27 January 2013

Two other families joined us for our Martin Luther King Day of Service project this year.  We made blankets for a homeless teen drop-in center.

 We finished 7 blankets in just over an hour.  The kids worked hard and enjoyed working together.  We had such a good time that we agreed to make getting together for a service project on Martin Luther King Day an annual tradition.

 Gibson watched Sofi make herself a Toad in the Hole (a fried egg cooked in the middle of a piece of toast) and wanted to make one for himself.  Besides cracking the egg, he made the rest himself, including slathering his bread with about a half inch of butter.  This was Gibson's first fried egg to eat and he was pretty disgusted by it.  He liked the toast without the egg very well.

20 January 2013

 Sofi won a karaoke machine from the orthodontist this week. The kids are having a lot of fun playing with it.

 The orthodontist has monthly drawings as part of his marketing plan.  It's a bit of a mystery, but prizes seem very common in orthodontics.  We've never heard of anyone who picked their orthodontist based on the prizes s/he offered.  That said, it is a bit thrilling to win something.

  

 Sofi auditioned this week for her school's spring musical, Seussical, and got the part of Mrs. Mayor.

13 January 2013

  

When we were in San Diego, Ruth picked a cherimoya for us from her tree.  We brought it home to ripen.  It was soft enough to eat on Wednesday and we ate it at the counter, each with our own spoon.  It was deliciously sweet and custardy.

Ruth also sent us home with a bag full of succulent clippings.  She just broke off pieces of each plant.  Supposedly, they will grow roots if you push the broken end into a pot of dirt.  Our climate is too cold to put these in our yard, but they will make good houseplants.

 Helen started piano lessons this week.  She is taking lessons from a lovely woman who plays both the piano and the cello.  We think she will be a good match for Helen who plays the violin.  We now have 3 kids taking piano lessons from 3 different teachers.  We've learned it's easier in the long run to match the personality of the teacher to the personality of the student.

Saturday morning was cold--temperatures below freezing--but we had committed to running in the first annual BYU alumni scholarship fun run.  The kids were all excited to go.  Sofi and Abe ran the 5K.  The course was a challenging trail run.  Several of the adults said it was the hardest 5K course they had ever run.  We're proud of Sofi and Abe for running it.  Brandan, Becky, Helen and Gibson did the 1K route.  This is the first 1K we've ever run and it was exactly the right distance for 2 young kids on a cold morning.

The race was organized by our local BYU alumni chapter.  There was so much about the race to like-- it was a family activity, it got us outdoors, we spent the morning with some great friends and met new friends, the race raised money for a scholarship fund.  BUT, Brandan and Becky are alumni of the University of Utah, BYU's rival, and Becky couldn't resist wearing Utah gear and encouraging the kids to do the same.  Our friend, Tiffany, an ardent BYU supporter, good-naturedly took our photo in front of a BYU flag.

6 January 2013

Sofi and some friends worked on a homework project on Monday: filming themselves singing "Jingle Bells" in Chinese.  They filmed the song in a variety of settings, but Becky's favorite was when they pretended to carol at our front door, all wearing Santa hats and mustaches.  No surprise here: "Jingle Bells" sounds just as repetitive in Chinese as it does in English.

On Tuesday we left for a family vacation to Disneyland.  Brandan had been to Disneyland while he was growing up, but it was the first time for the rest of us.  It was a great time for us to go-- everyone in our family was tall enough to go on all the rides and Sofi was old enough to accompany the younger kids.  This made it easy to split up into pairs.

We had a wonderful time.  Our favorite parts were the rides, but it's hard to take a photo on a ride, so here's a photo of Gib with Mickey Mouse.  Some of our favorite rides were Star Tours, It's a Small World, the Matterhorn, the Thunder Mountain roller coaster and the Jungle River Cruise.  We rode Astro Blaster, a Buzz Lightyear themed ride, the most.  It was Gib and Helen's favorite ride.  One night we decided to wait until after 10 pm, when most of the little kids would have gone home, to ride it again.  Surprisingly, the line was just as long and mostly grown-ups and teenagers. 

  

Brandan had read up on Disneyland and helped us plan our time and navigate the Fastpass system.  Still, we didn't anticipate everything.  Like waiting in line in Pixie Hollow just meant taking your photo with a fairy when you got to the front.  Becky assumed that the fairy in this photo was Tinkerbell wearing winter clothes.  She was wrong.  This is Tinkerbell's sister, Periwinkle.  Who knew?  Apparently, Tinkerbell has all kinds of friends and relations.  The kids posed for a photo with her-- they had stood in line for 20 minutes after all.

 This is Tinkerbell wearing winter clothes.  The kids good-naturedly posed for another photo.  We didn't hop in line for any more character photos.

  

Although Sofi and Helen did get their photo taken with Mary Poppins and Burt on Main Street.

 

We're including this photo of the princesses' parade float because it shows two of Becky's favorite parts about the park: the extravagant Christmas decorations and the consistency of detail in every aspect of the park.   

We spent 2 days at Disneyland and then drove to San Diego to visit Ruth and Bill's family.  One of the nicest part about our trip was enjoying sunny weather in December.  Ruth thought it would be fun to go whale watching, but we missed the boat by about 2 minutes.  Ruth and Brandan made it to the boat in time, but the boat wouldn't wait for the rest of us slower people.  Instead, we drove out to Cabrillo National Monument on the coast to see if we could spot whales.  We didn't see any, but we did tour a lovely lighthouse.

  

This is a photo of Abe and Gib getting a little more playing time with Will on Saturday morning before we left to come home.  We loved catching up with our friends-- our visit was just too short.

  

Brandan's birthday was during our trip and we celebrated it back at home on Sunday evening.  Brandan requested chocolate and berry parfaits for his birthday treat.  The parfaits were delicious, but pretty much impossible to write a birthday math problem on.  Becky wrote the problem on the back of a paper balloon and stuck it in his parfait.

Here's the math problem-- just plain algebra this year.  Brandan had solved the problem by the time he read to the end of it.  And not just because he remembers how old he is.

Brandan's Birthday Balloon Business uses a special machine to prepare balloons.  When Brandan enters a number in the balloon machine, a different number of balloons come out.  First he entered 5 and 11 balloons came out.  Next he entered 9 and 23 balloons came out.  Then he punched in 12 and 32 balloons popped out.  What rule is the machine using?  How many birthday balloons will come out if he enters 15? (The number of birthday balloons equals Brandan's age.)