31 July 2011

We've seen the videos on the internet, but this week we tried it for ourselves-- dropping Mentos into a bottle of Coke. The result was dramatic-- a 6 foot geyser of soda that lasted about 3 seconds. We didn't get photographic evidence of our experiment, but here's a photo of Sofi, Abe and Helen with the leftovers.

Abe got FIVE teeth pulled this week! He went in to the oral surgeon's office expecting to get 3 stubborn baby teeth pulled. After taking a 3-D xray, the surgeon decided to pull a permanent tooth as well (Abe had an extra incisor.) Then during the operation, he pulled a wobbly baby tooth that he was afraid Abe might swallow while he was unconscious. No charge for the 5th tooth. Abe has to cut up his food to eat, but is otherwise doing great.

 

Abe also received his Bobcat rank at pack meeting this week. He earned the rank a few months ago and is happily working on earning his Wolf.

 

Summer bedtime is a challenge. It's hard to go to bed when it's so light outside. Our compromise is to keep the same bedtime (8 pm) and let the kids read until 9 pm. This week Abe read Beyond Lucky, a great soccer novel and Helen read the Nancy Drew classic, The Hidden Staircase. Gibson looks at picture books. Sofi gets nudged off to bed at 10 pm.

 

Helen gave a talk about temples in Primary today. She wrote her own talk and drew a picture to illustrate it. Helen liked that her talk was short and she didn't have to stand up in front very long. Here is a photo of her practicing her talk for our family. She left the tiara and earrings at home.

 

24 July 2011

(style note: Sophie has decided to spell her name Sofi)

We spent this week in Utah for a family reunion with Brandan's family. We stayed most of the time in Eden, up in the mountains east of Ogden. The days whizzed by with lots of cousins to play with. Back row: Steph, Emma, Wade, Nate, Zoe, Brandan, Aaron, Sasha, Becky, Drue, Xander and Maggie. Front row: Kaylee, Helen, Sofi, Logan, Abe, Gibson, Salem, Parker, Dallin and Sutton. Not pictured are Brandan's Becky (taking the photo) and Dan, Linda, Jonny, Jaxson and Madison who left earlier.

We caravanned to Utah with friends headed in the same direction. It was a lovely way to travel. Our kids especially liked watching movies in the other van. We took this photo just before we split off from each other near the end of our trip. 

We spent our first day at Lagoon, an amusement park our kids have driven by dozens of times, but which they've never been to. The park exceeded their expectations. Going with the cousins made the day extra nice. The photo shows some of the kids on a train ride (we filled an entire car.) From the left are Sutton, Sofi, Helen, Logan, Abe, Salem and Kaylee.

 

Gibson's face may not show it, but this was one of his favorite rides. He took his responsibility to steer the little car around the track very seriously. 

This photo is of Becky's favorite ride, Rattlesnake Rapids. It also happens to be slow enough that you can take photos of the passengers. The photo shows Abe, Sofi and Madison going on their third straight ride. Abe and Madison are soaked, but Sofi is mysteriously dry.

 

The raft sailed through a waterfall and Sofi was dry no longer.

 

Here are Becky, Kaylee, Helen and Parker returning from their trip through the rapids. It was a hot day and we dried off quickly. 

This is Sofi with her newest little cousin, Emma.

 

We spent Friday night with Wade and Steph's family. Saturday was Pioneer Day in Utah. Pioneer Day rivals the 4th of July with parades, parties and fireworks. Wade and Steph's neighborhood held a big breakfast in the cul de sac-- pancakes, ham, eggs and hashbrowns, tablecloths and centerpieces, a flag ceremony and a bike parade, the National Guard climbing wall and Chaos the police dog-- a pretty amazing neighborhood event. Some of the neighbors came dressed as pioneers and one man wore stilts.   ~   Sofi spoke in our Sacrament Meeting today for Pioneer Day. Her talk wasn't very long (but it was very good) so we'll include it here:

  ~  Fifeshire, Scotland is a coal mining district. The first recorded mining was in the year 1291. It has been mined ever since. For a lot of that time, mining conditions were horrible. In the 1600s, miners were bound to the land, essentially making them slaves. Even after that law was repealed, the shifts were long, dark, and dusty, and you worked all your life, starting when you were very young. Finally, in 1842, a law was passed, banning women, girls, and boys under 10 from working underground.

  ~  Around that time, my ancestors, Janet and Thomas Lowe, lived there and worked the mines. During the day, Thomas ran the lift that hauled the miners up. Janet ran the same lift at night. Sadly, in 1850, Thomas died, leaving Janet, and several young sons alone. Shortly afterward, they were visited by LDS missionaries. They were soon converted. Janet eventually moved to Utah, and lived there for the rest of her life.

  ~  This spring, my dad and I had the chance to go to Scotland and Northern Ireland to do family history work. We spent a lot of time at records offices, tracking down family members. We also visited places where our family lived, including Hillfoot farm, the old family farm in Northern Ireland, and Fifeshire, Scotland, where Janet and Thomas lived. It was very neat, being where our ancestors had lived their lives. I found it very interesting, learning about the foreign things that would have been a part of their everyday lives. It really made me appreciate how difficult it was for them. I think that the scripture Malachi 4:6 (read scripture.) Janet Lowe showed her love to her descendants by striving to choose the right path, not the easy path, so that I can enjoy the full benefits of the gospel, and of family. I can turn my heart to her, by being thankful for her sacrifices, remembering her impact in my life, and going back beyond her, to her ancestors, and connecting them to our family tree through temple ordinances. The prophet Joseph Smith emphasizes the importance of family trees in D&C 128:17 and 18 (read scripture.)

