Click the picture to see all our photos from our fun Seattle trip.

As a gift to our graduating seniors (Katie, Desire’ and Terry), we all took a fun trip to Seattle June 1 to June 8, 2013. We attended Terry’s (Desire’s boyfriend) graduation, and soon after the event, we wisked him away for the trip. The trip included: Silverwook Theme Park, Leavenworth Washington, Tour of Boeing, Woodland Zoo, Pacific Science Center, Space Needle in the day and at night, Monorail, Experience Music Center and Sci Fi Museum, Ferry trip to Bremerton, Puget Sound Navy Museum, Tour through USS Turner Joy, Pikes Market, Ballard Locks and fish ladder, Golden Gardens Beach, Argosy Harbor Tour, and Underground Seattle Tour. That is a lot of stuff to cover in a week! We also spent a little time visiting a few relatives. Sorry to all that we didn’t get a chance to visit. We were too busy playing tourists!  Click HERE to see lots of pictures from our trip.

Click the picture to see more from Katie and Desire’s graduation and party.

Katie and Desire’ graduated from Jefferson High on May 19, 2013. They both did a fantastic job and we are proud of them. We had a fun party afterwards with relatives and friends.  Click HERE to see the pictures.

Click the picture to see more from the rugby games

Desire’ plays for the Helena Lady Dragons rugby team. Ana started playing rugby, but was injured during a practice.  Desire’s boy friend Terry plays on the Helena Hooligans team. Both the ladies and guys played Missoula’s teams and won both. Here are some action shots of the games played on April 27, 2013.  Click HERE to see them.

Click the picture to see many of Katie’s favorite photos she has take in 2012 and 2013

Katie loves to take photographs of interesting things, and she loves to edit them with GIMP (A FREE alternative to Photo Shop). Click HERE to see a  collection of some of her favorites from 2012 and 2013.  Great job Katie!

- John

P.S. I strongly suggest you take a look at GIMP if you like creating and editing photos.  Many of the edited photos and graphics on this web site were tweaked or made with GIMP. If you use a modern operating system like Ubuntu or some Linux flavor, GIMP is probably in  your repository (Software Center on Ubuntu).  If you use an outdated and restricted operating system like Windows, go to the GIMP web site and click “Download” then down the page some, click “Show other downloads”.

i took these photos for photography and i love them it took a long time to get them to look perfect-Katie

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Click the photo to see pics from Jefferson High’s 2013 Prom.

Jefferson High School’s 2013 Prom was on March 23.  Katie, Desire’, and Ana went and had a great time with their friends.  Click the picture to see the proof.

- John

Here it is… The video of Jefferson High School’s Drama Department.  Desire played the role of Annie and did a terrific job. Katie played a homeless person, and Ana helped with the set.   The whole cast did a great job!  You can find lots of photos of the play HERE.

- John

Click to view photos from Annie

embedded by Embedded Video YouTube DirektClick to view Annie.

Click the picture to see a lot of pictures from Annie.

Desire’ was asked to take drama this year, her senior year in high school.  She has never taken drama before, and “Intro to Drama” is a requirement for this class, which she did not take.  Their first play of the year was Annie, and Desire’ got the leading role, as Annie!  Although she was very nervous, she did a fantastic job.  Katie also had a part as a homeless person.  See if you can find her.  Notice the hair!  Ana, worked behind the scene, as she is in “Intro to Drama” and helped build the set.  Here is a link to pictures from the production.  I am also working on a video of the event.  Great Job Desire’, Katie, and Ana.

- John

“THEY” say: “April Showers Bring May Flowers”. April SHOWERS??? It is April 8 today and we are blessed with 19 inches of heavy snow. So heavy and slippery that my snow plow can’t handle it and got stuck several times. It is parked and we will have to wait for a bit of a thaw.

Last night, (Friday, August 27) my wife, Carol, and I were looking at the near full moon.  There was a bright start to the right and a bit lower than the moon.  Carol commented that she doesn’t remember that star being on the right side of the moon.  I guessed that maybe it was a planet and then went in and fired up Stellarium, a free planetarium program that I have on my Ubuntu computer.  The “bright star” turned out to be Jupiter.  I tried looking at it through binoculars, but that didn’t work too well.  I also have an ancient telescope that I haven’t had out in years.  I brought it out, and after spending some good time trying to locate the moon, then locating Jupiter (As I said, the telescope is very old and the sighting eyepiece has been damaged for years), we focused in on Jupiter.  It was very small, but clear.  I could see four very tiny dits of light around Jupiter, that could just be reflections of something in the telescope or my eyes.  Nevertheless, I went back to Stellarium, and zoomed way in on Jupiter, and lo and behold, there were four moons visible around the large planet.  I went back to the telescope, and there were Callisto, Europa, Io, and Ganymede, exactly where they were in real life (except the telescope reversed the image).  Europa was right next to Jupiter, but it could clearly be seen in the telescope when it was sharply focused.  It was quite exciting to see, even if it was an underpowered old telescope, being used by a very amateur, amateurish astronomer.  Click a picture below to see a larger view.

- John

Jupiter taken with digital camera through telescope.

The moon and Jupiter through the naked eye.

Stellarium's view of what we saw.

How we saw Jupiter through the telescope. (this photo is from Stellarium)