Grandma’s visit to OMSI

Last week Grandma came for a 5 day visit. With Grandma to babysit I got to help in both Andrews and Michaels classrooms.

On Saturday we went to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science & Industry) We spent most of our time in the Science Playground for little ones. Michael & Andrew got to do art work and Christopher played with flubber.

We went to the laser light show and right as it was finishing the alarms went off. We all thought it was part of the show. Nope it was a real fire alarm! All three boys were excited to see the fire truck. Apparently some employees had rags socked with cotton seed oil and were tossing them into some container. Somehow the heat of all of them together caught them on fire.

We ended up eating our lunch in the van then were able to go back inside. Andrew has fun trying to get the paper cups to fly and everyone enjoyed playing in the huge ball room.

Cutest Steelers fan!

Wherever we go we find Steelers fans

We ended the day with the Wild Ocean IMAX movie.

GO STEELERS!!!!

We did not get to watch as much of the game as we hoped, (3 boys can keep a person busy) but none the less were super excited about the Steelers going to the Super Bowl.
Just going places in our Steelers shirts we have found so many other fans.
In case someone has forgotten Stealers History here it is:

IX January 12, 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers 16 Minnesota Vikings 6

X January 18, 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers 21 Dallas Cowboys 17

XIII January 21, 1979 Pittsburgh Steelers 35 Dallas Cowboys 31

XIV January 20, 1980 Pittsburgh Steelers 31 Los Angeles Rams 19

XL February 5, 2006 Pittsburgh Steelers 21 Seattle Seahawks 10

Yeah I think well take this one too!

Here is a little fact about that Steelers Symbol

Here's the surprise: the Steelers' symbol isn't theirs, and never was. Instead, it belongs to the country's steel industry and originally had nothing to do with football, Pittsburgh or the Steelers.

But you probably knew that.

An even bigger surprise: the idea for the Steelers to wear it came from, of all cities, Cleveland.

Now that you probably didn't know.

Before 1962, the Steelers' most-used logo was a punter booming a kick while balanced on a steel beam -- a fitting symbol given how often they punted in those days. Before that season, executives of Cleveland-based Republic Steel suggested the Steelers wear a new emblem called the Steelmark, originally designed for U.S. Steel.

The Steelmark contained the word "steel" and the trio of four-pointed stars, known as hypocycloids, in yellow, orange and blue.

Initially, the colors were to represent the attributes of steel but, that proved confusing and were quickly changed to stand for the three materials used in steelmaking (yellow for coal, orange for iron ore, blue for scrap steel).

Here's the original symbol.

So, why was the logo only put on one side of the helmet? Was it a novelty thing or was it a cost-savings thing?

"I thought it was a good idea, but I wasn't sure how it would be received," said Dan Rooney, now the team's chairman. "That's why it's only on one side of the helmet. Then we took it from there, and we had everybody asking questions and I said, `Let's keep it that way. It's really a novelty."'

Hence why the logo, to this day, is on only one side of the helmet (it's also been rumored the team's longtime equipment manager, Jack Hart, wasn't happy with slapping the logo on so many helmets and refused to do both sides).

It sounds like it was a risk-management and cost-savings thing that turned into a novelty. Here's a picture of a miniature version of the 1962 helmet:

And when a good thing works, you keep it

The Steelers had a surprisingly good record (9-5) in 1962, so they chose to keep the logo, with two changes. One, the helmets were switched from gold to black. Second, the Steelers were given permission to change the word "Steel" in the logo to "Steelers."

White Christmas

Not only was it our first Christmas in our new home it was also our first white Christmas. The snow started the week before, so the boys got an extra week off of school to enjoy the snow. All three boys loved to go outside and play in the snow. Michael was so excited to build a snowman. We were lucky that Heath was able to work from home the first week. The roads were pretty bad with ice and Portland as we found out is a little slow to get the roads clear.

Michael taking Christopher for a sled ride.
Christopher loved the sled and here he got Andrew to pull him for a ride. Heath in back shoveling our driveway so we could get the van out.

Our snowman after our first snow. All the boys were so happy. Michael really worked hard on building him.

Trying to get up to the front door.

Snow and ice on our roof.

Our deck. Yes there is a BBQ and toys under all that snow.

Looking down our street

Our House

Our snowman after a second snow storm.

Snow was not going to slow down our outdoor fun. After playing in the front yard when daddy was working on clearing our driveway we had a whole backyard to still play in.
Collecting icicles’.

Yep we moved our play structure not even snow was going to stop us form playing on it.

Snow angels so much fun.

Andrew looking for the rock wall. Yes he went up with all that snow.

A slide with snow is twice as much fun!

Now that its clear Christopher turn.