9 November 2025

 

Our friend, Andrea, was in Utah last week and attended an intramural soccer game that Abe and his friends played in. She shared these photos. From the left are Ashton, Spencer, Kaeli, Jayden, Camden, Abe, Jake, Malakai, and Erica.

This photo reminds us of watching Abe play soccer when he was younger. Even in high school he would play with his tongue sticking out and make sound effects when he kicked the ball.

Our friend, Kim, was out for a walk in our neighborhood this week and thought our house looked picturesque with all the fall colors. We agree!

We drove to Ashland for their First Friday art gallery walk. The Episcopal church was hosting a special night to coincide with the gallery walk. The church has a copy of the famous labyrinth at the Chartes Cathedral in France outdoors. For Friday's event, they lit the labyrinth with luminaries and invited visitors to walk the path by candlelight. The candles probably made it trickier than just walking the path by the ambient light would have been, since the candles created shadows and prevented our eyes from adjusting to the dark. We also learned we had to slow our pace. Walking too quickly created enough of a breeze to blow our candles out.  

We hiked Upper Tablerock Saturday morning. The valley was completely fogged in. This is our view from the top, looking south. We could see the tip of Mt. McLoughlin above the sea of clouds.

This is the view looking north, showing blue skies.

We walked down the trail and back into the fog. This photo is near the parking lot.

Brandan finished the puzzle we started during general conference. Becky only contributed about 4 pieces to the puzzle. This is a view of Manarola, one of the Cinque Terra towns. It's clearly been photoshopped. The real town is not this colorful. We're also not sure how they took a photo without any people in it. The photo definitely wasn't taken in August. Still, the puzzle was a fun reminder of our visit to Manarola.

2 November 2025

While on a walk this week, we saw a tree near a creek that had toppled. Brandan guessed it was the work of a beaver. We moved closer to investigate.

We saw very distinct teeth marks in the trunk of the tree. While it's not great to have beavers felling trees in the neighborhood, we are impressed with the demonstration of beaver bite force.

It was finals week for the first quarter of the school year. Becky doesn't trust all of her students in Construction Math to pass the final on their first attempt, so students took their final last week and we started a new unit this week. The first topic is dimensional analysis. Becky changed the measurements in a recipe for brownies-in-a-mug to unusual volume units (like cubic meters) and students had to convert the measurements back to tablespoons in order to make brownies. The students had a great time, did a lot of math, and the hallway smelled like fresh brownies all day.

Becky belongs to a book club that meets the last Thursday of each month. The host of October invited everyone to come dressed as a character from their favorite book. Favorite book for Becky is an easy decision: The Book of Mormon. She dressed up as Sariah.

Here's a photo of the group. From the left are Liz (a witch), Jenny ( a cowgirl), Janiel (no costume), Renae (a 1950s teenager), Becky, Judy ( a witch from The Humbug Witch), Julie (Sybill Trelawney from Harry Potter), Beka (Hermoine from Harry Potter), Sandy (the caterpillar from The Very Hungry Caterpillar), and Tiffany (Emma M. Lion from The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion).

Brandan's team at work selected Toy Story as a theme and assigned him the character of Andy.

Nate and Sofi reprised their Greg and Wirt costumes for their ward trunk or treat.

The Salt Lake City offices picked superheroes as a theme and three people dressed like Clark Kent/Superman, including Helen.

Abe made a log costume. The Log is a character in a mobile game called Clash Royale.

This is what The Log looks like in the game. Abe did a good job recreating it.

It turns out that walking in a narrow, vertical box is challenging. Abe got around by shuffle jogging.

Abe and friends spent Halloween night party hopping in Provo. We're impressed with the creativity shown by these college students.

Back in Oregon, Becky and Brandan passed our candy to trick or treaters. It was a perfect evening to be outside and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset. Brandan bought 2 bags of candy (375 pieces) and we were out of candy at 7:15 pm.

We hiked the Liz Loop trail in Jacksonville on Saturday morning.

We've learned the best antidote to lack of sunshine during late fall and winter months is to spend more time outside. Even a gray, rainy day isn't really gray if you get outside.

26 October 2025

Brandan finished the plant bench he was making this week. He sized the bench to fit under a window in our family room.

We moved all of our plants from the kitchen counter onto the bench. Most of these plants were gifts after Becky's mom died last year.

Brandan made pizza in our wood stove on Saturday. It takes several hours to warm up the oven. This is a photo of the first fire he started around 11 am.

Here's a photo of the finished (and delicious) pizza.

