28 September 2008

Helen gets together on Thursday mornings with 3 other sweet girls. This week was the first time we hosted the playgroup at our house. The girls play together so well, it was delightful to have them over. In the photo the girls are playing with play dough. Their favorite tool to use was the garlic press -- it made great spaghetti or hair out of play dough.


Brandan took Abe and Gibson on our ward's father/son campout Friday night. Abe had the time of his life. Brandan pulled an all-nighter with Gibson. Gibson is a terrific sleeper at home, but couldn't settle down to sleep in his portable crib or in Brandan's sleeping bag. The photo shows the boys Saturday morning.


One of the bishopric brought knives to give to the boys. This alone is evidence that no moms were along on the overnighter. Abe is completely thrilled with his knife. We suppose if you're going to give a dangerous object to a 5 year old, Abe's the one to give it to. (Brandan is not as concerned about this knife as Becky is.)


With the boys gone, the girls had their own party. We watched Ella Enchanted, ate candy and painted our toenails to match.

We reached a big milestone this week -- Gibson is now 18 months old. Today was his first Sunday in nursery. He loved playing with the toys and Brandan had to drag him away from nursery when church was over.

The Tulikivi Post

We've had our eye on a Tulikivi wood stove for about 10 years and finally ordered one this past March. The stoves are made in Finland and it took about 6 months for our stove to arrive in the US. The installation took longer and was messier than we expected, but the stove is finally finished! As you may not have heard of or seen a Tulikivi, we're posting photos of the month-long process. In case that's more information than you're interested in, here's a photo of the completely gorgeous finished product. Sophie and Helen are standing next to the stove for scale. The little door on top is a brick oven for baking and roasting all sorts of yummy delicacies.


Here's the same wall a month ago, before the workers arrived.


The Tulikivi is made almost entirely of soapstone and weighs over 7000 pounds. Therefore, the first step was to build a very sturdy foundation for the stove. The workers cut a hole in the floor the first day to expose the crawlspace and our home hasn't been childproof since then.


The finished foundation from the top. Of course, Sophie, Abe and Helen wrote their names in the wet cement and Gibson pushed his hand into it. We took a photo of their signatures, too, because they are no longer visible.

Here's a photo of the foundation from underneath the floor. There is a base of concrete, a tower of cement block, rebar and concrete, capped off with another concrete pad. The silver tube is a vent that provides fresh air directly to the stove.

With the foundation in place, the workers moved on to the chimney. They did their best to mask the area they were working in and tidied up each day before they left, but we still spent all month constantly vacuuming, mopping and dusting.

Here's a view of the completed chimney from the vantage point of where the stove will be connected. The ability to stand in our family room and see out the top of our roof caught all of our imaginations and we took turns standing here and looking up.

One of the challenges of putting a stove in an exisiting 2-story house was where to route the chimney. We decided to position the stove so the chimney could run through Becky's closet. Clothes are not a particular strength of hers, so she doesn't need a whole closet to herself. Besides, after Brandan works his organizational and craftsmanly magic in here, she'll have more room than before to hang her 5 skirts.

After the chimney, came the heat shield, a barrier made of reflective foil, steel studs, cement backer board, stucco and finished off with soapstone trim. By now the workers have been working 3 weeks and our kids love them. Watching them work is better than television.

Finally, the stove is delivered and unloaded on our patio. Becky was feeling frazzled by the construction process, but one look at the beautiful stone soothed her. The stove came in dozens of pieces, ranging in size from cubes a few inches per side to big slabs that were a couple of feet long.

The big pieces of stone were stacked on this side of the patio. We worried about Gibson knocking one of the pieces over on himself, but Becky couldn't even budge them. (A good description of the month might be "We worried about Gibson. . .")

This photo shows the first course being assembled. Although the Tulikivi looks charmingly rustic, it is highly engineered and very efficient. Channels in the stove circulate the hot air from the fire throughout the stove, where it heats up the stone. The stone then gradually releases the heat over a period of up to 24 hours. A short, very hot fire can heat the house all day. The stone doesn't get hot enough to burn you, only pleasantly warm to the touch.

Here the stove starts to take shape. The photo also shows the beautiful figuring on the stone.

