Shower Damage: For Jason

Beaver Creek, Colorado

Jarom and I and Jarom's friend Nick decided to give the Beaver Creek ski resort a try today. It is pretty upscale; even a little more than Vail, but much smaller in terms of acreage. It is about 15 minutes west of Vail, and we were hoping for something new, and also hoping to escape the weekend crowds. There were some really fun runs, and the weather couldn't have been prettier. All told I skied over 20,000 vertical feet and Jarom snowboarded over 24,000 today. Wish more family would/could join us!

Jarom tackling a big jump in the terrain park. Notice the perfectly groomed snow.

Jarom's Big Jump at Beaver Creek, CO from randy guthrie on Vimeo.

Experiment: Night Photos of Snow

Starting Saturday evening we had about 18 hours of steady snow that left us with about 6 inches in the yard and some respectible low temperatures (like 3 degrees). I wanted to take some snow pictures and decided to do some experimenting with my 50mm lens and new tripod. All of these pictures were taken in natural light at about 11pm with very long exposures and an ISO speed of 100. You can tell it is night by how brightly any artificial lumination source glows. In the third photo taken from the loft, you can see the lights from the high school off in the distance. One cool thing is with the long exposures (about 6 seconds) you don't see the falling snow. All of the color is "natural" (no photoshop). Since most of the outside lighting is sodium vapor with a single wavelength, you end up with a mostly black and white sepia-tone affect.

Science Feature: Lunar Eclipse

On Monday, Dec 22nd Christmas we had a total eclipse of the moon. It started around 11pm and didn't finish until after 3am. I was having a restless night so I got up and put on my 200mm telephoto lens and captured a couple shots. Not having a great tripod made this hard (thank-you Staci for helping Mom get me a good one; I love it!) but having an image-stabilizing lens helped a lot. I'm really thinking as a grandpa I need to get a decent telescope that will take my camera body so we can do a better job when these things happen. For those of you who didn't stay up to see it, or were busy doing other things (like James and Allie finishing their Christmas video), you can see what you did or didn't miss. The last photo is the constellation known as the Pleiades, that appears in the winter sky near Orion. It is a tiny little "dipper" that you have to have good vision or good glasses and a dark sky to see.

Christmas Photo Assortment

Christmas was full of quality time with family and friends. Our camera was usually at hand with Molly and I taking turns. These are the best of over 230 pictures taken. Some of them are kind of experiemental. For you photo buffs, I have a new Canon 50mm 1.8 f-stop lens that has a very short depth of field when it is cranked all the way open, which gives me about 3 inches of area that is in-focus but it is super-sharp if you get the focus right (that is why some of these seem out of focus just a little because the focus isn't always at the best spot - sorry we're still learning). The week started off with a trip to a near-by retirement center that had a fun train layout with a complete "Dicken's" villiage. Then on Tuesday, Molly went to the temple for the first time. On Thursday Jane and I went on a double-date with Seth and Alyson (Seth's girlfriend) to see some Christmas lights at a botanical garden close by. Christmas Eve was at our house with Allie's family, Jarom and his family, and us . Christmas morning we opened presents at home. Jarom's family started off upstairs with their little tree in the loft then we finished up downstairs with our tree in the family rooom. Then we went to Allies about 90 minutes away for late breakfast and early dinner. James had set up a big slot-car track, and it was warm enough to play outside a little. On Boxing Day Jane's Aunt Sheila and her husband Rudy and two granddaughters (Raven and Gabriel) came over for tacos and some fun down in the basement with our new XBox Kinect. Everyone got into the action, including Jane. We thought Sheila was going to either die of a stroke or fall and break her hip with all jumping, ducking and dodging she did in the virtual obstacle course. We've gone to the movies several times and have done lots of quality recreational reading. We've gone skiing twice so far and will go again on Thursday. It's been great having Seth home and we will miss him a lot when he returns to school on January 2nd.

Jane and Sheila Play with XBox Kinect from randy guthrie on Vimeo.

Thornbrue School Holiday Program

Last week we attended the Thornbrue kids' school holiday program. Tessa's class did a play about forest animals that love a special tree until people from town take it away and decorate it. Tessa played one of the birds (a cardinal). Marie's class did a tribute to Santa. I was able to film the parts the girls were in. Videos are below.

Tessa School Holiday Program Highlights from randy guthrie on Vimeo.

Marie School Holiday Program Highlights from randy guthrie on Vimeo.