24 June 2012

Our first photo is a flashback to February 28, 2010.  Sofi had just gotten her braces on.

This photo shows her on June 21, 2012, headed into the orthodontist's office.  This is her last photo wearing braces.

Ta Da!  Here is a photo of Sofi two hours later, showing her beautiful brace-free smile.  Her orthodontist gave her a big box of candy-- all the stuff she was supposed to avoid while her braces were on.  

Becky took Sofi, Abe, Helen and Gibson hiking on Friday.  

We hiked up to a popular viewpoint, its popularity shown by this madrone tree defaced with graffiti.  We're looking forward to lots of hikes this summer.  

We don't let our kids have sleepovers, but Sofi came close to one this weekend.  Two friends came over to hang out Friday night and came back again early Saturday morning.  Since the friends were here when Abe, Helen and Gibson went to bed Friday night and when they woke up Saturday morning, the kids thought the friends had slept over.  The girls made themselves a deluxe breakfast: scrambled eggs, crepes, blueberry/peach sauce and fresh fruit (including strawberries, raspberries and blueberries from our yard).

17 June 2012

Last Saturday we drove to Montana where we met up with Becky's mom and dad, and Sarah, Joe and Zina.  We spent the week driving and hiking in Glacier National Park.  This is a view of Two Medicine Lake on the eastern side of the park.  Steep-walled mountains and rock formations carved out by glaciers in the last ice age 10,000 years ago dominate the landscape.  As we looked at the U-shaped valleys left by the ancient glaciers, we realized that even at their largest size, the modern glaciers are tiny in comparison.  One of our motivations in going to Glacier was to see the glaciers before they disappear.  In 1900, there were 150 glaciers.  Only 25 remain.  We're not sure we ever saw a true glacier as snowfields look like glaciers until they melt.

  Steep-walled mountains and rock formations carved out by glaciers in the last ice age 10,000 years ago dominate the landscape.  As we looked at the U-shaped valleys left by the ancient glaciers, we realized that even at their largest size, the modern glaciers are tiny in comparison.  One of our motivations in going to Glacier was to see the glaciers before they disappear.  In 1900, there were 150 glaciers.  Only 25 remain.  We're not sure we ever saw a true glacier as snowfields look like glaciers until they melt.  In the photo, we are standing in front of Avalanche Lake.

We hiked every day, sticking to shorter hikes with neat features.  This trail that loops between McDonald Creek and Johns Lake passes through a tunnel underneath the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road.  In the photo are Helen, Brandan, Gibson, Abe, Grandpa Larsen, Zina and Sofi.

Steep mountains and melting snow equal waterfalls.  We don't know the name of this stunning unmarked waterfall on the southern tip of the park.

Here's a photo of Abe, Helen, Brandan and Gibson at Running Eagle Falls.  These falls are also called Trick Falls because water pours over the falls in two places: over the top of the rocks and through a cave about halfway up the falls.  When the water level is high the water flowing over the top covers up the water coming from the cave.  And when the water level drops later in the summer, water only comes out of the cave.

Looking at a topographic map of the park, we found Helen Lake running into Elizabeth Lake.  Our Helen's middle name is Elizabeth.  These lakes are high up in the park and would be a challenge to hike to.

Brandan picked up a handful of rocks to represent the many colors we saw.  The gravel along the streams is very colorful and the same colors are repeated in the large formations.  Millions of years of geological history are exposed in the park, the whole story laid out for the most amateur geologist to read: Layers of mud in an ancient lake, compressed into sedimentary rock, lifted by tectonic movement, then carved into fantastic shapes by glaciers, exposing bold stripes of colored rock.

Of course all those flat rocks begged to be skipped.  By the end of the trip, all the kids had learned how to skip rocks.  In the photo, Joe, Abe and Brandan are skipping rocks across the stream and into a small pool out of view.

June in the park can be cold and wet.  We got good advice from a pair of Swiss tourists, "There is no bad weather, only bad clothes."  Even though we were visiting before the peak of tourist season, the parking lots were full.  We saw license plates from 46 states and 6 Canadian provinces.  (Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island and West Virginia are the plates we missed.)  The photo shows Zina and Sofi dodging a puddle.

The kids all completed the Junior Ranger requirements.  The photo shows them being sworn in.

It was surprisingly easy to see mountain goats in the park.  They move across the faces of the highest peaks like tiny white specks.  If you use binoculars, they look as big as ants.  We drove to Goat Lick Overlook to see some goats closer up.  This part of the park has natural mineral deposits that entice the goats out of the mountains.  From this viewpoint, the goats look as big as beetles.

