Sunday, January 10, 2010

10 January 2010

Happy Birthday to Brandan! We celebrated his birthday on Monday. Instead of a cake, he picked a dessert the whole family could eat -- some salt-roasted pears. It's hard to exaggerate the transcendence of a ripe pear, roasted in a salt crust and served with caramel. Grab your scientific calculator to discover Brandan's age: On January 4, 2010 at 3:15 while lying on the beach, Brandan is flying a kite with a 49.6055 foot string. With a 6 mph wind, the string is making a 50 degree angle with the ground. How high is the kite?
 
Here Helen and Gibson try out Brandan's new running gear. Brandan has started running with Becky a couple of mornings a week, partly for the exercise but mainly for the conversation. Becky is pretty useless after 9 pm, after getting up ridiculously early in the morning to run. Brandan is easy to spot in the dark in his bright new jacket.

It's pretty typical for Becky to spend the time when Helen is at school running errands with Gibson in tow. Gibson HATES running errands, so for a gift to him, Becky has decided to spend Tuesday mornings at home. Here he is this past Tuesday making a goofy face for Mom, home with his blocks and trucks, just the way he likes it.

We're using the momentum from putting Christmas decorations away to start on Spring cleaning. When Spring actually gets here, we'll want to be outside, not stuck inside cleaning. Becky pulled all the craft supplies down while cleaning out a cabinet. Abe and Helen liked playing with the smorgasbord of containers.
 
Here's Abe next to the tower he built with glue and paint bottles.

6 comments:

Hatch Family said...

Great job on the tidying up! We always feel like we have so much extra room after all of the Christmas decorations are stored away.

Kari said...

I look forward to your blog every week. I am inspired by your creativity and family togetherness (I think I just made up that word!). Thanks for being such a fantastic example to all of us, I just love you guys!!

PS Not in a million years could I ever figure out that equation. My guess is 38!!

Kristi said...

I am sorry about your Mom. I hope all is well with her.
I loved Abe's tower of random craft items. It is so funny how the kids get excited to go through and find stuff when you are cleaning. For them, moving was an adventure.
Happy birthday Brandan. A birthday salt crusted pear. Sounds interesting and yummy.

Anonymous said...

Some days I wish you could come take me over and get me cleaning out my craft cupboards and making crusted pears--I wish I would have read about the calendar burning before just now. I love that idea. Also, what a tender gift to stay home on Tuesdays. I drag Anna around so much in the same way. It's sweet to think of things from their perspective. Thanks Becky and I really hope the best for your mom.

Autumn said...

I think I would be more likely to look up Brandons age on the church records than to figure out that equation! Kudos to you for your brain still working like that. Good for you for giving a morning to Gibbers - I have been working consciously on that too. It's hard not to used the reduced-kid time to do lots of errands!

Rob and Amy Weaver Clan said...

You can run and talk at the same time? I am impressed. How fun to do that together.

I am intrigued by the math problem. I can't dust the cobwebs off enough in my brain to remember it. Something in my head is telling me that the angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees- is that right? Anyhow- that is as far as I got. When Rob gets home I am going to ask him because now I am curious. He will probably remember. He likes reading math books for fun.