Cincinnati Christmas

Here are a few pics from our Christmas in Cincinnati.

Putting ornaments on the tree with Grandpa

Reading with Grandma

Sledding in the backyard

Alex is very excited about this snowball he's making!

Bret solving his new V-cube 6

Uncle Jason and Bret teach Ben about Legos

New animal shirts!

Building a house with Grandma

Thanksgiving

Hooray for a Leupen Thanksgiving in Baltimore.

Karen and the boys

Aunt Karen and her two biggest fans

Is this "pop music," Uncle Jason?

The bridge table

Time to lick the whipped-cream beaters

Not sure if Bret realizes that turkey skin is actually very low in carbs.

The euchre table

Baltimore Museum of Art

Shark Boy

Have we mentioned we like birds, Grandpa?

Philadelphia Weekend

Here are just a few pics from the recent meeting up of the Yoder-Wellses and the Leupen-Yoders in Philadelphia this past weekend. Some events, such as playing in the pool and visiting the Reading Terminal Market (which included delicious pastries as well as lobster-viewing), went unphotographed-- but were enjoyable nonetheless.

Lucy on the rings at Fairmount Park. We spent several hours here on Saturday, enjoying the ridiculously wonderful weather.

Ben and Alex by the mural of the Giant Moas at the Academy of Natural Sciences (#2 in the series, "Standing Next to Our Favorite Extinct Birds")

The Academy also has an excellent sitting-tortoise.

Sorry Grandma and Grandpa Y. We tried several times but couldn't herd these cats.

Digging for dino bones. Lucy's impressive persistence on this task bodes well for future completion of her PhD thesis.

The big kids (and below, Lucy, the best poser-for-pictures) at the Swann Memorial Fountain.

Halloween

Holiday-related activities today were interspersed with a trip to the Cylburn Arboretum, where the Birds of Baltimore are displayed and two or three salamanders can be found under every log.





Each with his own redback salamander.

Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center

We finally got over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge today. While there we visited the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center, which had hiking paths, aviary cages of hawks and owls, and old bird field guides of small, distant places (Birds of Lebanon, anyone?), which is right up our family alley. Next time we want to rent one of their canoes to check out the "water trails".



This looks to me like Ben posting in a catalog for whatever brand of clothes those are.


Every picture I take of Daryl seems to be this picture.

Watching the barred owls.

And some bonus pics of when they were sailing on the Mozambique channel (white blanket) the other day. Below they are splashing water (blankets) on each other.

At the Smithsonian Natural History Museum

But first, NEW bird shirts-- late birthday surprise! Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa Yoder!


Ben & the bluebird

Their favorite extinct bird, the diatryma


Reading about how kangaroos jump


The Owls of Washington D.C. (OK, Smithsonian, we know you don't have room to show all your wares. But four floors of nature and no extant birds from anywhere but DC? Mammal-chauvanists.)