25 August 2013

We've had a kids' book club this summer.  In June we read Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming, then learned about cars and made "fooj."  In July we read Wonder by R.J. Palacio, listened to the author's playlist and wrote compliments to each other.  This month we read Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin.  The book takes place in China so Sofi taught the kids how to write the Chinese characters for "mountain" and "moon."

 We also practiced eating with chopsticks.

 Or in Gib's case, practiced eating chopsticks.  We can highly recommend all the books from our book club, but the very best one was Wonder.

 This week marks 3 months until the next Hunger Games movie comes out.  Sofi invited friends over for a costume party.  She told them to dress like characters from the Capitol.  For those of you who haven't read or watched the Hunger Games, imagine the great and spacious building in Lehi's dream.

 Ben dressed as Finnick.  

The kids made Italian sodas and deluxe smores-- Sofi set out chocolate and regular graham crackers, chocolate bars, Reeses peanut butter cups, Starbursts, Nutella, peanut butter, caramel sauce and bananas.

 Becky walked into the kids' bathroom during the party.  EEEK! 

18 August 2013

Sofi flew to Idaho on August 4 to spend a week with Zina, Sarah and Joe.  Zina entered a pig in the Blaine County fair and Sofi got to participate in all the fun fair events.

Here is a photo of Zina with her pigs, Ruby and Olive.  In an ending worthy of Charlotte's Web, both of Zina's pigs were acquired by a pig breeder and will spend the rest of their lives on a pig farm.

The rest of us drove to Idaho on August 12 to pick Sofi up.  We spent a couple of days in Idaho.  We drove to the Little Wood River reservoir on a hot afternoon and the kids climbed around on the rocks exposed by the falling water levels.

It's been a hot, dry summer and the water in the reservoir is very low.  This is a photo of Becky's dad walking on logs that were floating in the water far below the boat ramp.

Sarah and Joe took us to see Craters of the Moon National Park. Becky grew up in southeastern Idaho and we've driven past Craters of the Moon dozens of times as a family, but this was our first time to stop.  It's a fantastic natural site.

Craters of the Moon is the youngest lava flow in the United States, outside of Hawaii.  This lava erupted only about 2,000 years ago-- a blink of an eye in geological time.

We enjoyed exploring lava tubes, underground caves formed by cooling lava.  Here is a photo looking up through a collapsed portion of the roof of Indian Tunnel, the largest lava tube we saw.

 This photo gives you a little idea of the scale.  The deepest section was 50 feet in diameter.

 Abe, Gibson, Zina, Helen and Sofi were sworn in as Junior Rangers and Lunar Rangers.  Rangers Holly and Emerald also had the kids promise to bring them candy bars and cookies.  The rangers were only joking, but we dropped the treats off at the visitors' center before we left Idaho the next day.

 From Sarah and Joe's house, we drove to Brandan's family reunion in Bear Lake, Utah.  Our route took us right through Paris, so we stopped for a photo.

 Paris is a tiny town with a big tabernacle.  You can see a photo of the exterior on the welcome sign.  We went inside for a quick tour.  The tabernacle was built in the late 1800s of local sandstone.  

 We had a great time in Bear Lake.  There was a fantastic beach close to our house-- not too crowded, warm enough water to play in and a very shallow entry so all the kids were safe in the water.  We spent a lot of time at the beach, but we didn't take any photos there.  Here are some photos we did take.  This is Kaylee, Jon and Abe playing soccer as part of a huge siblings/cousins soccer game.

 Here's a photo of Abe getting lots of sympathy and a popsicle after stepping on a bee.

We celebrated Xander, Jaxson and Parker's birthdays while we were at Bear Lake.  This is the cake Maggie made for Xander-- a big cylinder of watermelon frosted with whipped cream and decorated with berries.

 Here are Kaylee, Salem and Helen walking together.

 We ended our stay Friday night with milkshakes made with famous Bear Lake raspberries.

Sofi took photos of all the families.  She did a great job and we got a photo of the lake!

