Sorry guys, I started a Facebook in March or something which nicely coincides with basically the end of my blogging. I will try to be better. Regardless, for those of you who don't know Kelly and I are leaving for Malawi on a mission trip with our church. We expect to gain more than we can give but we will see. For those of you who might want to track along we will be posting updates to our church's blog http://www.highlightslive.com/ as we are able. Being that Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world I don't know how often we will be able to do that but we will try!

Kelly and I went with about 20 people to Mammoth this weekend. It was a blast. The first day we went sledding and unfortunately Kelly took a spill and got her leg tangled in another person. She has not been to the doctor yet but basically her knee is swollen and she can't walk on it. Hopefully it is nothing significant as far as ligaments are concerned. Unfortunately, due to the injury, she was unable to join me on the mountain the next day for skiing and snowboarding. I had a good time though. I went to the top of the mountain and the 70 mph winds blew so hard at one point that it literally knocked me over. I had a good time (it would have been a blast if Kelly was with me). However, my sad realization is that my two separate injuries to my knee has basically let me with severe arthritis already. After a day of snowboarding I could hardly walk on it, so Kelly and I made quite the dramatic pair. Bummer, are my days of snowboarding coming to an end (yes, high school football, being my fondest memories of those 4 years, was worth it)? I did not have my camera so these are a few our friend shared with us. Despite the sore knees, Kelly and I had a great time. It was capped off with a beautiful snow on Sunday night.
A beautiful frozen lake.

Kelly before her "final" run on "Dead Man's Hill." Seriously, thats what it is called because it is about a 50-60 degree run that is probalby 100-120 ft long.

Kelly still has a smile on her face despite knowing that she was hobbled and unable to join me on the mountain.

Kelly surprised me with an amazing Christmas present...a trip back East for a week. She knows I love American History and the only visit I have ever made back east was a brief trip to Boston. So, when she found a great deal on a place in Williamsburg, VA she snatched it up and booked the flights. Williamsburg is a colonial town where you can walk around and see a day in the life of a colonist. Everyone in the town is wearing colonial attire and doing the various trades of colonial times. It used to be the capital of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, so the old Capital buiding is still there. It was a blast. It is also with in 10 minute drives of Jamestown, the first English Settlement, and Yorktown where the British were defeated for good, giving us our independence. After sometime there, we visited a key battle site of the Civil War and then spent two days in Washington DC where we stayed with some Westmont friends. We have a ton of pictures and I had a hard time picking ones to share. I have 5 entries so you may need to click on previous posts to see them all.

In Jamestown, I rolled dice for the "rights" to Kelly. No serious, highest roll won, I rolled a 6, but apparently the guy meant high as in the air so I lost. Kelly was then brought up in front of everyone and they tried marrying her off to someone else. Hey you win some you lose some, what can you do?

We decided the only thing to do was to fight for Kelly's honor. We won because Kelly looked so fierce and tough that it scared our enemies.

"Have you ever been on a shrimping boat?" "No, but I have been on a really big boat."

Hey when you pay money to fly across the country, you are not going to let a little rain get in our way, or a lot for that matter. Being the gentleman that I am, I took the umbrella. I would not want to embrass Kelly making her walk around with a husband who had wet, messed up hair. I did it for her, really.

Kelly was so happy that I had the umbrella and my hair looked good that she wanted a picture to capture her wet, rain soaked smile.

Now this is commitment, with the wind, it was probably in the 20's yet Kelly was nice enough to walk a Civil War battlefield with me. As repayment, I only took 45 minutes (hey I was TRYING to walk fast).

We spent a day at Yorktown where George Washington kicked Cornwalis's arse for the last time during the Revolutionary War.

Williamsburg is nice enough to only lock tourists in the stalks for a few hours at a time.

Kelly's favorite house in Williamsburg.

My favorite house in Williamsburg.

I thought I would share a section of the WWII memorial. Basically it is a big oval with pillars that have different sayings and things on them. Needless to say, as I am sure many do, walked through there will a sense of pride.

You can't see well, but this is the Marine emblem at the base of the flag pole.

