27 April 2008

Sophie's school choir had their Spring concert on Thursday. They performed several songs from many different Disney movies. The grand finale was "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid, accompanied by a bubble machine blowing soap bubbles.


Brandan is on the Downtown Beautification Committee. Those of you who have visited can understand the need for this committee. Saturday our family went downtown to help with a flower planting project. The committee ordered flower boxes for many of the storefronts downtown and a large group gathered to fill them. Sophie, Abe and Helen are perched on the trailer that holds the plants.


With 65 planters to fill, we organized an assembly line. The baskets had previously been bolted to the storefronts. A group of people with bags of dirt went first, Brandan followed with fertilizer, then the kids came with a plastic polymer, then Becky came with more dirt. Others followed with plants. The polymer is similar to the crystals found in baby diapers. It holds 400 times its weight in water and will help the planters retain moisture when the weather heats up. The kids loved squishing their fingers through the buckets of hydrated crystals.


Gibson slept in his stroller for most of the activity. Here's a bleary-eyed photo of him after he finally woke up.

Here is a finished planter. They look lovely now, but we can't wait to see how they grow. We'll try to remember to post a photo of one later this summer.

After a morning of planting, we came home to work on our own yard. Brandan said that the organic fertilizer smelled like dark chocolate, so Helen stuck her nose in the spreader to get a whiff. Interestingly, in the past 6 months, demand for compost in our area has grown so much that the price of compost has doubled and one supplier is rationing compost. Looks like we're part of a large "go green" trend.

22 April 2008

We got back last night from our quick 4 day trip to Idaho for Zina's baptism. Only about 1/5 of our 640 mile road trip was on an interstate. The rest of the time we drove on narrow highways through sagebrush and an occasional small town. The highlight of Hines, Oregon is this impossibly tall, rickety slide. Our kids found it the perfect place to take a break from the road.


A new YMCA opened in Ketchum, Idaho and we went swimming there with Grandma and Grandpa, aunts, uncles and cousins. The YMCA is super nice. Besides a regular lap pool, it has a terrific play pool with a slide, a lazy river and lots of water toys. Zina and Sophie are playing with some of the huge faucets the kids can turn on and off.


Becky forgot to bring Helen's swimsuit to the pool, so Helen went swimming in a swim diaper. There are advantages to being 3 years old. Brandan and Abe missed the pool and enjoyed St. Luke's emergency room instead. Fortunately it was not too serious, and after sleeping nearly the entire 12-hour trip home, Abe is starting to perk up.


Here we are back at Sarah and Joe's. From the left, the kids are Sy, Gibson, Sophie, Sawyer, Zina, Helen and Abe. Sarah and Joe were fabulous hosts. Their normal household of 3 (plus one fat cat Becky regards with hostility) swelled to 15 for the weekend and we all enjoyed their generosity, kindness and phenomenal organizational abilities!

Sarah and Joe's house has lots of examples of the terrific hardware Joe makes like these bin pulls in the kitchen. The bronze is about 1/8 inch thick and feels very substantial in your hand.

Here is Helen curled up under one of Sarah's handmade quilts. Sarah has a great eye for color and pattern and makes several beautiful quilts a year. Those are Brandan's feet, ala Pippi Longstocking.

One more photo from the road- only 3 more hours from this spot to home. We think Katie should say yes.

13 April 2008

We rode bikes for Family Night and before we went inside for treats, Brandan got out his old Dyno to show us some tricks. He said he was rusty, but we were impressed. Brandan ALWAYS wears a helmet to and from work, but he got so excited when he pulled out the old bike that he didn't think of it until he was putting the bike away. Always wear a helmet!


Brandan and Abe built a pair of portable soccer goals out of PVC pipe. It's warm enough now and there's still daylight when Brandan gets home from work, making perfect conditions for post-dinner soccer games. And it looks like you can play soccer in cowboy boots.


Becky just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver which encourages buying local food. It made her curious, "What food is available locally?" so she took the kids to the local farmer's market. The answer in April is "Not much." We were impressed with all the vegetable starts and picked out some strawberry, leek, broccoli and tarragon plants to put in our garden. These plants make us feel like millionaires as we anticipate our future harvest.


Abe hit his face when he slipped running up the stairs and punctured his lower lip with his upper teeth. Brandan was on his way to work, but rode home after Becky called him. There was a lot of blood and Abe has a good-sized gash below his lip, but he didn't need stitches. Abe didn't want Becky to take his photo, so here's a photo of Brandan cleaning him up. Makes 4 years of medical school and 3 years of residency feel worthwhile.

April means it's time for the Pear Blossom Run. This is a great event for the whole family, with 10 mile, 5 kilometer, 2 mile and 1 mile distances, all beginning and ending at the same spot. Sophie and Becky ran the 5K at 7am. This was Sophie's first road race and she didn't whine at all. Sophie and Becky then joined the rest of the family for the 1 mile event at 8am. The photo shows our whole family; Brandan's shadow is at the bottom of the frame.

We're going to Idaho next weekend for Zina's baptism and won't be home on Sunday. We'll be sure to post some photos of our trip when we get back.

6 April 2008

Is Sophie having a cheese sandwich for a bedtime snack? April Fool! Sophie made surprisingly realistic looking "sandwiches" by baking a cake in a bread pan, slicing it and spreading the slices with orange frosting for "cheese."


Gibson enjoyed playing in a pile of balloons. Brandan, Sophie and Abe used an air compressor to blow up balloons for. . .


Abe's birthday! Our golden boy turned 5 on April 3. We admire Abe for his steadiness, goodness and ability to work hard. He plays hard, too, and gets so sweaty, his hair stands up.


Abe got to have his first friend birthday party. In our family, you can have your first friend party when you're 5 and then can have one every other year. Abe picked a baseball theme for his party. He and his friends decorated baseball caps, ran an obstacle course and played whiffle ball. Whiffle ball is a great equalizer of athletic ability. The bat is big enough that those lacking coordination can hit the ball and it's awkward enough to slow those with athletic talent down.

The obstacle course was a lot of fun. Here are most of the balloons shown previously, taped to the underside of a table for the kids to crawl through. Or crabwalk through. Or scamper, slither, gallop through. The kids were so creative coming up with new ways to go through the obstacles.

Here are the kids on the front porch, waiting for Abe's friends to arrive. As parents, we love what good friends they are to each other. Sophie, Abe and Helen call themselves "The Fearsome Threesome" while they wait for Gibson to grow up and join their antics and become "The Fantastic Four." Brandan thinks that "The Fearsome Foursome" sounds pretty good, too.

We enjoyed conference very much this weekend. Lots of good food and CANDY. The kids picked "president" as a jelly bean word and then reaped the rewards during the talk on presidencies yesterday (as well as during many of the introductions of speakers). We're so thankful for the testimonies of the Savior and for the miracle of an ordinary man being called to an extraordinary position and God's goodness in giving us a prophet, President Thomas S. Monson.