Lake Michigan or the Pacific?

They look quite similar here at this beach in SF. (The temperature however is quite different in comparison in mid January.)

From The Mountains to the Ocean

As Thomas is heading back to school, Camerin will have some time to catch the blog up with the activities of our life. To start things off where we left off a few months ago. . . the thanksgiving backpacking trip. This year we desired to hike in the mountains with full packs and to see snow. Well we found it above 7500 feet, and it was pretty cold around 15-20 degrees.

M-E-R-RY C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S

Wishing everyone a blessed Christmas filled with joy and peace.

We are thinking about all of you today and missing home but enjoying our first married Christmas together in California.

Many lovely gifts were opened and there were lots of surprises. Santa even remembered Marty.

Our good friend Matt will be joining us for a Christmas dinner feast consisting of some new recipes.

-Pistachio-crusted lamb chops

-Cranberry, pomegranate, & meyer lemon relish

-Gorgonzola scalloped potatoes

-Carmelized-apple & pecan pie

Joy to the world, the Lord has come!

Oh Christmas Tree

Saturday November 30th we ventured out in search of the perfect Christmas Tree. Charlie Brown was our inspiration due to the small nature of our appartment. We had hoped to purchase a living tree and plant it somewhere after the holiday, but we were unsuccessful in our search. Instead of the usual fields lined with trees ready to be cut down we found a Christmas Tree Circus Tent in "candy-cane alley".

We found a beautiful Noble Fir standing 4.5 feet tall.


Camerin has been collecting ornaments and trimmings for a few months now at local thrift stores and garage sales. We set out all of her findings and determined that the tree would kindof have a red and white theme. The theme was really realized when we found our star-topper (it glows from some of the lights below).


Although the tree is only 4.5 feet tall we had trouble determining how many lights it would need and ended up having to take a second trip to the store to buy lights.
We also found some great plaid fabric at our local craft store for our tree-skirt.

Marty was also very helpful during the tree trimming process!

SNOW [preview]

Here is a quick glimpse of the snow we experienced in the mountains.

Happy Thanksgiving

We hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving with lots of great food.

We miss you all!

Since we have not experienced true "fall weather" here are a few photos from a past Thanksgiving trip and fall color.

Rotate-create

Thomas has been doing studies attempting to instill play or activity into daily life. Rotate-create (or so it is currently named) is a 4 foot by 4 foot by 16” square that is made up of different block modules. The blocks all share a similar dimension, which allows them to be rotated and reconfigured into a great variety of configurations. “Rotate-create” was originally designed to be a furniture scale toy for children and adults to aid active imaginations.

“Rotate-create” began through a study of the “lego” module.

Above are some images of the painting process.

These are images of the first prototype. The prototype was made of wood (specifically ultra-light MDF). It is intended to be manufactured out of a high-density foam so that it can be easily manipulated by both children and adults and have more of a long-term lifespan.