A couple of weekends ago, the Krohn boys took a trip to the NE corner of Indiana to Pokagon State Park. Joshua’s cub scout troup enjoyed a day of tobagonning and ice fishing. A 2.5 hour drive from home, Pokagon is famous for its tobagon run. A man-made course with refrigerated tracks, it is quite a thrill to ride down the track at up to 40 miles per hour. 
Our top speed was 34 mph! The boys also had their first experience of walking on ice (8 inches thick) and drilling holes for ice fishing. We didn’t catch anything but it was fun imaging the fish at the bottom of the lake playing with our grub bait.
I’ve put together a short video of our time at Pokagon and also a few more pictures on Smugmug from my phone. Unfortunately my 35mm camera battery was dead…so you get what you can with an iPhone.
Posted in Children, Family Fun, Joshua, Matthew | No Comments »
After our nice snow on Thursday, the 3 kids and a friend of Emily’s went to our church with Dad to do some sledding. We had a great time as the snow was deep enough to make for some nice runs. Our favorite was to go down together as a train or just linking arms. 
Dad treated us to some hot chocolate at Capstone during our break. A good couple of hours of winter fun! There are a lot more photos on SmugMug and a short video of our time together here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Christmas has come and gone again. We had a great couple weeks of vacation. We had a bit of snow, just enough for some light sledding in the neighborhood. The kids still get very excited about Christmas, both the time together around the house and, yes, those presents.
Christmas Eve was a special treat this year as Uncle Kelly and a friend joined us for a nice dinner. While oyster stew wasn’t on the menu, we did have great appetizers, beer cheese soup and pie for dessert. Yum, yum. Christmas day is always a joyous day in the house. The kids are up early and after working through our stockings, we treat ourselves with Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast (Thanks, Mom). Presents are clearly the kids “high” for the day and it wasn’t long before we had a helicopter flying in the living room, music playing on the ipod speakers and bumber cars zooming across the kitchen floor. We closed out the day with our favorite Christmas movie, The Nativity Story. Everytime we watch this movie it makes us wunder at the faith and commitment of Mary and Joseph.
We had planned to travel to North Dakota to visit G&G Krohn, but unfortunately a big blizzard stalled out over the Red River Valley and kept us from getting “home for Christmas”. Uncle Kelly, Shane and Mia also shifted their plans and spent the week in
Indianapolis instead of ND. 
Our kids really like having time with the cousins and we enjoyed a couple of days around the house and an outing to the Children’s Museum.
To cap off our time over the vacation, we took an overnight trip to Cincinnati and visited the Creation Museum. We all enjoyed it especially the planetarium shows and learning more about the science that supports the Bible creation story.
We finished the time in Cincinnati with a quick visit to the Krohn Conservatory. Yes, you heard it right: “Krohn Conservatory”. We didn’t have much time to visit the conservatory so we’ll make another trip to Cincy and likely throw in the Newport Aquarium.
Additional photos are available on our SmugMug site and a short video of Christmas scenes is available here. Happy New Year to everyone!
Posted in Family Fun, Vacation | Comments Off
Merry Christmas! A number of you have received our Christmas card and letter, but for those of you who haven’t, you can see them here. Click on the card thumbnail on the left to see a full size version.
Emily once again wrote our letter to go with our card. Here is a link to the letter.
May you rejoice in the true hope for all generations in this Christmas Season.
Posted in Family Fun | Comments Off
I often get asked what applications I have on my iPhone. So instead of trying to answer these one off, I put together a page with the apps I use the most. You can see them here. The comment section is open at the bottom of the page so I welcome your ideas and suggestions.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
With the weather on and off these days, when a nice day comes along it is time to take advantage of it. One of our favorite nearby places to visit is just down the bike path to the creek and pond area. There, someone tied a large towing roap to a tree and made a swing with a seat. Our kids love to ride their bikes there and this past Sunday, two of our neighborhood kids joined us on the bike ride (Dad ran along with Benny).
