where I talk with my inside voice
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 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.
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!
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!
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.
We just got back from our loop around the Great Lakes. We drove 1,600 miles, with stops in Mackinac Island, Ottawa, Montreal, and Niagara Falls, among others. We took almost 2,000 photos, some of which are now in my photo album. We saw a lot of stuff and made some great memories. See the video below.
The musical Jesus Christ Superstar is currently touring to celebrate its 50th anniversary and it made a stop at the Fox, so I took the kids to see it. They really liked it, and now I’m hearing the songs coming out of Alexa.
As part of art this year, I signed us all up for a six-week pottery class at Lamplight Studio in Overland. We had a good time learning to throw pots on the wheel as well as hand-building some other creations. The kids had fun and now we have a bunch of candy dishes that need to be filled up with...
Noah ran his first half-marathon today after several weeks of training. He finished in two hours, twenty-two minutes. He was pretty wiped out at the end – tired and hungry. But we’re proud of him for challenging himself and finishing!
Noah completed his last merit badge and has his Eagle Project scheduled for next month, so we are nearing the end of his Scouting career. We went on our last campout this weekend to S-F scout ranch and climbed the Castle Rock formation. The weather was pretty miserable, but we still had a good time. I’m glad I’ve gotten to...
Part of art class this year is a six-week pottery class at Lamplight Studios. After our first class tonight, it appears to be more challenging than we expected, but we’ll see how we do by the end.
Noah has been practicing since he got his permit in April last year, and after more than 40 hours behind the wheel, he passed his test on the first try! Way to go, Noah! We’re proud of you.
Once again, here is our video Christmas card to all of our friends and family.
