A fine holiday season

I crossed paths with a coyote on my way home from work tonight.  I was riding along the dirt road just south of St Mary's Dr near the horse pasture, and he was in the harvested corn field.  Thankfully he didn't think I was dinner and ran off through the snowstorm.  

Have I mentioned that I enjoy living in this small town?  What fun to ride a bike without any cars nearby on a commute!  We had a great time in the Nashville burbs for Christmas but it's nice to be home.  

Lupita and the kids were back from Mexico, and the Beth and Brents came down from MI for the festivities.  So we had a full house(s).  Lots of 5 Crowns and Deer in the Headlights happened.

A highlight was the indoor jumpy house place that allows grownups to jump as well.  Janny climbed up to the biggest slide and came down all by herself!  

The kids put on the 2nd annual Christmas play.  Janny wouldn't say any lines as Gabriel.  Clara played Mary brilliantly.

We paid another visit to Cold Springs water fall near Manchester.  More water was coming down this time.  I decided to not carry Janny on the sketchy walk to the falls, so we threw rocks in the stream.

The kids continue to work on projects for hours at a time.  Other than the gigantic mess that this process leaves all over the floor, it's quite relaxing for us to watch them work.  During the visit to Nashville, Jill and I recalled with shudders how much work it was to care for a 1 year old.  Linda never stopped looking for new things to touch/break.

Queen Clara and Princess Janny hold fort in front of their castle.

In my last post, I mentioned that we were using a bit more gas than last year.  Well, a little more poking around on Ameren's site led to finding MORE DATA!  Also, I realized that my plot was labeled incorrectly last time (oops, I'm quite used to Mathematica now, not google spreadsheets), and my conclusion was wrong.

In fact, we've used less gas than last year.  In fact, the plot below shows that we've been progressively using less gas each year.  Notice the two very large data points from  2011, when we first moved in.  Yikes!  Adding insulation in the ceiling (happened late that winter) and paying attention made quite a difference.

Finally, church league basketball starts this Thursday.  I haven't played at all since, um, hmmm.... I don't remember.  So the first game might be a bit rough.  However, we have some new players this year, including large humans, so maybe it won't be so rough after all.