So, a couple weeks ago I decided I had enough of the receding hairline thing. I also woke up that Saturday and looked in the mirror and decided I didn’t like to look like Crusty the Clown. When hair thins, it doesn’t have fellow hairs to hang on to and…

Last night I enjoyed one of those moments of fatherhood I never thought about before we had kids: pulling teeth. Twice now I’ve gotten some dental floss from the cabinet, tied a knot around a loose tooth, and pulled, to reveal a bloodless tiny kernel of dentition in a tangle…

Just before leaving Muskegon, Michigan, this Thanksgiving, AJ started asking us about Lake Michigan, and we realized we hadn’t taken him to see the lake for a couple years. He’s nearly five, now, so he has no memories of seeing it before. So, after driving around and trying a few frozen over access points–and one over-run by hunters–we took AJ to the pier/lighthouse where I proposed to Jennifer in 1997. There was a massive ice-shelf extending into the lake (beyond the lighthouse) when I proposed (I was literally standing on nothing but ice!), but it wasn’t that cold yet this weekend, so we thought it would be a great time to visit.

Boy, was it cold. Ice had already started forming on the lighthouse and the pier leading up to it. We couldn’t get any closer than what you see in this picture because the concrete was far too icy and slippery. There were three hardy fishermen out there with us and AJ stopped and inquired of each one if they’d caught any fishies. Nobody had.

I was glad we happened to have Jen’s digital camera handy, so I could catch a couple snapshots. Enjoy the coldness.

Oh, and on the way back we stopped by a church with some of the most unusual architecture I’ve ever seen.

St. Francis de Sales church is a monumental concrete structure that is simultaneously imposing and inviting, disturbing and refreshing. It is a favorite for foto bugs in town–but photos simply cannot do it justice.

(The “Unprocessed” link below each image will lead you to the original, out-of-the-camera, unprocessed shot, if you’re interested in seeing what a little work in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro will do. I generally just played with the histogram and made slight cropping corrections. However, the lighthouse required a little extra work to preserve the red color, AJ’s pants required rescuing from becoming black holes, and the church photos were turned to grayscale before I made histogram adjustments.)

I had a great Thanksgiving, by the way!