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We had a great weekend visit to Harrisonburg and West Virginia. First we went to the Massanutten Water Park (instead of the ski area, with not much snow around – they claimed 16″). We all had an experience that exceeded our expectations – we may have to go back sometime! Torsten and Aven loved the water slides and all the fun and activities (so did Carrie & I).

The next day we first hiked up Heavener Mountain (all of 2,837 ft elevation – that’s an East Coast mountain). We had some fun driving that reminded us of out West.

Next we went to Green Bank Observatory. We highly recommend a visit. We loved the tour around all the radio telescopes, the hands on science center, our tour guide, and the whole experience. Even the logo was great: “The Universe is Whispering”

The whole weekend we were in the National Radio Quiet Zone, which is fascinating in its own – here are a few links about it:

• Wikipedia
• an NPR piece
• a National Geographic Feature

Two photos from the Green Bank Observatory learning center:

A few more photos from the Heavener Mountain ascent:

We always love Halloween! We started with Dave’s week-before great halloween party with an amazing haunted house and lots of great costumes. Thanks so much to Erin and Albert for taking great pictures and sharing them through their online photo gallery.

Torsten’s costume sent shivers through every adult, and he’s ready for some “Refile or Treat”-ing!

Or, a weekend apart..

Carrie and Aven went up for James’ wedding and got to catch up with the Morawski/Talus side of the family. Torsten and I were left to our own devices so decided to have some fun before the end of summer. Torsten came in to work with me on Friday

From there we went out to Western Maryland to spend some fantastic time on the Chaney farm. We had way too much fun, enjoyed catching up with a small part of the family out there, and even helped a bit with the final hay-making (Torsten was proud to get the wrap on the final bail of the 2015 hay making season). Here are a few of our favorite photos, including trips into Pennsylvania to visit the Merle’s cabin, some fantastic ice cream at the Road Kill Cafe (the ice cream place had a separate name.), organ playing (Torsten loved the organ!), a fantastic sunset, and four wheeler fun around the farm.

HAY! and making hay!!

And then hitting hay!

After fantastic family hospitality and not enough time catching up (and not nearly enough four wheeler driving for Torsten!), we went on down to Seneca Rocks for some camping in West Virginia. After a great sunset on the rocks,

Torsten was ready to really hit the hay (in the tent..)

The next day we got some good hiking in around Seneca Rocks and stopped a few times on the drive home..

We missed Carrie and Aven, but had a great father/son weekend and enjoyed the farm and family!

Nope, no bike problem.. It is the fall 2012 piano recital where T is playing the Flat Tire Blues. Enjoy:

Aven had some great help from Torsten on the slopes! What a great big brother on the hill!

We went to Sipapu for opening day with Gramps — what great fun! It was nice to have the extra adult support, and a fun beautiful, fresh air, outdoor NM snow day (it was almost 50F and the only reason we could ski was because Sipapu worked so hard making snow for the past few weeks. Anyway, here’s the gang:

We got some footage of one of Aven’s runs — enjoy!

Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness by Scott Jurek
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An inspiring and compelling personal story with great running adventures and some delicious recipes. I loved reading it and recommend it highly if you like running and eating (hard to go wrong).

View all my reviews

We had a fantastic weekend! It started with no work for Matt on Friday (always a good start) so a nice celebration of Carrie’s birthday with lunch at the Cowgirl, a wander through the Georgia O’Keefe museum, and a babysitter and movie for Matt & Carrie (Moonlight Kingdom, we loved it!). On Saturday it was the Los Alamos rodeo — between the parade and the fun downtown, we didn’t even make it to the animal part of the rodeo!! And we capped it off with climbing with friends in the Jemez on Sunday. Yeah!

The intrepid gang explores the mighty Ashley Pond:

The bouncy water-slide was perfect for the hot day:

Matt sat on the platform while Torsten hit the target to put dad in the dunk tank (again, the water felt so good on the hot day!) — no pictures, sorry..

On the way to the craft market, we wandered by — tie dye, flowers, Oppenheimer, and Groves..

It was a fantastic weekend all around — but we capped it off with a great Sunday of climbing at the East Fork in the Jemez. Here’s several photos to enjoy and remember:

We stopped by HAARP to check out the latest technology.

We were amazed with what we found:

And they are definitely leading the free world in big tire production:

Nice big engines:

Ok, actually we just drove by HAARP to get to Emma’s one year old birthday at Mukluk Land in Tok. Mukluk land is awesome and has an amazing collection of good old stuff. But feeding the HAARP conspiracy is so much more fun! 🙂

More photos at the gallery.