We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful Winter Break (assuming that applies to you!) Everyone has left the Alyn Family residence and we’re back to school today – just in time for the temperature to get really cold! Over break we visited, ate, laughed, Xavier made some funny faces and we all made some art. We had a really great time!

For those who aren’t aware, the images on Flickr are marked as “Copyright” so people don’t use them in magazines etc, but you can still get the high resolution photos. Click on the photo page on Flickr and then in the top right it says “View all sizes.” For the photo above, it will open the photo in a window with a listing of different available sizes, including “original.” You can open that version and save as you normally would. That’s the highest resolution available. The first photo of the boys above is one we took a few weeks ago using a fancy schmancy 50mm f/1.4 lens I rented.

Oskar is now a yellow belt in Taekwondo. This is from his testing last month.

Oskar has been taking Taekwondo lessons at the RAC on Monday nights and working very hard to learn the correct form. Last night it all paid off as he earned his Orange belt. For those unfamiliar with the sport, belt progression goes from white to black as in the picture seen to the right here. You can learn all about the meaning of the different colors on the ATA site. In the higher belts, students learn to do increasingly harder forms and other feats including breaking boards. I also posted some photos from the event on Flickr.

Nice job Oskar!

This last weekend marked the end of the 2009-2010 pack year with the annual graduation. This year, cub master Carl mixed it up a little and organized a great pack overnighter in a state park near Spring Valley, MN not far from the root river. A good time was had by all.

More photos on Flickr

For Xavier’s 5th birthday he wanted to go to the Kalahari, so we’re here in the Wisconsin Dells for a 3 day mini-vacation. Here’s a photo for everyone of the not quite 5 year old taken yesterday. Oskar has been really interested in the new indoor amusement park they’ve opened and has discovered rock climbing. He spent close to an hour on the wall yesterday. Xavier gave it his best trying to keep up with his big brother…

• Indianapolis Motor Speedway
• Indianapolis Children’s Museum
• Horseback Riding
• Lake Patoka
• Bluespring Caverns
• Morton Arboretum

Just a few random pics…

The video may not be available until Saturday early morning, so if it says it doesn’t work, just check back later.