Did you think this post would never end? We felt like that sometimes waiting for the workers to finish. (By the way, their names are Isaac and Justin.) The finished stove is 7 feet tall and 3 feet deep. Look at those gorgeous flames! We're so very excited for cooler weather and the chance to start using the Tulikivi to heat our home. And we have to decide what to cook first in the oven. Pizza? Bread? Pork tenderloin? We have to break the stove in slowly to allow the mortar to dry completely and then we can use it for real.

21 September 2008

Gibson loves to help wash the dishes. "Helping" means emptying the contents of the silverware drawer into the sink. It's a trade-off: 15 minutes of a busy boy for the extra time it takes to wash clean silverware.


We wish you could hear Gibson's big belly laughs as he slaps bubbles in the sink. This boy knows how to laugh!


Here's a photo of a dance party in Brandan and Becky's room. The kids are jamming to "Super Trooper", possibly ABBA's greatest dance hit. (Lots of competition-- "Dancing Queen", "Mamma Mia", "Waterloo")


Brandan took the kids to a park on Saturday. The kids love this park for its elaborate wooden play structure. It's full of twists, stairs, ladders and slides, all kid-sized.

Saturday was the first day that has felt like fall. September has been a hot month- over 90 degrees for most of the month. It's finally cooling off.

14 September 2008

Monday was Abe's first day of kindergarten. Becky had planned on taking him to school, but Abe wanted to ride the bus. He wanted to go to the bus stop by himself, too, but agreed to let Becky walk him to the bus stop as long as she stayed back far enough so it looked like he was walking himself. In the end, he was in such a good mood, he even posed for a photo as he got on the bus.


With Sophie and Abe at school, Helen helped Becky make brownies for family night. And she got to lick the bowl all by herself.


Sophie and Abe ride the bus home from school together and it's very sweet to see them holding hands and hear them chattering about their day. Sophie doesn't sit by Abe on the bus because she's finally a 5th grader and it's the 5th graders privilege to sit in the very back seats of the bus. Abe has taken to school like a fish to water. It's hard to believe he's only been going for a week.


Here's an update on an earlier post- our switch to organic lawn care. The verdict is a big thumbs up. Our lawn is thicker, greener and healthier than ever (Becky was worried it would turn yellow and become weed infested). We don't worry about our kids getting poisoned when they play on it. We used less water this summer than last, even with several days over 100 degrees. The only drawback is it grows so fast, we have to mow twice a week.

Another update- this Spring we helped plant flower boxes outside of many of the businesses downtown. Recently we checked on the boxes as we walked downtown. Not a pretty sight. Many of the boxes are filled with withered brown plants. Some are alive, but struggling. Since having dead plants in front of your store is worse than having no plants in front of your store, maybe we participated in an uglification project, hmmm? A few worthy shopkeepers have watered and cared for their flower boxes and below is a photo of one of the pretty ones.

7 September 2008

Tuesday was The First Day of School, a highly anticipated holiday in our family. We observed all our usual traditions: a big breakfast, father's blessings, we all walked Sophie to school. Then we took a quick photo of Sophie because she was late, another first-day-of-school tradition. Sophie loves her new teacher and likes that most of her friends are in her class.


Abe's first day of kindergarten is tomorrow. It's a good thing he has afternoon kindergarten. This photo was taken at 9 am on Wednesday and he slept until 9:30. Morning kindergarten starts at 7:55 am.


This weekend was our ward campout at a nearby lake. The kids enjoyed boat rides and playing on the beach-- the water itself was pretty cold. Here Abe and his friend, Riley, are filling a hole they've dug with water, then they'll make a channel so the water can run out of the hole back into the lake. The lake is so beautiful, surrounded on all sides by thick forests of Douglas fir trees.


Brandan's clinic is finished and will open on Monday! He spent several hours on Saturday with his medical assistant unpacking and arranging their exam rooms. After dinner, Brandan took our family to the clinic for a sneak peek. Wow! It's beautiful. We predict the new clinic will increase patient satisfaction by 35%.

Brandan was the physician liason on the design team and has spent a lot of time over the past year working on the clinic. This is a photo of an exam room and shows the very mobile computer supports that allow the doctors to move around the room and still have access to their computer-- an important feature in a paperless office. It also shows Helen, Abe and Gibson rummaging through the cabinets. Time to go home!

Welcome and lots of love to our new niece and cousin, Sasha Mary Henson, born September 1!