The last two days of our trip we spent in Washington DC. One of my good friends Aaron, lives about two miles north of the White House. Washington was lovely. Our first day there there was a pleasant icy breeze coming off the Potomac, bringing the temperature to a lovely 8 degrees. Aaron recently informed me that a mere 5 days after we left it was 73. Man, who wants that sort of weather? Give me the 8 degrees! It was a great trip until our last night when Aaron and his wife took us to a great Ethiopian restaurant. While driving around Washington at night to see everything lit up, we also made a few stops so I could check out some of the lovely trash cans in the city. I remained pukey basically until we got home the next day. Which, thanks to United, only took 14 hours as one of our flights was cancelled, the next flight delayed by 2 hours, causing us to miss connecting flights and basically leaving us in San Diego with no way home (United was generous enough to offer us a flight to LA, then back down to Orange County, which, with layovers would have only taken 5 more hours more...how nice). A friend really saved the day when she took 3 hours out of her Saturday afternoon to drive down and pick us up and take us home. We have sinced cancelled our United Mileage Credit card and will now only use them when all the other air lines have gone bankrupt and the greyhound goes out of business.

In all seriousness, it was a great trip that we won't forget. I have an AMAZING wife to do this for me.

The Gettysburg Address: Kelly thinks I am a nerd because I memorized it in 8th grade and still have half of it down. Come on, doesn't every cool 8th grader memorized 200 + year old speeches?

Ah yes, we all know this famous spot...its where Jenny jumped into the pool and yelled "FOREST!" Mr. Gump then yelled back "JENNY? JENNY!" Definitely a pivotal time in American History.

Little does some guy realize that his "hind quarters" will be forever captured in the Dickson photo album.

Holy Crap! Its 8 freaking degrees out! At this point, I was pretty sure my ears were gone, fortunately this picture serves as evidence that they were still there. Our faces were frozen in that position and we walked around the rest of the evening with those surprised looks on our faces.

Did you know that Washington is the place of the world's largest pencil?

Kelly and I infront of a really cool pond.

While walking around Washington, Kelly and I saw this beautiful home, I can't remember who lives there though.

Now is this the front or the back of the White House?

Beautiful view of the Mall from the steps of the Lincoln memorial.

It was so cold that even Lincoln had turned white.

Kelly and I did our second annual "Thanksgiving Day Practice" with our Bible Study group. This means a dinner for about 30 plus people at our house. It is alot of work but is also alot of fun.

This is our backyard before the event, you can see our patio cover Kelly and I built turned out well, at least until the first big winds hit, then I would recommend NOT standing under it.

We put one of the guys in our group in charge of Decorations. Give a man a chance to decorate and you don't get fancy decor, elegant centerpieces, or other sorts of things that add class to a dinner, instead you get a 7 foot tall blow up turkey! Oh YEAH!

We just ate the Dickson's turkey and suprisingly are still smiling!

Well we are smiling because we actually threw our turkey away!

And we're smiling because we are not the suckers sitting outside in the cold!

Our Tuesday night Bible study group decided to celebrate Halloween a day early. WE all carved pumpkins and Kelly looks for any chance she can get to dress up.
Dude, you haven't even carved anything yet!

Man, that costume most be hot! Got to get air to the pits!

There are a few great pieces of art in the world; pieces like the Mona Lisa, the David statue, Sistine Chapel, and Dustin's pumpkin.

My pumpkin is the good one (just pick your favorite and I will take credit for it, what do you know? You weren't there.)

I bet you did not know a giraffe could be so freaking good looking!

Well, Kelly and I thought we had lost our camera. Turns out my parents have it but we have not not had a chance to take pictures since the Family reunion in August. However, Kelly's sister has been scanning old pictures so I figured I would put some of those up instead since they are adorable! When looking at this you have to wonder... does Kelly come from some sort of Asian descent?
Kelly was (is) such a good swimmer, that she like to give the other girls head starts.

Now that is a face we can finally recognize (notice awkward sister in background)

Apparently, the smallest swimsuit ever made was still a little big in the back side.

Here are some more:
These backpacks are DANGEROUS. Just ask Derrick about how good of capapults they can be.

Is it just me or does she look like she has no idea what is going on and is wondering why she is wearing that silly hat?

No, that is not a blond haired boy hanging out with Jamie. THat is my dark haired, green eyed wife. HOT!

So... ahhh... was this a drowing competition?

Now that is a good one.

Well, Kelly and I spent my part of my birthday weekend building a pergola (patio cover) in our backyard. Actually, the materials for it was a present from my father in law. Wasnt that nice of him giving me a present that create a full few days worth of work for me! Just kidding. It was something we have wanted to do since we had to remove our trees and lost all shade in our backyard (Lauren was not happy about that). We also recently finished painting the rest of our house. Well, not finished, as we have to do touch up and paint the eaves, but the beige is all new. Our yard is starting to come together. The pergola is not finised yet but it is a good start.

Lauren is far from cameras shy as you can see and she is excited about finally having some shade for the rest of the summer. She was so excited and could not contain herself so she went and got her stuffed animal and ran all over the place.