Chronicle to Come Soon

Our 2008 Caruvana Family Chronicle is about complete. We only need to finalize the address list, print envelopes, copy the chronicle and send it out. If you are reading this and don't get the Chronicle, but would like to, please send us an e-mail, comment on this blog, message us on facebook or contact us somehow. We'd love to add you (assuming we somehow know you). Hopefully we'll begin sending it out next week! We'll post again to this blog when it gets sent out. :-)

Nordic Visit

Well, we haven't posted anything to this blog in over a month-and-a-half. We've been quite busy. And with the need to get our annual newsletter out, we don't foresee getting many posts up in the next few weeks.

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Jon went with the sales manager, project manager and a fellow engineer to a local job site - Nordic in Rockmart, Georgia. The picture above was taken in the room where we've just completed the installation of new rack. The rack is cantilevered, so it looks like it's levitating about 8 inches above the ground...a cool effect. Practically speaking, it allows the end user to store more loads because their lift trucks can slip under the rack, and the bays don't have to be as wide. It allows 320 additional loads to be stored in the room.

The room is a freezer, and had been cooled down to -10 degrees (yes, 10 degrees below zero) on the day we visited (yesterday). They store ice cream and chicken in the two rooms we racked (in separate rooms because the ice cream will smell like chicken if stored in the same room). This was a $1.2M job for our company.

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We hope to post some "catch-up" blogs soon, telling of such things as Syndi & Jon's hike, our trip to Michigan for Thanksgiving, our new homeschool co-op, Syndi's piano performance at a homeschool Christmas event, our family Christmas and more. Stay tuned! And maybe we'll even get the newsletter out to those of you who get it.

Awana Grand Prix 2008

We had our Awana Grand Prix this past Sunday at our church, Pleasant Valley North Baptist Church.

Each of our three oldest kids made a car.

Syndi had a grand idea of making a horse race car. She drew it up, and Daddy shot it down. But, being an engineer, Daddy couldn't go without thinking about how he might actually make it work, and had it worked out about 10 minutes later.

So Syndi had a cool horse for a car, which took the prize for best design in the T&T group.

Junior wanted a Batman race car, so we made one, even with the rear wing design. Junior was a bit disappointed that he didn't win a design prize, but he's very happy to have a car to race around the house with last year's Lightning McQueen car we made.
For Stephen's first Awana Grand Prix car, we made a little red racer with green stripes. He was so excited, he wanted to play with it as soon as we finished gluing the wheels on! We had to keep it from him so it survived until the race. As it was, as soon as he'd lost his two races, he started playing with it and chipped off part of the rear fin before we even left the church.

The race went well. Especially for everyone else. It was double elimination, so two losses and you're out. With three Caruvana cars in the race, we had a total of six races. Yes, each of our kids lost his or her first two races. Six attempts, six losses. Not a good record, especially for the children of an engineer. Daddy just hasn't figured out the tricks the other dads must know. Oh well. They'll get another shot next year!

The kids had fun, and enjoyed pizza afterwards.

It was another fun Awana night!

Trick-or-Treat 2008

The Caruvana kids went trick-or-treating up and down the street tonight. There weren't many people home on our fifteen-family cul-de-sac. Stephen was dressed as a dalmatian.

Syndi was dressed to match her American Girl, Molly.

Junior was Spider-Man!

Julia was a pumpkin.Notice that Julia has "learned" to smile.
We're trying to de-program her.

We Voted! Did You?

We did early voting tonight.
We took all the kids and went down to the Civic Center and only waited in line an hour to vote.
Our kids did pretty well, and were good entertainment for the crowd. Friends of ours who'd arrived about 45 minutes before us had had waited 75 minutes to get through the line. We expect Tuesday's lines will be much worse.

Vote Early!

Vote Often!

Oh, wait - you only get to vote once.

Crazy Hat Nite at Awana

We had Crazy Hat Nite at Awana recently.

Our kids made their own crazy hats.
Some of the leaders wore crazt hats, too.
It's a fun night the kids enjoy.
(And the leaders, too...)

Coosa Valley Fair 2008

We made our 5th annual trip to the Coosa Valley Fair recently.
Junior and Stephen had fun on this little ride.

I wish you could have seen the shock on Stephen's face when it made its first drop. He looked
terrified for 2 seconds, then loved it the rest of the way.
A roller coaster for the kids.
Syndi and Stephen are in car #2.
Junior rode near the back of the coaster and was a little scared.
Dumbo takes Junior for a ride.
Or maybe it was the other way around!
Syndi won 1st place for a bracelet she crocheted.
She was quite proud (and so were we!).
Junior won 2nd place for some fudge he made...
...and 3rd place for some peppers he entered.
(We were very proud of him, too.)
He, however, was extremely disappointed.
We had to plead for this somewhat straight face.
(He's a very driven young man.)
Cesilee Blackwelder (who came and helped us with all the children) and Stephen rode in a swing.
The swings went round and round.
Junior made a very long trek through a pirate ship to go down this very long slide...

...and, of course, Stephen had to follow.
The family picture!

This was our 5th trip to the fair in our four-and-a-half years in Georgia. Julia did great. She didn't get to ride any rides because she was too small, and we were there for 4 hours!

Junior getting a real buzz!
Aubrey (left) and Cesilee (right) came to help us with the kids.
They were a great help and a lot of fun. I couldn't count the number of times Stephen ran off to a different ride (he was very excited) and Aubrey chase him down. In fact, it got to the point where I only knew Stephen had run off because Aubrey began to jog off in a different direction. ("Umm, there goes Aubrey...Stephen must've run off again!")
Thanks, guys, for going with us!
We didn't get to ride the ferris wheel this year, but it still looked really cool towering over us.
Another great year at the Coosa Valley Fair!
Until next year...FAIR-well!