sitting service just a few miles from our place, yet they were closed for Thanksgiving. So....for this trip, the dogs came with us. But never again!!!

Let's just say...they don't travel well. Well okay...the one pictured above does....the younger one does not!

Thanksgiving was great! Apparently so great we forgot to take any pictures of the spread. Yet soon after dinner we prepared for Pie Fest 2010! What is pie fest you ask? Well it's 9 pies and 1 torte for about 20 people or so.

The introduction of the torte was discussed at length. For example, what else will be allowed if we allow a torte to mingle with the pies? Is torte French for pie? Does the torte feel bad after being made fun of by all the pies?

Pictured above is the ShooFly Pie, Grandpa Schmidt's favorite and the Apple, one of Grandma Schmidt's specialties. The Torte is shown as well.

The following day was cold and windy yet we braved the cold and looked at a few of the local covered bridges. Um, Virginia is much warmer than Ohio for Thanksgiving. Still is--December 1st it was 61.

There was also one musical park right near one covered bridge. Fun but freezing cold!

The dogs quickly learned to sweet talk the correct people. Especially when treats were involved.

Mary's Sister owns a Candy Store. Isn't that every kids dream? So on Saturday we ran over there and the kids were able to grab some treats for themselves.

Then Saturday afternoon we said our goodbyes and traveled over to Maineville Ohio to see Cheri's brother Brandon and his wife. We actually went out of our way and stopped at the Heart of Ohio Antique Center. This place was HUGE! We spent probably an hour there and didn't even make it through the whole place. Yet we were able to pick up a few items for Christmas and ourselves!

When we got to Maineville, Brandon and Prisicla were so kind to take us out for some excellent Sushi! Jess and Christina had a hard time leaving Uncle Brandon because—sorry other uncles—but Brandon is still the funnest uncle. Perhaps it's because he sat on the floor and played with Harry Potter Legos with them...Brandon, keep in touch!

British pub food in Virginia

Megan now has a job and busy most Saturdays. And this past Saturday was no different. Combine this with the two youngest going off to a birthday party, this gave the parents some time to go have fun on their own.

We ended up driving almost 90 miles and making a large loop from our house, north, west, out into Aldie, through Middleburg and on to Upperville. Yet this post is about the Hunter's Head Tavern located in Upperville.

You ordered food at a little window next to the bar. You were then handed a wooden spoon with a number on it. You placed this in the wine bottle on your table so they knew where to bring the order.

Even though it was almost 2:00 in the afternoon the place was still very busy. The food was very standard British Pub Food.

They actually had two menus to choose from. Yet both of us ordered the fish and chips.

And Cheri got some hot chocolate. The crumbs on the plate came from some nice warm bread that was served on the pewter plate.

The fire place was fake....but the food, atmosphere and decorations were spot on.

There was even an Aston Martin sitting in the parking lot.