Tahoe vs. Escalade

I crashed my tahoe into an escalade yesterday.  :(

Two box turtles hoping I would leave

I saw these two colorful box turtles today near the lake.  They obviously did not want to be disturbed.

Last Year with ChithoniC

Here we are with the heavy metal group ChithoniC taken last year before a concert in Northern Virginia.  I just ran across the picture and thought I would share it.

Easter 2009

The Easter Bunny made a stop at our house for Easter.

Over the weekend, we went to Doris and Charles house and enjoyed the annual Easter Brunch and egg hunt. See and click the pictures on the right side of the page.

Or you can visit this link:


http://picasaweb.google.com/mytwinsfather/Easter2009

My Neighbors House and New Garage

This is our neighbors house and their new garage by morton. You can park three school buses in there and still have room to set up a new home!

First Game of the Season 2 to 1

The girls score their first win of the season.

Reading the Comics on Soccer Saturday

The girls enjoying some quiet time before their first game.

International Space Station Over Fairfax Station

Here is a picture of the Space Station over Fairfax Station this evening at 8:52pm. The big dipper is also visible just over the trees. You will need to click on the picture to see all off the detail. The picture was a 60 second exposure with my Panasonic Lumix TZ5 Digital Camera at 28mm zoom setting.

Time To Go Bowling

Last Saturday I took the girls out bowling so I could practice a little...it's only been 8-10 years! They did very well even considering the bumpers. Here are some pictures showing their stylish shoes and their favorite leave of the day, the 7-10 split. I started out slow with a 155 but ended the second game with a 259. I just recovered from the aches and pains. Time to go bowling again!

Ski Trip to Wintergreen

Here we are at Wintergreen. This was the first ski trip for the girls. We took about a 2 hour class and then off to the slopes! The girls did well but my wife couldn't get it. She hurt more from falling down than skiing. Next time we will probobly try Massanutten Resort.

Happy New year

Today, I got my 4th deer, a button buck. My cousin got one yesterday the same size and at the same hunting spot up by our house. I have enough now to last us until next year. What a nice hunting season it's been.

Saturday my cousin will come back out to hunt squirrels. My wife said she would try it but I expect most of them we'll just give to my cousin.

More about our ski trip to Wintergreen Ski Resort later.

Also a note to our friends in other countries that might have found these hunting pictures offensive... hunting in our country is part of our heritage. We eat what we hunt and take no more. It's far more humane to hunt compared to what is done to cattle at the slaughter house. I was raised a hunter as was my father and his father before him. Some people are against hunting and that's their decision. I hope they enjoy being vegitarians as much as I enjoy being an omnivore. This is part of our life here in Virginia and that's what this blog site is about.

Bagged and Tagged Two Doe This Morning

This morning I bagged two doe. Just down the hill from our house. I got a late start this morning and got into the woods around 7:30am. About 30 minutes later I saw two of them come down from Buddy's place. I decided to take the 2nd deer first as it was an easier shot. The other deer just stood there with it's tail up looking a bit confused. When a shot opened up I took that one too. This morning makes up for many days of bad shots and missed deer so far. These bring my total to 3 so far this year...and I have a week to go! I plan to have one made into stew/stir fry meat and the other one ground into burger. Today the temp reached 60 degrees and tomorrow it's going to be in the 70's. I'll need to take the deer to the processor tonight.

My cousin plans to come out at least once or twice next week to hunt deer or squirrels. There are a hundred squirrels in the woods within an easy shot of the house. They are having a tough time this year as apparently the acorns are not as plentiful. They need to be thinned out a bit or many are going to just starve to death, especially if the winter turns really bad.

We plan to get some skiing in hopefully next week. The warm weekend I'm sure won't help things up on the mountain. More later.

Christmas Time in Washington, DC

Today our family took our annual trip to DC at Christmas time to show the kids some new sites as well as show my niece, Judy, what goes on in this area at Christmas time.

We started out our journey at Union Station to get ticketing information and to see the Christmas displays. Once the kids had their McDonald's fix, we ventured through the mall and shops. We were lucky enough to run into our President Elect Obama (pictured on the left). He is a busy man and didn't have time to chat with us. My wife invited him to dinner one night once things settle down a little for him and his family.

We then left Union Station to visit the National Christmas tree on the mall. It was cold and windy and thank god for the Yule Log! The kids made their donations tossing pennies onto the train cars as they passed. Everyone posed for me so I could take their picture in front of the huge tree.

After we all froze our fingers and toes off, we headed off to China town to show our niece where to catch a bus for New York. We also had dinner at a Chinese restaurant which my wife had been waiting to go to for some time. For me, the food was OK. I like her cooking better and I don't have to worry about Cabbage being in everything!!!

After our meals, we headed home. Everyone was pretty tired. Especially me as I had to get up at 4am to go to the office for a few hours.

Daddy Bags a Deer!

Today I finally bagged our first deer, 14 days into the season. One of my daughters shown here wanted to go hunting with me. After 2 days of hunting with my niece and nothing to show, I said ok let's go. Never expected that 30 minutes into our hike, we would jump two deer and be able to get a shot off at this 90 lb doe (dressed). My friend who lives next door had just come over with his air compressor to fix a flat tire on my truck. He decided to drive to the site and pick up the deer for us! What luck! Didn't have to drag it over steep terrain. All of us were pretty excited especially me as this was one of my 8yr olds first hunt with me and she was able to experience the hunt and 15 minutes of excitement waiting for a shot to come. We're going to try a local meat processor and have this made into ground deer/pork. More later.

Halloween Has Come and Gone

Finally Halloween is over! My sister and I took the girls and their cousin Judy out for Trick-or-Treating. This was Judy's first time. They do not have Halloween in Taiwan and so this was a most unusual "Holiday" for her.

Everyone had a good time including the "adults" who got hot chocolate and butterscotch schnapps at a neighbor's house. That really took the chill off...at least before it was gone!

The kids got a lot of candy which I'm sure will last them until at least Christmas!!!!