 

17 July 2011

These first 2 photos are from last week while we were on the trek. A friend who brought a camera took the photos and emailed them to us. The first one shows us above the Williamson River, home to world class fly-fishing. You can see the beautiful scenery we hiked through.

Here's a photo of our family flag at the end of the trek. Our flagpole had broken a few times so one of the kids duct taped the flag to the back of our handcart. The splashes of mud only made the flag more awesome. We gave the flag away at the end of the trek, so we are especially happy for this photo.

Sophie is in another musical this summer and Becky is back on the costume crew. Can you guess the musical? The cast has some dancing Egyptians and a pharoah who sings like Elvis. Becky made 16 golden collars for the dancers this week. We're certain the ancient Egyptians made their jewelry with poster board and hot glue.

We picked peas for family night and the kids spent most of the next afternoon shelling them.

 

Becky came home one afternoon to find the kids dressed in an assortment of costumes with crazy face paint. She missed their barefoot parade through the neighborhood. Good thing they got their parade done while she was gone since it's the sort of idea she would squash pretty quickly.

 

Saturday morning we listened to Helen's violin teacher play with a chamber group and then got the wiggles out at a nearby park. We fit into the red-tail hawk play structure with (a little) room to spare.

 

Here's Gibson with some baby bears.   ~   Sophie's musical? Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Sophie is playing one of Jacob's wives, one of Potiphar's slaves and a hairy Ishmaelite.

10 July 2011

Sarah, Joe and Zina arrived on July 2nd. Brandan's clinic marched in the 4th of July parade this year. Sophie, Abe, Helen, Gibson and Zina marched with Brandan. You can see Helen, Gibson and Brandan in the photo. Sophie, Zina and Abe were too busy passing out lip balm and balloons to pose for a photo.

We spent the afternoon of the 4th rafting. The kids enjoyed eating cherries and spraying a raft of young men with water guns. In the end, we were all soaked. The river is pretty calm, but we tried to hit every ripple and rapid. It was a perfect day on the river.

 

Sarah's family came to watch Abe, Helen and Gibson while Sophie, Becky and Brandan went on our stake's pioneer trek. We didn't take a camera with us, but Sarah took a photo of us before we left, dressed vaguely in pioneer clothing. Within a few hours we were covered in dust made sticky with sunscreen and mosquito repellant (the Chiloquin mosquitos laugh at DEET.) The trek was amazing. We pulled handcarts for 4 days and approximately 20 miles through beautiful forests of Ponderosa pine. Small groups of 7-10 acquaintances became families. As adults, the trek was not physically demanding, but for some of the kids, this was the hardest thing they had ever done. Other kids overcame personal and mental challenges just to come on the trek and we admired their courage and resilience. We learned to respect and love each of the kids in our family. Sophie loved being a little sister instead of the oldest and laughing with her older sisters. Becky learned that teenagers like hard work. They relished pulling the handcart-- often running uphill with it or maneuvering to get back to pulling after a water break. Brandan liked the moment when looking out for each other became more important to our family than competing for being at the front of the line of handcarts. One girl had large blisters on her feet. She doggedly kept walking, refusing to ride, but she was slow and she and Becky were 2 of the last people walking along the trail. The rest of our family willingly gave up their #2 position in the trek to stay with her and walk at her pace. We finished among the last handcarts, but those final miles were the sweetest of the trek.

 

Sarah, Joe and Zina took fantastic care of Abe, Helen and Gibson. The kids rehearsed a play while we were gone and performed it for us when we got home on Saturday. The plot involved a lost princess. Zina was the director of the play and played the part of Princess Laura. Helen was Queen Titiana and a villainess named Kenton Woodlock. Gibson was a dragon named Raxadus and King Tut. Abe was a good guy named Flinn Rider and a bad guy named Bracken. In the end, the bad guys are captured and have to do the dishes. 

Here's a photo of the kids playing in a bit of wonderland-- all the tents we took on the trek set up in the backyard to air out-- a little tent village with room for everyone.   ~   One more note about the trek-- you might imagine that even though Sophie was in a different family, we still kept an eye out for her. The reality was that she kept an eye out for us, in small ways (telling us the vegan options at mealtimes) and big (advising us how to cross a creek and avoid getting dunked in the mud.)

 

3 July 2011

We took a picnic to a Japanese garden one day this week. It was the perfect spot on a hot day-- lots of shade and running water.

Sophie tried the water at a natural mineral spring. Funny, it tasted just as awful the 6th or 7th time she tasted it. One hundred years ago, people thought the water was good for kidney problems. It has a lot of lithium in it-- maybe it's a good antidepressant.

 

Abe mowed the lawn for the first time on Saturday. He says its the hardest thing he's ever done.

 

We spent a lot of time this week getting ready for our stake's pioneer trek. Becky sewed some bloomers for herself and Sophie out of some pretty loud material. She made Helen some pajama bottoms out of the leftover material. 

 

Sophie did a super great job decorating her trek family's flag. She's in a different family and company than Brandan and Becky.  Our stake showed the movie 17 Miracles Sunday night in anticipation of the trek-- highly recommend the movie.