Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

This was the first Pittsburgh Steelers game that I have ever attended in Pittsburgh.  While living in the Puget Sound area, Jesse and I went to a Steelers game in Seattle.  It was amazing how many Terrible Towels flew in Seattle. One other time, I went on a bus trip with my dad's side of the family to Baltimore.  I think we all have fond memories of that trip. Dad asked us several months ago if we would be interested in a Steelers game.  It was at 1 o'clock in the afternoon in December.  I thought, "December?  Won't that be really cold?  Oh well, at least it's in the afternoon and the sun might warm us up."  Sure, I'll go!  Brady and Jesse signed up to go, too. A few weeks ago, we were alerted that the Steelers-Chargers game was moved to 8:20pm.  8:20!!  We asked Brady if he still wanted to go.  He was still going to have to go to school because our schedules were packed, too.  Brady still wanted to go.  Unfortuna...

The girls treated us to a short duet at Thanksgiving.  They played Hosanna for us.

We discovered than none of our children had a soccer game this past Saturday.  After monitoring the weather, we decided that we should go camping at Assateague Island National Seashore. When we got there, it was a little rainy.  However, it cleared up almost as soon as we selected our camping spot. Out on the beach, we found many washed up horseshoe crabs.  Unlike the New Jersey beaches, they actually let nature do it's job here-- the seagulls can eat them. We went for a long walk on the beach.  I would guess that we walked at least 8 miles on the beach, which is a ton.  We started at Oceanside Campground and walked several miles past the end of the road.  We found all kinds of shells, animal parts, and fossils.  Natalee found a neat looking rock that appears to have a fossilized crab in it.  Of course, we found horses, too!  Our camp spot neslted into the side of a dune.  The thought was that it would provid...

We are very thankful that Brandy and Ryan organized a hayride and picnic for our families. Cousin time is precious.  Too bad all of our cousins couldn't make it. A decided that she needed to crawl up and sit beside Brady.  She adores him!  As you can see, Jesse's family isn't the only side of the family with red hair-- we have it all around on every side of our families. Natalee and L found great fun tossing a hula hoop over the clothesline.  Amie and the others enjoyed kicking the ball around. Time for the hayride!    Our driver:  Just kidding!  Ryan was really our driver. I have to say that I think this is the hottest hayride that I've ever been on.  All hayrides I ever remember involve bundling up.  It definitely didn't feel like October.  (The forecasted highs for next weekend say 50's, so maybe we shouldn't complain)

Sunday afternoon and evening, our weekend adventures continued.  Since we were driving down along the Juniata River for a family hayride (see here) , we decided to go a little further down river and go for a hike beforehand.  This time, Brady and Amie wanted to join us for hiking.  We picked them up on the way to Duncannon to hike on a portion of the Appalachian Trail to Hawk Rock Overlook.  Although I've been on the Appalachian Trail several times, this was my first time on the trail in Pennsylvania. We hiked straight up Cove Mountain to Hawk Rock Overlook. Straight down in front of us was Shermans Creek.  The Susquehanna is off to the right with the Juniata entering in the top right corner. If I used my imagination, it did have a hawk shape.  Two rocks could have been wings? We didn't dare tary too long.  With the recent flooding and rains, the mosquitos and bugs are AWFUL.  This warm, humid day did nothing to help it out.  T...

After the children's soccer games today (read here) , Jesse and I drove to Breezewood to bike on a section of abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike road. This section of road has interesting history.  Originally these tunnels were built for a railroad.  This railroad was never completed, and is known as Vanderbilt's Folly.  The Pennsylvania Turnpike used the tunnels as part of their highway in 1940.  However, the PA Turnpike bypassed the tunnels in 1968. After a mile or so, we entered Ray's Tunnel, which is 1/2 mile long.  We immediately said that there is no way that Natalee would ever enter this tunnel! We made it through.  I must say that I started to panic slightly in middle of the tunnel when it became very dark.  We had our head lamps, but it didn't make much difference. At least we could always see daylight at the end of the tunnel. The tunnels seemed very narrow.  It was hard to visualize two lanes of traffic going through here-- especi...

This week, we finally got to have some soccer practices and games following all of the flooding and rains.  (Unfortunately we have had to deal with tons of mosquitos as a result of the still standing water.) Brady kind of broke out of his shell a bit today during the second half of his game.  It was fun to watch. I love that these two are playing on the same team.  In the second half, they were frequently together on offense.  They worked together to get a few opportunities, but they couldn't quite put it in the net. Next came Amie's game.  She had quite a few scoring opportunities as well. I love this picture because it shows where her teeth are missing. Go Amie, go!  I love the concentration.

 The kids are obviously not playing soccer this week.  But, the playground duck is still swimming!  Haha! This past Monday, the children came home from school early.  They dismissed before lunch.  It had been raining since Saturday morning.  We knew that warnings were out for the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River.  It didn't ever really rain extremely hard, but it rained for a long time very consistently onto ground that was already heavily saturated from all of August's rain.  This time it was a tropical storm that came up from the Gulf of Mexico. Monday morning I was very nervous.  I had appointments in Altoona.  I already knew that US22 was closed due to flooding of the Frankstown branch.  I heard that 453/I99 wasn't closed yet.  When I drove that way (the Little Juniata River borders 453), I started to be concerned that I wasn't going to be able to drive home that way.  The water was inches from the road a...