Since we've been back...

Since we've been back...  Yesterday morning we woke to something we didn't expect at all: snow.  The forecast had called for rain, but we got heavy, gloppy snow instead.  In the photos below (of our back yard) you can see just how hard it was snowing, as I capture quite a bit of it in the air.  You can also see that the “snowflakes” were actually more like little snowballs.  We got just over an inch of this stuff before it warmed up enough to actually rain.  By the end of the day yesterday it was nearly all gone – but we do still have a bit hanging around at the end of the day today...

We didn't do all that much yesterday; made a grocery run and picked up our mail.  In the mail I got the “reward” from one of the Kickstarter projects I backed: Wood Trick.  The actual reward is a (very complex, hundreds of parts) big rig model, but they sent along two much smaller models with it.  I built both of them yesterday afternoon; somehow it was the perfect thing to occupy me – very relaxing after our trip.  Photos of these two below.  The first one is a cute little animated frog – by moving a lever in the back of him, his four legs all wiggle and his eyes goggle.  It uses rubber bands as a return spring, and wooden gears to provide the animation.  The second two photos show an amazingly realistic jeep, made entirely from laser-cut pieces of plywood.  This entire model was cut out of a sheet of plywood roughly 8" by 12".  It's all assembled with friction-fit connections – no glue or fasteners are used in the model.  The wheels turn on axles that work quite well, despite being made of square pieces of wood!  Wood Trick is a Ukrainian company, trying to break into the world's biggest toy market: the U.S.  I hope they succeed, because their products are very cool indeed, and quite reasonably priced (the little frog kit, for example, is $4 at retail)...

Today the highlight was the Lily fashion show in our living room.  Little Lily, you might remember, is the little girl that Debbie bought some outfits for while on our trip.  Well, today Michelle (the grandmom), Lizzy (the mom), and Lilly all came over to try out Lilly's new outfits.  Afterwards we all went out for lunch at Jack's pizza.  A grand time was had by all.  Below are the photos I took during Lily's fashion show (which Lily appeared to thoroughly enjoy!).  You can see Michelle at left in the second photo.  I'm partial to that yellow dress myself; everyone else seemed to like the outfit in the second photo the best....