Only a month late

I'm a bit behind schedule, but I've finally uploaded the photos from Christmas celebrations at the Ultz, Himes, and Mullenix houses, respectively. Don't see any from Christmas at the Yoder house. Was probably too tired and suffering from camera fatigue at that point to want to take more pictures. Anyway, they're now linked, but I still might go through and fix red eye/crop/whatever them.

Lab retreat

A couple of weeks back, my lab went to Woodstock, Vermont, for a lab retreat (and my first time downhill skiing). Mom wanted to see who the people in my lab are, so here is a link to the photos Dr. Gilmore took during the retreat because this seemed the easiest way for her to see. And yes all those little kids in the picture above got down the hill faster, with more grace, and on more difficult routes than the one I took. For the record, this is before my second-to-last (penultimate, if you will) trip down the hill. It was on my last attempt down that I slid 30 yards or more on my stomach (though there might be a picture among those posted where I'm a bit snowy after finally making it the rest of the way down).

Our new coffee table (maybe)

So Debbie and I are in the process of making a new coffee table that, if we like the end result, will replace the one we're currently using. It's a bit taller and deeper, but not quite as wide. The nice thing is we're making it out of shelving we got from a Crate & Barrel location that was closing, so we got the parts for dirt cheap ($15, I think). Oh and we also picked up one of their cool display barrels but aren't sure yet what we're going to do with that. Anyway, here's what we have so far (it needs a shelf running across the length to support it and the top will need refinishing before we're done):