It is fun to see the kids pretend to fly, especially Josh. He loves to ride the swing upside down. For our new neighbors, it was their first ride on the swing. A little intimidating at first, shouts of “Higher! Higher!” soon come from the swing. 
You can see a handful of pictures I took on our SmugMug site.
Good fun on a beautiful fall afternoon. You can also compare them to swinging pictures from a year ago. Our kids are growing up quickly. Good thing I’m not getting older.
Posted in Children | Comments Off
Matthew got his school pictures this past week. He is a growing boy and doing great in class. He can’t wait to go to the big school next year and start kindergarten. You can see all of the kids’ 09-10 school pictures in our SmugMug gallery.
Dad also got a new picture. After 35 years of glasses, I had Lasik surgery yesterday and for the first time that 
I can remember, I woke up and could see around the room without reaching for my glasses. I’m still adjusting to the change and my eyes are quite sore, but it is great to not have to think about glasses.
Posted in Children, Matthew | Comments Off
Fall is a beautiful time of year on our cul-de-sac, especially our backyard. Our lot is surrounded by 100 foot hickory trees that tower over maples. Each year the maples get bigger and reach their branches 
higher and wider to get more sun.
This time of the year our yard turns miriad of colors ranging from the deep green all the way to brilliant red. It is a favorite time of mine to take pictures of the kids and the fun 
happening in the neighborhood cul-de-sac.
I’ve selected a few of the photos here from last weekend. You can see the boys having a great time with Bennie, then joining the rest of the neighborhood kids in roller blading and general fun outside.
For more pictures, check out our SmugMug site.
Posted in Children | Comments Off
This past weekend Joshua and and I enjoyed a 2-night family campout with Cub Scout Pack 197. Our whole family didn’t make it due to some flu in the house. It was a Joshua and Dad weekend. We traveled south to the trees and hills of southern Indiana and the Spring Mill State Park. The first night of the campout was tough: 45 degrees and raining most of the evening and early morning. Fortunately dad’s old Eureka tent and warm sleeping bags served us well. We stayed warm and dry, though getting out of the sleeping bag was tough.
Saturday was a full day starting with a robust breakfast of eggs and bacon. There is something about camping food. Mmm, mmm. A common comment throughout the weekend was how great it was to see the dads cooking and serving the families. A number of other scouts and their families arrived Saturday morning and soon we had a full 50 or so in the group. We split up by scout age and spread out throughout the park to clean up trails and public areas. 
Surprising how much a motivated group can do. Joshua’s group took a trail that led us by the old Hammer Cemetery about the time that the sky cleared and the colors of fall fully emerged. Beautiful site.
The scouts enjoyed the campfire the most, especially “helping build” it by piling on more sticks and stuff they found that would burn. The fire pit became the central gathering place – for food, heat, and just relaxing conversation.
Saturday evening was the highlight for me and many of the scouts. The sky remained clear and the Cub Master set up his telescope. The scouts learned about the stars in the sky, constellations and then got a good look at Jupiter and its 4 moons. At one point Joshua look at me and said, “Dad, we are really small, aren’t we?” “Yes, Josh, and God is really big and cares about you”.
There are a number of pictures on our SmugMug site of the campout, and even a short video available as well. I believe this is the first of many campouts and we are both looking forward to more.
Posted in Children, Joshua | Comments Off
For Matthew’s class he had to put together a group of pictures that introduces himself to the class.
So Dad and Matthew used Lightroom to look through literally thousands of photos and narrowed them down to the few that Matthew thought best represented who he is. I have to admit, he did a nice job selecting pictures of himself and his family. His personality of joy, curiosity and intensity come through the images. You can click on the thumbnail of the collage we put together to see a large image.
For Grandma and Grandpas who want a high resolution version for printing, you can download a PDF version here. It is a 27mb file so it will take a bit to download.
Posted in Children, Matthew | Comments Off
