Last night was “Daddy night” so I took the kids to the Denver “Downtown Aquarium” (formerly known as Ocean Journey). After Ocean Journey went bankrupt, it was purchased by Landry’s Seafood Restaurants, and now it’s a restaurant/aquarium.
I was expecting the exhibits to be a bit weak, since it’s now owned by a restaurant […]

One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, that’s what. From SPACE.com:
The Hubble Space Telescope has caught the most detailed view of the Crab Nebula, revealing the intricate epitaph of a long-dead star.
The nebula spans a patch of space six light-years across and has proved an attractive target for professional […]

Feeling somewhat inspired, I decided to make a painting this weekend. I used acrylic on a 16×20 pre-stretched canvas. Having been accustomed to oil paints, the acrylic was a nice change (no dizzying smell, no mess). However, the particular acrylics I used were too transparent, so I ended up going back over some of the […]

The annual Christmas tree cutting is one of my favorite days of the year. Beyond a fun tradition, I like to think of it as more of a “hunt”, and I take pride in finding the “best” tree each year. This year was no exception…it was a glorious day in the mountains, and I dressed […]

We saw him in our back yard this morning. He was licking an empty soda can for awhile…I guess he was hungry or something.

We’ve seen deer and various other wildlife behind our house. One time we had a bear cub in our front yard. Unfortunately we missed it, but it did leave a “present” next […]

We attended an excellent concert last night featuring Bethany Dillon, The Afters, and Jeremy Camp.
Bethany Dillon is probably the most talented emerging young Christian artist in the industry. At barely 17 years old, she’s got two awesome albums under her belt and recently wrote and performed the title track for the new movie Dreamer starring […]

Today we toured KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau, one of the major concentration camps from World War II. I was expecting to see the remains of a building and a small monument, and was amazed to find that this place is huge. The perimeter of the camp is still walled, there are still several buildings available for viewing, […]

This morning we went to Konigsee lake and then headed for Kehlsteinhaus, the mountaintop home built for Hitler, also known as the Eagle’s Nest. Unless you want to spend the day hiking, the way to get to Kehlsteinhaus is to take a bus up the mind-boggling Kehlstein road to the upper parking lot, where you […]

Today we went to Neuschwanstein castle, and saw a good portion of the German and Austrian Alps. I won’t give you a history lesson here, but the story of “Mad” King Ludwig and Neuschwanstein is quite intriguing.
After taking pictures from the suspended foot bridge (the Marienbrücke), I decided to run up to the […]

Today we generally took it easy, went to an old fashioned mill, and hiked in a large nature park. I did a little bushwacking/running through the woods which was fun. I climbed up into a hunting “stand” to look for animals…the view was great but unfortunately didn’t see any wild boar which is what I […]