Here's a photo of all of Brandan's family.  Back row (l-r): Nate, Maggie, Drue, Steph, Emma, Wade, Becky, Aaron, Niko, Jon, Brandan and Becky.  Middle row: Logan, Parker (skip over a bit), Jaxson, Madison, Abe, Sofi.  Front row: Zoey, Dallin, Sasha, Dan, Salem, Sutton, Linda, Helen, Gibson.  Very front row: Xander and Kaylee

Here's a little silliness.

11 August 2013

We picked blackberries on Monday.  Our kids are big enough now to pick more than they eat so we picked quite a lot of blackberries in an hour.

 Some of the blackberries ended up in a blackberry cobbler for family night dessert.

 We've been very neglectful gardeners this year, but we're still enjoying lots of delicious produce.  Our favorites are these tiny currant tomatoes.  Our only complaint is we eat them too quickly.  They almost never make it inside.

 Becky is the only person in our family who typically likes green beans.  This year we planted the fancy haricot verts variety and more people are eating them.  The skinny beans are so tender you can eat them raw.

 Two of our grow boxes are being used by neighbors who have no room for a garden.  They are both better gardeners than we are.  We like looking at the cool and creative ways they fit a lot of plants in a small space.  This is a photo of Dave's cantaloupes.  Each cantaloupe is slung in its own hammock.  Dave's produce is very pampered.

 On Friday, Helen's violin teacher gave us a pass to a rehearsal for the local classical music summer festival.  She doesn't usually play in the festival, but someone got sick and she was substituting.  It was a fantastic experience.  We listened to first rate music in a beautiful outdoor setting.  There were only about 30 people in the audience so we sat in the premier seats.  We snacked on apples, blueberries and candy and left when the kids got bored.  This experience may have ruined ordinary concerts for us.

Here are some photos of our little summer home improvement project.  Our front steps started crumbling a couple of years ago.  By this Spring, they looked like they had leprosy.  Concrete is supposed to last longer than 9 years, but it didn't so we needed to replace them.  

 Our old steps were too steep and awkwardly spaced.  Also, our builder had chosen not to install a handrail.  This made a dangerous combination, especially when the steps were wet or icy.  We had the new contractor add a couple of steps and shorten all of them to make the steps safer.

 Our friend, Alan, built us a handrail.  This is a photo of Alan testing the fit of the handrail before he sent it to be powder coated.

Here is a photo of the finished project.  The shorter steps and the new handrail make our front entryway much safer.  Alan did a fabulous job with the handrail.

It's pear picking time again!  Abe has been to the orchard a couple of times, once with his friend's family.  Our air quality has improved dramatically this week and we are very thankful.

4 August 2013

We have the dubious honor of being the nation's hotspot for wildfires right now.  Our air quality has been lousy all week.  We went a couple of days without seeing the sun.  We've spent a lot of time this week indoors, trying not to be crabby.

 Helen got braces this week!  She's had a palate expander in her mouth for a few months to make room for more teeth.  Her braces will hold her teeth in place while her other teeth grow in.  She'll have her braces for about a year.

We went on an overnight backpacking trip with friends this weekend to Freye Lake.  We met up after Brandan got home from work and got to the lake before dark.  This is the view in the morning with Mount McLoughlin in the background.

 Helen is very interested in insects.  She found a dragonfly floating at the edge of the lake.

 Here's a close up.

 Abe walked to the top of a fallen log wedged between three trees.

Here's Abe packing up his tent.  Becky spent a lot of time looking for an ultralight 6 man backpacking tent before it occurred to her-- no one else wants a backpacking tent that big.  We compromise with 2 tents.

 Here are our kids with our friends, Ethan and Liam.  Ethan and Liam's dad, John, planned the trip.  This lake is their favorite camping spot.  We met lots of other hikers and backpackers and joked that Liam (the smallest guy) was going to summit Mount McLoughlin.  All of the kids were fantastic hikers.

Here's a photo of Sofi and Helen with some rather large fungi.

 Here are Sofi, Brandan and Gib at the end of our hike.  It was a lovely trip.  We got out of the smoke for a while, enjoyed some beautiful scenery with good company, barely needed mosquito repellant and never saw poison oak.  It sets a high standard for future outings.