where I talk with my inside voice
We just got back from our 12-day roadtrip out west – with overnight stops in Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, Bryce Canyon and Flagstaff. We drove over 2,000 miles, ate some great food, and made some great memories. Some photos from the trip are available in my album, and check out the short video below.
I’m typically in charge of cultural education in our little homeschool, and this week was no exception. I took the kids first to see Moulin Rouge at the Fabulous Fox (great music! maybe even better than the original movie soundtrack) and they both really liked it. Then last night we went to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra to see them...
Noah bought his first car today. It’s a 2014 Mazda 6 with about 100,000 miles on it. It suffered some damage from a recent hailstorm, but that brought it within his budget, so he’s pretty happy with his new purchase. We’re glad that he’ll have some reliable transportation back and forth to Mizzou.
We drove down to Jackson, MO, to witness our second total solar eclipse, and it did not disappoint. I think we all agreed we liked this one better than the one in 2017. Not only did it last longer, but the shadow was darker and the colors were even more surreal. Plus, we got to see some looping prominences that...
As a birthday surprise for Josie this year, I’ve been working on my first MOC (in Lego lingo that’s My Own Creation). It’s a Lego model that I designed in Studio (what used to be called Lego Designer many years ago) and then ordered the parts to build it. It took a lot more time than I was expecting, but...
Edna, this is your tent! The flights and hotels are booked and now we are just looking forward to another (and perhaps the last) Pipes family roadtrip. This time to the desert southwest, including the Grand Canyon and a few National Parks. Noah is headed off to college in the fall and it may not be possible to get us...
We took advantage of the nice weather today and went to the Minifig Shop, had lunch at Dewey’s Pizza, and then spent the afternoon at the zoo. I’m not going to have too many more opportunities like this. Have to grab them while I can.
Dixie bought this heated birdbath a few years ago, so the birds would have a place in the winter to drink and bathe. This was our first visit by Missouri’s state bird.
This was a crazy busy year, but maybe I feel that way every year. Noah and Josie had big milestones this year, and we went on two family road trips. I tried to capture the highlights in our annual video above.
The SLSO is temporarily performing out of the Stifel Theater downtown while Powell Hall is being renovated, but we maintained our annual tradition to see their Christmas Concert. This year included a couple of notable pieces – Charleston Christmas (Stephenson) and Tom Lehrer’s Hannukah in Santa Monica!
Josie took the written test today and passed on her first try! Time to start practicing and logging her 40 hours behind the wheel. I’m proud of my little girl.
As per usual, we hosted the family for Thanksgiving, although the crowd wasn’t as big as some years because Laura didn’t come in town, we still had a good time and plenty of Dixie’s great food!
Well, it’s not exactly new. It’s been my workshop since we moved into this house in 2006, but for the last three years (since we sold the house in Illinois), it’s been so full of junk that I couldn’t even walk in there. So I’ve spent the last couple of months cleaning it up, selling stuff on Craigslist, dumping stuff...
I was happy to see that the kids enjoyed last year’s homecoming enough to repeat the experience this year. They had more of their friends attend this year, so they really had fun. I guess next year we’ll be going to Mizzou’s homecoming. I’m looking forward to that.
Tonight we celebrated Noah earning the rank of Eagle Scout, and (since he’ll age out next week) his entire Scouting career with the retrospective video below. We rented the lodge at Beaumont and had quite a few guests attend, many of whom had great things to say about our young man. Needless to say, we’re very proud of him.
We took the kids to Memphis for a long weekend and stayed right down on Beale Street. It was a nice little getaway and we saw some cool stuff and ate some great food. Photos are now up in my album and check out the video below.
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