We stayed in town this Thanksgiving break and we've enjoyed going to the special events that we usually miss. We've been to the pottery show, the woodworking show and the gingerbread show. The photo below is of Becky, Helen and Gibson's favorite gingerbread house-- a very detailed replica of Gru's house from the movie Despicable Me.
Abe's favorite creation was this three-headed ice dragon. The rules for the gingerbread show require everything used in construction to be edible.
Sofi started out her week with a frenectomy in her mouth. She was swollen and sore the first day, but recovered quickly and was eating normally by Thanksgiving.
A highlight of our week was this motor-trike invention. A man in our ward built it from a wide assortment of loose parts. Its registration calls it a 500cc Honda motorcycle, but the only Honda parts on it are the headlights. He built a model out of 2x4s and cardboard to figure out the dimensions before building the body out of steel.
The seats are from a Buick sedan. His wife likes plenty of leg room, so riding in the passenger seat feels a bit like sitting on a throne.
The inventor, Joe, painted the trike yellow to increase visibility, but now he calls it a lemon because he has to fix it all the time. We're impressed it works at all and think he's being picky.
The engine and transmission came from a Chevy van, the rear end came from a Volkswagen, the fork and handlebars came from a Harley-Davidson, the speedometer came from a Freightliner semi-truck. For cargo space, Joe bought 2 coolers from a discount store and painted them yellow to match.
It has an automatic transmission. The position of the transmission didn't line up with a convenient location for a gear shift so Joe attached bicycle gears and a bicycle chain to provide the necessary connection. The shifter is a square aluminum rod. The ball at the end of the shifter is the ball out of an old computer mouse that Joe drilled a hole in.
Joe took each of us all on a short ride. Becky was pretty excited for her turn.
With a V6 engine, the trike can accelerate quickly. Joe thinks its top speed would be around 130 mph, but he's never driven it that fast. It is completely street legal and he and his wife have driven hundreds of miles on it since he finished it this Spring. This is the third trike he has built. He sold the other two. One was built from 1918 Model T parts and painted bright red.
Abe finished his robot this week. For his first configuration he built a front end loader. In the photo he is navigating the robot through a maze.
Our family started out Thanksgiving at a Turkey Trot 2-mile fun run/walk. Becky made everyone a matching hat, mainly to be a little goofy, but the blaze orange hats turned out to be great for keeping track of the family in a crowd of over 600 runners. Abe isn't in the photo because he was waiting for the race to start up in front with the fast guys. He was our fastest finisher with a time of 16:56.
We spent a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with our neighbors. After dinner, all the kids made pom poms. This one kind of looks like a panda. All the kids, even the 14 year old boy, liked making pom poms- mainly so they could throw them at each other. A few of the boys went outside to play hide and seek in the dark. While out for a walk the next day, Becky saw short snippets of yarn on the ground far from home.
Sofi made a fantastic and authentic Chinese dinner for our dinner tonight: barbecued pork, chicken and vegetables and stir fried vegetables and then persimmons and papaya for dessert. We ate the way she ate when she was in China-- everyone serving themselves with chopsticks from the serving dishes in the center of the table.
1 comment:
That is one awesome Honda motorcycle! I'd like to see it running.
That is the way my family ate growing up - serving ourselves with our own utensils. Once Aaron married me and moved into my parents house, they decided to start using serving spoons.
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