Let's Review Part 2: Christmas

Christmas Eve we took a break from our unpacking to spend the evening with my extended family opening presents to and from my Grandma Sears and eating pizza and junk food. We had a really great time. On our way home that night, we needed to stop at my mom's house to pick up some of the stocking stuffers we had left there. We could see that the roads were already starting to drift over a bit, and the thought crossed my mind that maybe we should spend the night at my mom's house. I brushed aside that notion, and we went home.

I must say, I love Christmas. I love it even more after this year when the, "You'd better go to sleep or Santa won't be able to come," threat worked so perfectly. There was not even one peep from the kids that night. In the morning, the kids looked in their stockings and played with the toys from Santa while we waited for word from Mom and Sherwin about if we could get through the roads to their house for breakfast and presents. The news wasn't good. All the roads to my mom's house were completely closed, and there was little hope that the snow plow drivers would want to take time away from their own families on Christmas morning to clear the roads. Eventually, one of their neighbors shoveled out a corner, and Sherwin was able to get through in his truck to pick us up. We packed an overnight bag for our family, anticipating the possibility that we would have to stay the night.

Christmas breakfast was great, and soon we were opening presents. The kids had a great time. Hyrum is just the right age to really enjoy it. Among their mountain of presents were dishes (which go perfectly with the kitchen Emily got for her birthday), Legos, a race track, walkie-talkies, and a fridge toy to help Emily learn letter sounds and help Hyrum spell 3 letter words. Hyrum is now a spelling pro, and Emily knows nearly all her letters. Mike got me a NintendoDS Lite, and I got Mike a computerized telescope. The snow continued to come, so we spent the day playing with the kids' new toys. After they went to bed, we adults played board games.

The morning brought visitors in the form of stranded drivers on their way to work. Someone who was obviously mentally unbalanced had told them that the best way to town was through those country roads. The driver called a cab, which of course, couldn't get through the snow. However, they were able to get out with a truck, and soon the plows came through to clear the roads. Mom was able to get to work, and Mike and I were able to return home to our lonely cat.

I was able to play with my DS right away, but Mike has had some trouble with his telescope. It has been too cold, windy, and cloudy to use it much since Christmas even though he has taken it out nearly every night. He hasn't been able to train the drive or set it to the alignment stars yet. The telescope has an on board computer that will search out stars, planets, and galaxies for you once it is aligned correctly. It has just been entirely too cold to stand to be outside for that long, and the lenses freeze and fog if we're out too long. However, we did get one video (there's also a camera that fits into the lens drop in) of the moon a couple nights ago when we had a clear night. It's not super great. The best part to view through the lens without the camera is the line between the dark and light side where the shadows define the craters well. However, the camera went out of focus and began shaking at this point in the video. Mike tried to adjust the focus as we filmed, but that only made it worse. There was also junk on the lens. Probably fuzz that fell off our gloves as we switched to different magnification lenses and the camera. It looks so much better through the telescope than through the camera. Mike added music to cover our geeky sounding voices the camera had picked up while we filmed. By the way, the camera/telescope isn't panning. That's just how quickly the moon moves in magnification. When the on board computer is turned on, it'll track objects across the sky gradually so that they won't move out of the viewer.

Ta da! Ok, not the best video... We'll take better pictures and videos when it gets warmer. Maybe we'll post a picture or video of one of the planets. The telescope can supposedly see Jupiter at about the size of a dime.