8 January 2012

Brandan reached a milestone birthday this year and we celebrated by spending 4 days in Sunriver, Oregon.  Sunriver is near the High Desert Museum, a great location for exploring natural history and pioneer life.

  Sunriver is near the High Desert Museum, a great location for exploring natural history and pioneer life.  One exhibit featured a restored cabin.  A family of 7 lived in this tiny 12' x 20' foot cabin in 1905.  Our family posed for a photo on the parents' bed, which was in one corner of the one-room cabin.  The 5 kids slept in an attic space that might have been 2 feet tall.  Experiences like this help put "needs" and "wants" in perspective.

Abe, Helen and Gibson enjoyed a train ride through the Sunriver Village.

On New Year's Eve, we drove up near Mt. Bachelor to find some snow to play in.  It's been unusually dry this winter, but a little snow had fallen the day before.

Here's Sofi giving Helen a ride.

Here's Brandan, Helen and Gibson riding triple decker style down a short slope.

 

We celebrated New Year's Eve by playing Risk while watching movies.  We told the kids they could stay up as long as they could last and they all made it until midnight.  Becky thought Helen and Gibson would fall asleep much earlier.  They thought it was awesome and amazing that they stayed up so late.  Gibson was sound asleep by 12:03 am. 

Brandan's true birthday was Wednesday.  Brandan asked the kids for help blowing out the forest of candles on his cake.

It's hard to see the puzzle on Brandan's cake, so here's a photo of the paper Brandan worked the puzzle out on.  Solve the puzzle to learn Brandan's age.  This kind of puzzle is called a nonogram and you can find directions for solving nonograms online.