here’s a picture of Mia at the Princess Dinner at Norway in the Epcot World Showcase. You’ll notice that Mia has all of her front teeth; this was before we had to have one of them pulled. I’ll post pictures of her new look later. She bonked her top front right tooth on the counter while trying to wash her hands in the kitchen sink, and it got infected and had to be removed – the root of the tooth pretty much disintegrated. As she’s only 4 years old she’s going to be spending the next two or three years of her life missing a front tooth, poor thing. Not that she seems to care in the slightest! Anyway this is a pretty good picture of Mia in her element that I neglected to post in my last Disneyworld post, so here it is!

and here’s a photo of Mia and Lachlan doing some reading, the way humans were meant to – upside-down on the couch. Mia is a pretty voracious reader. I think Lachlan was just looking at the pictures – but hey, he’s only 2.

while mucking around in my web directories, I found this page that I made seven and a half years back, and promptly forgot about – part one (though I don’t think I ever made a part two) of a chronicle of Yvonne and my adventures in Europe. This was our last big trip before we had Callum (who is now six and a half). Kind of neat to find this… almost like finding an old scrapbook stashed away in the bottom of a dresser drawer somewhere, but of the virtual kind.

plus, I could really go for one of those big ol’ Stiegl beers right about now…

for Christmas and New Years the gang and I are in Johnson City, Tennessee, visiting Yvonne’s brother Robert. When we first got here we got to play in the snow a bit – it was Lachlan’s first time seeing the stuff – but it quickly melted and since then it’s been pretty mild.

as far as life is concerned, things are status quo, and the new year is almost upon us. 2009 has been a pretty good year – the kids are great, Yvonne has been doing well, work is good (we had several successful releases of Blackbaud Direct Marketing this year, plus I got PMP and ScrumMaster certified!) and I’ve been getting back into playing and producing music, which has been a blast and I feel has enriched my life.

and that’s it for the annual recap – at least ’til this time next year!

the two eldest kids and I are in Folkston, Georgia, Gateway to the Okefenokee Swamp. We’re here staying at the Roadmaster’s Lodge, a small one-room hotel that was built in 1889 to serve as the office of the Roadmaster in the Folkston area. Yes, we drove four and a half hours to come watch some trains. Here are the kids watching a passing freight – you will notice that they each have portable DVD players for when there aren’t any trains to watch – yes, I came prepared!

the town of Folkston has a really great Railfan Platform with a radio scanner (to hear the engineers talking to one another), picnic tables, power outlets, and yes, Wi-Fi Internet. When we got there there were already three or four railfans down by the tracks with their cameras and tripods, taking pictures. Most of the trains have been CSX mixed freights or intermodals, with a few Amtrak passenger consists thrown in.

one cool application I downloaded this morning is the ATCS Monitor, a railroad data, CTC monitor and display. It shows real-time data of where trains are located north and south along the line, so we can figure out when trains will be passing by Folkston, and from which direction they’ll be coming. Here’s an example of what it looks like.

we’ll be heading back to Charleston tomorrow morning, after another noisy night (yes, the trains keep coming through all through the night, which would perhaps be annoying normally, but hey – that’s why we’re here). The kids have had a great time so far! And, well… so have I!