12-31-2008

Blog #240

David

New Years Eve Sledding

12-30-2008

Blog #239

David

Duplo Tower

12-29-2008

Blog #238

David

39th Annual Kelly Bash Page Uploaded

It's up, with about 80 pictures, most with captions.  Also on our movie page is a copy of the DVD slideshow (in QuickTime format) that the funeral home put together for Harriette's brother Chuck. 

Happy Birthday Hallbuzz

Just for the record: Our blog is now three years old and has received just over 25,000 total hits.  The main Hallbuzz index page has received just over 15,000 total hits.  The fake diorama page has received about 7,000 hits this year and Luke and Marian's wedding page has received about 4,500 hits.  The hit counters on these pages read lower than the statistics reports from our server for some reason.  The entire site at this point uses 5.6 GB of disk space on our server at Bluehost.

The entire Hallbuzz site has had 19.75 GB of traffic for the month of December (so far).  For the year, 75% of our bandwidth was eaten up by images and most of the rest was consumed by movies.  I think most of our bandwidth come from image searches on search engines; Hallbuzz contains over 6,000 images.

12-27-2008

Blog #237

David

39th Annual Kelly Bash

Yesterday we hosted the 39th Annual Kelly Bash.  The Kellys are Harriette's side of the family.  Joan and I still have to sort through a few hundred photos before uploading a 2008-09 Bash page.  Today I edited the movie clips and uploaded two movies that can be found on our movie page.  I also edited the group photos, three of which are below:

12-27-2008

Blog #236

David

Christmas Day 2008

I'll let the pictures do the talking...

 One day of Skating

Christmas Eve

12-21-2008

Blog #235

David

First Skate 2008

The girls checked out the ice this morning and determined that it was strong enough to skate on.  It was, for awhile.  The three of them were never on the ice at once; had they been I think it would have broken sooner.  I was taking Annika's skates off and about to re-lace Brigitta's skates when Svea came in telling how an ice berg broke off and she was skating on it as it began to sink.  Actually, she said it just felt unstable then her toes felt wet and cold; then she looked down and realized what was happening.  Her weight had submerged the berg half under the main ice.  I used a couple of long poles to work the berg back into place; within a few hours it had refrozen into place.  I think it may be skatable tomorrow since temperatures have been in the single digits today.

Happy Birthday Brigitta!

Brigitta turned seven on the 15th.  Although we celebrated her birthday with her friends the weekend before, we also celebrated with the family on her actual birthday.  Brigitta has become quite photogenic.  When she was younger, in picture her smiles often appeared forced; it was difficult to get a good shot of her.  Now it seems if I get a bad shot of her it most likely was my fault.

Joan Reads

OK, you probably already knew that.  As a Christmas gift for her preschool students, Joan read a dozen books and burned the MP3 files onto CDs.  It was well received by her students and their parents.  I figured that we might as well make them available from our site, too.

Joan Reads Audio Page

12-15-2008

Blog #234

David

29.9 ₵ Gas!

Our grocery store provides 10₵ gas rebates for every $50 spent in the store.  I hadn't redeemed our rebate in quite awhile.  Yesterday I put 20 gallons of gas in the Volvo and a five gallon spare can for only $6!

12-14-2008

Blog #233

Joan & David

Happy 7th Birthday, Brigitta!

The invitations were sent and all the girls came,

not dressed like fairies, but with fairies on their brains.

   Brigitta's choice for a party this year was Disney Fairies and since our girls only get a party every other year, we did it up grand.  There were activities where the girls could decide what kind of fairy they were.  We put the Air Jumper up in the garage for "flying", gave them a fog room and flashlights and turned the basement into an underwater water fantasy realm with lily pads on the ceiling. Finally there was the cake with a likeness of the Disney Fairy "Beck" on it.  Each of the guests took home a star filled crown and a giant paper flower and hopefully good memories of an exciting afternoon.  Oh yeah, and I think Brigitta liked it, too.

Svea's Iroquois Longhouse

Svea's third grade class has been studying local Native American tribes.  The students were assigned to build a model of an Iroquois longhouse.  Svea and I gathered flexible willows that she lashed together to make the frame.  Bark covering was a more difficult materiel to find; we tested many trees but could not find anything that was relatively thin and flexible.  On the way home from school the Friday before last we were discussing the problem; it occurred to me that Uncle John would be heading our way from Georgia soon.  Perhaps there were soft birch trees near his home that could spare a bit of bark.  I called him as soon as we got home.  He was just about to leave for the airport but had time to strip a layer of bark off of a nearby tree first.  Thank you Uncle John!

12-13-2008

Blog #232

David

Playing with Tint

No story here; it's a photoblog after all.  I've been playing with tint.

12-10-2008

Blog #231

Harriette

Farewell Charles Kelly

By Harriette Wilsterman

   My brother Chuck was a wonderful person. He was five years old when our mother died so he grew up without a mother, but luckily God gave us an exceptional father who did a great job being Mother and Father to us.  Now Chuck wasn’t always an angel and sometimes DAD had to mete out some punishment to Chuck. There was the time that Chuck made a covered wagon and was playing cowboys and Indians and set the wagon on fire. My dad came home from work and caught him in the act.  Dad was furious and Chuck couldn’t sit down for a day or two after where Dad used a hair brush on him.  Most of the time, Dad was a mild mannered person but on occasion he could lose his temper if we did something bad.  When we lived in Barberton, we skated on Lake Anna in the winter. Chuck was a good skater and one day he left his shoes on the shore and when he came back a dog had taken his shoe and Chuck had to walk home on his skates. Dad had to buy him another pair of shoes and wasn’t too happy about that.
   Chuck was big for his age and got to play football on the Barberton High Freshman team when he was an eighth grader at St Augustine’s.  He play end on the varsity for three year as an end.  Dad and I used to go to all the games.  When Chuck became a basket ball coach at St, Mary’s High School and later at Hoban High we took in all the games.  He was a great dancer.  Chuck loved to play golf and had five hole in ones to his credit.
   Chuck was a loving husband, father of three boys and a grandfather of seven, three boys and four girls. He and Pat were married for 45 years; Chuck was charming, witty and always had that Kelly smile on his face
   I shall miss him very much but I know he is happy and free of pain and that this is not “goodbye” but “till we meet again”.
 

Link to a preserved copy of Chuck's obituary

12-10-2008

Blog #230

David

Georgia Wilsterman Holidays Visit

   John, Jean, Kira and Luke made their annual holiday visit this last weekend.  We we missed Marian but expect to see her next year.   The calorie intake versus expenditure of this visit was probably the worst ratio yet.  We weren't terribly excited about skating at Kent and the sledding snow was pretty much gone by the time our guests had arrived; we ate fairly well, and often, however. 

GFS Christmas Program

   On Sunday the girls performed in the German Family Society's Christmas Program.  For some reason Annika got a relatively big line that was too much for a three-year-old.  It was still a good program, however.  The GFS Christmas show traditionally ends with everyone singing Stille Nacht/Silent Night in German and then in English followed by the entrance of Weinachtsmann/Saint Nicholas.  The GFS Kindergruppe's performance is on the movie page, but it is 20 minutes long.  I recommend it only for the diehard GFS/SBA fans.