Merry Christmas!

It is another girl!

Christmas Morning

Summer got an "American Girl" doll for Christmas (which we held on Haunikah this year since we'll be gone on the actual date). She got a night cap and pajamas that match her doll and wore them all night.

The Playhouse

The hobbits are in.

The Biggest TV Ever!

This is how I justified spending so much money to finish our basement. The biggest superbowl TV ever! It is a HD projector with surround sound--definately worth a trip to visit.

It is actually quite exhausting. Humans were not meant to get that much stimulation more than a once-per week movie.

Happy Holidays from the Lusters

During this holiday season I know you are all wanting to wish me health and happiness--but given my robust figure and odds for diabetes, you wonder if the well-wishing will just make me feel bad--sort of like wishing me skinnier.

Well, just to put you all at ease, I have decided this year to not send a Christmas card picture of myself--at least not all of me. Instead, I have posted a picture of my eye (in red and green holiday colors). If you click and zoom you will note that the blood vessels are crisp and healthy. Diabetes results in little blotches at the ends of the vessels that look almost like leaves on a blood vessel tree. There are clearly none here! The bright green is my optic nerve (also rather healthy if I do say so myself), and the dark splotch to the right is the fovia or focus--a perfect little cone for viewing fine detail. Also pictured are well groomed eyelashes to the bottom and right/left of the picture. I feel that this picture is a much better summary of how my year has gone and what we are "looking" forward to in the coming year--no need for photographs and stories about what we've done this year.

So, while you're reviewing our holiday pictures and wondering if I'm about to kill over from being overweight--rest assured that my girth is quite healthy and you should feel no reluctance to pass me the eggnog.

(OK, actually my optomitrist tricked me into paying $40 for a photographic eye exam, and I'm trying to make the most of it...)

More Girls in Gold

 

Girls in Gold

 

Test

This is a test posting from email.

Winter in Sequim

 

Anna

 

Gingerbread Girls

Our Finished Basement

We finally put a little money in the bank...and it burned a hole in our pocket.

These are pictures of our finished basement. We added a playhouse for the kids that is built into the staircase area. It is actually quite large on the inside allowing for several adults to stand up (if they can get through the doorway). It has a lightswitch and wiring for cable TV should we need to rent it out at some point. There is also a secret passageway (pictured) that let's kids (and thin/agile adults) escape through the closet of the next room.

Our builders hadn't ever done anything like this before and were so excited, they want to take pictures to sell to other customers. I'd occasionally go to check on progress and find all of the workers hanging out in the playhouse...pretty funny. The kids will have a lot of decorating to do, and the parents may finally be able to watch a TV show of their own choosing.





We're also planning a home theatre and have a projector and surround sound system. We can now officially not eat out for the next six years.

Hair

Trying "Alex Hair"

Jacksonlander's Singature Look

Tree Hunting

Good thing I'm not a turkey!

 

So, which one is the mother, which is the daughter? Bet it's hard to tell!

 

Feeding the ducks, an after Thanksgiving Dinner Tradition

 

Lindsey shows off her new braces!

 

Thanksgiving dinner with our neighbor lady, Nell

 

Aubrianne poised to catch a touchdown pass . . . she actully scored a few!

 

John trying to act 20 again!

 

The deep, dark forest

Hiking through the bamboo forest with friends in Maui 

Beach Time

 

SHARK!!!!

The girls separatated from a tiger shark by a
mere 4 inches of glass.

My Senior Project

I showed this project (called Castle Valley) with our SDL team at SIGGRAPH '95 and at Trios Suiss in Paris. I helped with the graphics concepts (was part of a team) in which the player runs into a castle jumps into pictures which are then new worlds or environments. Played Mario 64? Yep, same concept. They came out with the game two years later and even stated that they were late to market because they were searching for non-violent topics (the theme of SIGGRAPH '95 was non-violent gaming...). I wasn't really just flattered to be part of the team on the graphics concept that may have been a precuror to Nintendo's new game. The sensor strip to control the game, however was all my design and was my senior project... 

Nintendo's Wii -- Look Familiar?

We'll, looks like the castle and jumping into pictures concept wasn't the only thing Nintendo picked up from the conference. See the bar across the top? This is Nintendo's Wii (codename revolution) it is probably the hottest game system on the market right now--and is basically sold out for Christmas already. My previous picture wasn't that high a resolution, but this is the clearest example of a copy I've ever seen. In some of the literature they even talk about having trouble with ambient light--something I struggled with.

Glass Slippers

 

Baby Giraffee