Here's the best view of a mountain goat -- a stuffed specimen at the East Glacier Lodge.

Going-to-the-Sun Road was closed in the middle due to snow and avalanche danger.  Most of the road is open to hikers and bikers and we hiked up for a couple of miles.  The small group of people in the bottom of this photo are watching bears on the slopes above-- 3,4,5?  It's hard to say how many bears as they moved in and out of the brush.  The bears were far enough away to be harmless.  If they knew we were watching them, they didn't seem to care.

We stayed in Columbia Falls for the week.  Sarah brought some crafts for the kids.  One of the projects was making footprint butterflies.  In the photo, Sofi is painting Helen's tickly feet to get ready to print onto paper.

Here's a photo with Gibson and his completed butterfly picture.

Grandpa Larsen brought wood burners and the kids burnt their initials into slices of tree trunk that Sarah brought.  They made the "tree cookies" into necklaces.

Grandma Larsen read Gibson several bedtime stories.

One evening a beautiful double rainbow appeared over the valley where we stayed.

 We drove through Northern Idaho on our way home.  Becky's dad was born in Kellogg, Idaho and she had never been this far north in Idaho before.  We stopped in the charming town of Wallace, Idaho where he had worked in a silver mine.  The town was considerably less charming 100 years ago, when a forest fire killed all the trees and smelters for the silver mines were polluting the air.  It was a good bookend to our trip -- the glaciers may be melting in one part of the world, but forests are regenerating in another part.  The earth is unimaginably old, gloriously complicated and drenched with beauty in every corner.

10 June 2012

Gibson likes to read the weather page of the newspaper while he eats his breakfast.

Our neighbor had a broken sprinkler earlier in the week.  Abe, Helen and Gibson enjoyed playing in the big puddle it made on the sidewalk.

Thursday was the last day of school.  The kids are sad to see the end of school, but they also have a lot of fun to look forward to this summer.

 Gibson finished preschool this week, too.  Friday night we went to his end of school celebration.  Abe, Helen and Gibson have all attended the same preschool and the teachers have become our friends.  We love the program and have grown as parents as we have learned new skills from the dynamic program director.  Gibson moves on to kindergarten next year-- he's grown so much this year.

3 June 2012

Here's the final scoop on the Memorial Weekend soccer tournament:  Abe's team won 1 game and lost 1 game on Sunday.  They were in 2nd place in their group, so they played for 3rd place on Monday morning and won!  All of their games were hard fought and fun to watch.  Between Saturday and Monday, we watched 3 games with Abe, another 4 games played by older teams and a popular event called "Goalie Wars" where they move the soccer goals 10 feet apart from each other and goalies go one-on-one against each other.  Quite a soccer weekend.

During half-time, lots of kids run out onto the field to play.  Gibson is running on the right with a grey-blue shirt and black pants.

The tournament wrapped up around noon and we headed on a quick trip to the Oregon Caves.  We've known about the caves since we moved here, but we needed to wait for everyone in our family to grow to be 42", the minimum height requirement to tour the caves.  In the photo, we are 200 feet underground in the largest cavern of the caves.  We're all wearing coats since the caves stay around 44 degrees year round.  One of Abe's buddies came with us.  

Thursday we went to Helen's violin recital.  The recital was a good mix of abilities, with students younger than Helen up through college.  Helen played "Nightingale" by Brahms and 2 pieces from her lesson book.

Sofi here. This Friday was the 8th grade dance at my school, which is a pretty big deal. I had so much fun! I wore a beautiful gold taffeta dress that Grandma Linda wore for a dance in college in the 1960s.  A group of my friends went out to dinner at Red Robin's before, which was amazing.  When we were waiting outside waiting for my friend's dad to pick us up, a mom came up with her little daughter, and said that her daughter had "Wanted to say hi to the princesses." It was adorable!! It definitely made us feel special! And then there was the dance itself. Although the music left a bit to be desired, the decorations were fun, they had photography, and everyone danced. I slow danced with one of my good friends (who is VERY good looking), as well as lots of fun, fast dances with everyone. By the time the dance ended, we were all tired, really happy, and I had gained a new favorite song ;) (It's Your Love by Tim McGraw.)  All in all, it was an amazing experience, and one that I'll always remember as one of the most fun nights this school year.

Abe's regular soccer season ended on Saturday.  Brandan coached Abe this season for the first time.  We had the team and their families over for pizza after Saturday's game.  Brandan passed out awards and recognized each player for their individual achievements at the party.