30 March 2014

We spent our Spring Break at the Grand Canyon and Arches National Park.  We drove over 2600 miles in 6 days.  Sofi's friend, Joey, came with us.  This photo is taken from the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon lives up to its name.  It is big in every direction-- 2 billion years of geologic history right before our eyes.

 The Grand Canyon is a mile deep, but the trails to the bottom are 9-10 miles long.  And what goes down must come up.  We hiked about a mile down the Bright Angel trail and then back up again.  Indians made the trail thousands of years ago to reach springs inside the canyon.  

 We stayed on the rim until sunset one night and then woke up early to catch the sunrise the next morning.  The photo is of Abe and Helen at sunrise.  The sunrise and sunset were both beautiful.  We watched the color change in the sky and on the cliffs in the canyon.  

 Gibson turned 7 on our trip!  Here is a photo of his birthday pancake.  We camped one night at the Grand Canyon and two nights at Arches.  It was cold at night, but the days were sunny and perfect for hiking.

Here we are at Arches.  An arch is rock that is supported on two ends and has a space that is 3 feet across or greater in a least one direction.  There are over 2000 arches in the park.  We don't know how many we saw, but the kids counted 11 arches and 1 land bridge they walked or climbed under or through.  These arches are called North and South Window Arches.

We had reservations for a hike through the Fiery Furnace formation.  You have to have a permit or go on a ranger led hike to enter the formation.  It would be very easy to get lost in the tangle of slot canyons.  Here the canyon walls are called fins because they are long and narrow.  The arches form in the sides of the fins.

 The three hour hike was a highlight of our trip.  We got to scramble and crawl through the twisted landscape.

Here are Abe, Helen and Gibson squeezing through a tight spot.  Adults had to go around the rock.

 Here we walked along a ledge to see Surprise Arch at the end of the canyon.

 Skyline Arch was in our campground.  At sunset one night, we could see beautiful light reflecting on the arch so we hurried up to the arch to watch the sunset.  The view from our camp site was actually better so we didn't stay here long.  The scramble to the arch was fun, though.

 We hiked through the Devil's Garden the next day.  This hike felt like the Fiery Furnace in reverse.  Instead of being down in the canyons, we hiked along the tops of the fins.  The Devil's Garden area had lots of big arches.

 The views through Partition Arch were amazing.

 Brandan and Becky followed the kids up the fin behind Partition Arch where the view was even better.  Landscape Arch is in the middle of the photo.

 We stopped Friday night at Grandpa Dan and Grandma Linda's house before driving home on Saturday.

23 March 2014

Abe participates in an after school group called TAG.  This month they have been planning Rube Goldberg machines-- excessively complicated machines to perform simple tasks.  Abe's group put together an elaborate system to knock an apple core into a trash can.  A wrench was supposed to swing, hit a row of dominoes that would push a roll of toilet paper down a ramp.  The toilet paper would knock over a bottle of water which would turn a water roll, knock down more dominoes and push another roll of toilet paper.  The toilet paper would push a lever which would swing to hit the apple core into a trash can.  In the photo, the teacher and a parent are helping Abe set up the machine for another try.

It took 7 tries before the machine worked, with lots of water spilled in the meantime.  Here is a photo of Abe and his partner before another try.

 Abe received his Arrow of Light award on Thursday.  Our troop gives each boy an arrow with a feather to remind them that the top honor in scouting is Eagle.

 Helen took photos of the event since the parents are invited to stand with their scout and cross over a bridge with them representing moving from cub scouts to boy scouts.

 Abe got a new kerchief from his new scout leader.

 Very handsome!

 Gibson gave a report on his turtle in his class this week.  He made a poster about her and put together a powerpoint presentation on turtles with Helen's help.  He got to bring his turtle to school to show his class, too.

 Abe moved up to a full size guitar this week.  It's a stretch for him to play right now, but he'll grow into it.

Brandan and Abe went mountain biking on Saturday.  Their route gets longer every time Abe talks about it.  Regardless of the true length, it was a tough ride, above Abe's skill level, and he did a great job.  Part of their route went along a ditch dug by Chinese miners in the late 1800s.  The ditch is 26 miles long.  

The ditch goes through this tunnel.

 Abe and Brandan did not ride their bikes through the tunnel.  It's too short.  Here is a photo of the opening.

Here's a view from the trail.  The trail had a steep beginning and ending, but the middle 3 miles (5 miles?) were fairly flat and mostly narrow.

Abe liked climbing this big madrone.

16 March 2014

We've written before about the school library having a 2 book limit for items checked out.  The school librarian was joking with the kids and told them they could check out a third book if they checked out a cookbook and made her something from the cookbook.  Abe knew she was joking, but took her up on her offer.  He checked out a book of Christmas treats and made her chocolate truffles.  The recipe was fairly simple-- just chocolate chips and cream-- and Abe made them himself.

 Abe took a box full of truffles to school and delighted the librarian.

Brandan and Becky celebrated their 19th anniversary with a night away at a mountain lodge.  Sofi took expert care of the rest of the kids while we were gone.

We've done a lot of snow activities for other anniversaries-- skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling-- but there is hardly any snow in the mountains this year.  We hopped on the Pacific Coast Trail for a short hike Saturday morning.  It was a beautiful, clear day.

 Helen played in a piano recital Saturday afternoon.  This group photo makes it look like the kids were asked to wear blue or orange to the recital, but the matching outfits are coincidental.

 The recital highlighted Baroque and Classical music.  Helen played "Carefree" by Turk with grace and ease.  