Becky discovered that Gibson left a lunch packed in his school lunchbox. Since May 30 was his last day of school, the lunch is probably from May. Fortunately the food is all shelf stable. Becky thought the lunch was worth documenting since Gibson ate similar lunches throughout high school.

19 October 2025

We ate at Blue Toba, a restaurant in Ashland, on Friday night. We had heard the restaurant served Malaysian food and thought it would be fun to get a taste of the kind of food Gibson is currently eating. It turned out to be Indonesian food, not Malaysian, and it was delicious. Brandan had a noodle dish called mie goreng and Becky had vegetables with peanut sauce which was called gado gado. We shared an Indonesian spiced soda.

Brandan has been building a bench for houseplants. He brought it inside to make sure the legs were level before applying the finish.

Brandan used a large slab of walnut someone gave him many years ago to make the bench. The large piece of wood had several cracks in it. Brandan made butterfly joints to strengthen the board.

Abe works as a caregiver. One of his patients gave him a lot of fresh corn from their garden. This is a photo of Abe, Spencer, and Camden eating the corn raw.

Abe went to the BYU/Utah game on Saturday night. Abe estimates there were over 65,000 fans in the stadium that seats 63,000 people. This is a photo at the end of the game.

Abe sat near the top of the stadium.

Meanwhile, we attended the open house celebrating our friends' daughter and her husband and stayed to clean up afterwards. The open house was outdoors so we spent a good amount of time unwrapping twinkle lights from trees, arches and fences.

Abe carved pumpkins with friends after the BYU game. The theme was "scary" and Abe carved an amide from organic chemistry on his pumpkin.

Adia was set apart as a missionary today after church and we had the privilege to attend. Adia is full of love and goodness will be a fantastic missionary.

12 October 2025

 

Becky gave the quilt she made to Ireland. She finished it just before Ireland left on her maternity leave.

We had a very warm September. Fall rains finally started this week. Cooler weather is better for transplanting and Brandan picked up some more plants for our yard.

Becky took her Math in Society classes to Craterworks to bake brownies on Tuesday. Students had to do a little math and adapt their recipes. The real education was getting in the kitchen, showing students how to measure ingredients.

Her last Math in Society class mixed all the extra ingredients, mostly butter and sugar, together and baked it in a pan. Becky's last class of the day devoured the non-brownies in about a minute and a half.

On Thursday some of the administrators came to class and judged the brownies for best taste. They took their responsibilities very seriously. From the left are Joni, Jeremy, Michelle, Shannon.

We helped plant a new pollinator garden at Flanagan Park on Saturday. There were so many volunteers that we finished planting in about an hour and a half.

We wondered how we would know when our pomegranate was ripe. This week it split open, revealing lots of pomegranate seeds inside. So we guess it was ripe a few days ago.

We debuted a new family night wheel this week. Family night is still a highlight of our week.

Here is a look back at all of our previous family night wheels.

Helen and friends had a craft night and drew self portraits. From the top left are portraits by Jared, Helen, Alex, Laura, Asher, Elle, and Lilly.

Helen painted this charming pumpkin.

Gibson's mission plaque is hanging up at church now. Helen took the photo on the plaque on the day Gibson was set apart as a missionary.

5 October 2025

 

Last weekend Abe went hiking with friends. The next few photos are from his hike.

He ended the day at a campfire with more friends.

We had our first rainstorms for fall this week and Brandan realized that the rain running down the roof was bouncing off the new rain guards he installed last week, then pouring off the edge of the gutters. The rain gutter guards were keeping the rain out of the gutters, as well as any other debris. The rain gutter guards have two layers. Brandan removed the fine mesh layer from the guards.

Here is a close up of the guards, showing the fine mesh screen over a plastic screen with larger holes.

Abe went to a mission reunion at the home of President and Sister Killpack. Abe is sitting on the couch in the middle of the photo. President Killpack is wearing a white shirt and tie. The other senior couple are the Harris's. Abe served with the Harris's in the office and they loved making runs to Costco in Busan and buying the missionaries their favorite snacks.

We greatly enjoyed conference this weekend, enjoying talks about peacemaking and forgiveness and testimony.

Sofi and Nate snacked on chocolate hummus Sunday afternoon. With the timezone difference, the sessions of conference all shift to the afternoon.

Lunchtime in Connecticut is breakfast time in Oregon. Becky and Brandan enjoyed a squash and kale frittata.

Abe shared a photo of his breakfast in Centerville, Utah.

Abe spent the night in Centerville with friends and enjoyed watching conference with them. From the left are Abe, Sofi, Kate, Josie, Eli, Isa, Rachel, Kendra, and Daniel. All of these students live in Provo. Eli and Isa are siblings and their parents hosted the group for conference,