 Our yard took a beating this winter.  The cold snap in December followed by a long dry spell killed many of our bushes.  We've pulled most of the dead plants out and are trying to decide what to replace them with.  Hardiness is one of our top priorities as we look at other gardens and nurseries.  Sofi took these photos of flowers as we looked around an established garden.

 It's been a lovely spring.

 Brandan took this photo of a pear orchard.

9 March 2014

 Gibson got a T-shirt at a school assembly this week for being an independent reader.

 Our school had a jog-a-thon this week to raise money for the PTA.  The kids got a bracelet for each lap they ran.  The track is an eighth of a mile long.  Gibson ran 12 laps in 20 minutes.  This is a photo of Gibson with his friends, Tayvon and Solomon.  They call themselves the -on brothers.

 Helen ran 13 laps.  All the kids got an otter pop when they finished.

 Abe ran 20 laps.  He ran 18 of them wearing a tutu.  He kicked it off when it got too heavy.  He kept the crazy socks and colorful hat. 

 Sofi had another Brainbowl competition on Saturday.  Becky mistakenly thought parents were not invited to attend Brainbowl competitions so she had never been to one.  Most parents don't come, but they can, so Becky, Gibson and Helen dropped by for one of the matches.  From Sofi's descriptions, Becky imagined Brainbowl was like Jeopardy.  That might be true if Nobel Prize winners were the contestants.  Here is a sample question:

The rate-limiting step in this molecule's biosynthesis is catalyzed by ACC synthase. This molecule is a ligand in Zeise's salt with a hapticity of two. This molecule's oxidation produces acetaldehyde via the Wacker process, or oxirane, the simplest epoxide. As a hormone, this molecule stimulates fruit ripening. It can be made from the dehydration of ethanol. Name this simplest alkene.
answer: ethylene (or ethene or C2H4) 

Sofi is holding her buzzer in the photo.

 Here is a photo of Sofi's team.  Rebecca is sitting across from Sofi, Zach is next to Rebecca and Ben is next to Sofi.  Each player gets a buzzer.  Whichever team buzzes first gets 15 seconds to answer the question.  The moderate stops reading the question as soon as a buzzer is pressed.  The questions sometimes hardly sound like they are in English when they are read.  Everyone has a good attitude and the kids answer a surprising number of questions.  Here's another sample question for fun:

Count Haugwitz established a standing army under this ruler, whose throne was disputed by Charles Albert. This ruler signed the Treaty of Breslau after losing control of Silesia. Charles VI worked around Salic Law to allow this person to take the throne with the Pragmatic Sanction. She fought Frederick the Great in the War of Austrian Succession. Name this female Habsburg ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.
answer: Maria Theresa 

While Sofi was wearing out her brain, Abe was wearing out his legs on a 5 mile hike with the Boy Scouts.  The hike fulfilled the last requirement Abe needs for his Arrow of Light award.  Brandan went on the hike, too, and took some great photos.

Here's most of the group who went on the hike.  They are standing near a rebuilt portion of train track that commemorates mining in the area.

The trail cut through a grove of small trees called manzanita.

Here is a photo of the same section of trail looking back up the hill.  This section is called the Halls of Manzanita.

2 March 2014

 We had lots of Battle of the Books excitement this week.  As we expected, Abe and Helen's teams met for a battle on Tuesday.  It was Abe's team's second battle and Helen's team's first. All of the photos are from Tuesday, but there were battles all week.  Abe's team won this battle, sending Helen's team to the losers' bracket.  Abe's team remained undefeated throughout the tournament and made it to the final battle.

 Helen's team steadily advanced through the tournament.  They beat two fourth grade teams and a fifth grade team and also made it to the final battle.  The school librarian called their success the upset of the century.  No one expected to see a third grade team competing for the championship.  Abe's team felt nervous about going up against them the second time.  Helen's team had won so many improbable battles, it seemed like anything could happen.

 Abe's team won the final, with a score of 45-25.  The scoreboard in the photo is from their earlier battle.  Both teams were very good sports.  Abe and Helen were supportive of each other, helping each other study and sharing books.  The library only lets the kids check out 2 books at a time, but with 2 kids checking out, they could have 4 books between them.

 Most of the battles happened during class time.  Gibson is in first grade and his teacher's daughter was on Helen's team.  His teacher sent Gibson to watch all of the battles that Helen competed in.  

 Here are the champions-- Abe, Ashton, Jake and Spencer.  Their team name is "Practical Prodigies."

 Sofi dressed up all week.  One day was Camo Day.  Becky joked that this wasn't really a dress up day because half the kids at school wear camo every day.

 

Joey helped Sofi sculpt her hair for Feb-u-hairy day.

Here is a view from the top.

Sofi's most extravagant costume was for Tribal Day.  A costume designer friend let Sofi look through her costumes and pick something out.  Sofi found a head from The Lion King and an outfit from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Here's a close up of the head.  The base of the head is a bicycle helmet.  It's built of paper mache.

 We had a nutty adventure on Saturday.  Brandan's niece, Kaylee, mailed us a Flat Stanley paper doll.  We are supposed to take a photo of Flat Stanley and mail him back.  We all thought Crater Lake would make a great backdrop for the photo and it would be fun to spend an afternoon at the lake.  The reality, however, was Saturday was busier than we expected.  We ended up driving to Crater Lake where it was freezing cold and the lake was fogged in, jumping out for a quick photo, finding out we were one coat short (Gibson wore the lining out of Becky's coat,) then driving home again.