31 August 2014

Recently Brandan heard about using shredded trees & branches as mulch, as explained here.  During a walk he met some utility workers who were trimming tree branches.  He asked if he could get a load of the shredded clippings dropped off at our house for mulch, which they kindly did for free.  We (mostly Brandan) spent several days spreading the mulch around our trees and bushes.  The shredded trees have more nutrients than plain bark chips.

 Brandan took a week of vacation for the end of summer.  Besides the mulch, Brandan worked on several other projects.  He made a couple of batches of strawberry freezer jam.

 On Wednesday we went to the water slides in Redding, California.  This was our family's first trip to the water slides.  Everyone had a great time.

Here is Becky coming down a slide.

 Sofi's friend, Bella, came with us.  They rode together on the Avalanche, a giant U-shaped water slide.

 Here is Sofi at the end of a slide called the Cyclone.  Its nickname is the Toilet Bowl.  The slide starts with a long straight tube into a big bowl, followed by a slow spiral toward the center of the bowl where you get flushed out into a pool.  This was our kids' favorite slide.

 Here's a photo of Gibson and Bella.

 And here's Abe.

 We stopped at In-N-Out Burger for dinner on the way home.

Tim and Kirse's family came to visit us for Labor Day weekend.  We drove up to meet them at Crater Lake.  From the left are Ethan, Sullivan, Kirse, Karina, Tim, Sofi, Abe, Gibson, Brandan and Helen.

We roasted marshmallows Sunday night-- a good excuse to sit outside until the stars came out on a perfect summer evening.

24 August 2014

Andrea taught Sofi how to make homemade pie this week.  They used freshly picked blackberries.

Andrea is Joey's mom.  Joey made a pie for a neighbor at the same time.

Sofi and Joey hosted a theater camp for kids this week.  They invited neighbors and friends between the ages of 8 and 11 to attend.  Nine kids signed up for the camp, including Helen.  The camp ran for a week, 4 hours a day.  The kids auditioned for a play, rehearsed the play, made costumes and sets and then ended the week by performing the play for parents, grandparents, cousins and friends.  Sofi and Joey chose a play called "A Native American Cinderella."  Helen was the narrator and also had 2 supporting roles, Feather Braid and White Fox.  Here is a photo of Helen in her costume.

The camp was held at our house and the play was in our family room/dining area.  Gibson passed out programs for the performance.  Inspired by the actors, he decorated his own face with face paint.

Here's a view of some of the audience.  It was standing room only for the show.

The kids did a great job.  Everyone remembered their lines and blocking.  They were very excited to have an audience and the show was a success.  This is a photo of Sofi and Joey after the show.  One funny story about the play: half of the kids painted one panel of scenery while the other half painted another panel.  Both groups painted a sun on their side of the set!

Sofi finished her collection of 10 recipes this week with Emily.  They cooked a Japanese style dinner of seaweed wraps and miso soup.  Emily invited our family to join them for dinner.  Emily's parents were also visiting and the dinner felt very festive.  Emily's parents were born in Taiwan and returned to Taiwan recently to serve a mission in the Taiwan temple.  

Besides the prepared seaweed rolls, they set out ingredients for hand rolls.  We wrapped carrots, egg, avocado and rice in sheets of seaweed.  We also tried canned eel.  Helen loved the eel.  We were very pleased with our kids for trying so many new flavors without complaining.  Abe said he just pretended he was on a mission.  Hopefully he will be so lucky to get food this delicious on his mission!  In the photo are Sofi, Adele and Emily.

17 August 2014

Our kids have been working hard on their family history bingo cards.  On Friday, we crossed off one of the hardest squares for them to earn, "Find your ancestor at the cemetery.  If possible go clean the tombstone and take a picture."  We live a long way from most of our ancestors' graves.  We could have counted visiting Martin's Cove last month, where a great-great-great-great uncle died.  However, Becky's great-grandfather died in Oregon and we had never seen his gravesite.  We decided to take a mini road trip.  John Anderson McComb is buried in the Mount Laki Cemetery in the tiny town of Lost River.  The cemetery is small and well cared for.

Here are Abe, Helen and Gibson next to the headstone.  There was a faint image at the top of the headstone which we couldn't see clearly.  Abe made a pencil rubbing of the image and we saw it was a book.  John McComb's wife, Teresa, was a librarian.  She is buried next to John and also has an image of a book on her headstone.  All of the headstones were very clean and the grass around them trimmed, so we only had to take a photo.  Abe has earned his bingo blackout and Helen and Gibson are very close to getting blackout as well.

Back in the Spring, our ward held an auction to raise money for the summer girls' and scout camps.  Ward members donated goods and services, then came together to bid on each others' donations.  We were lucky enough to win a family nature outing with Emily and Aaron's family.  Their family spends a lot of time outdoors.  We love reading about their adventures on their blog and have visited fantastic places based on their recommendations.  Aaron planned a great outing along Little Butte Creek.  In the photo are Gibson, Samuel, Ezra, Aaron, Adele, Helen and Abe.  

After a short hike, we found a grassy spot next to the creek to play.  Aaron and Emily packed a delicious lunch for us, too.  Emily even sent me these photos, so it was an all-inclusive deal!

 For our kids, the biggest hit of the afternoon was the kid size kayak.  Aaron and Emily's kids were very generous in letting our kids monopolize the kayak.  The kayak was easy to maneuver up and down the creek.

 This is Brandan relaxing in the shade.  Brandan has been especially busy lately, so an unscheduled afternoon was a welcome break.

10 August 2014

Here's a photo of our vegetable garden.  It always looks its best in August.

Becky loves the sunflowers.

It's pear picking time!

We took our Chinese exchange students to the pear farm to pick pears with our family on Monday night.  They live in a big city in China and had never seen fruit trees before.  

 Brandan worked on the platform picker one night.  This is a slow moving machine that lifts the pickers so they can pick pears off the upper half of the trees without ladders.

 Brandan's clinic had a picnic on Saturday.  The photo is of Abe in a water fight with other kids at the picnic.

 Our Chinese students left early Sunday morning.  We ate with chopsticks for our last dinner together.  Helen used her chopsticks like knitting needles.

Joey used a similar technique.

Gibson stabbed his food with his chopsticks.

Sofi is a pro with chopsticks after spending 2 weeks in China without forks.  The learning curve only goes one way.  According to our students, it is very easy to eat with a fork.

 We only hosted Frank and Oliver for 2 weeks, but it was an intense experience.  All of our kids gave up space, time and attention.  Their favorite part of hosting was eating fancier food than we usually do.  We learned 16 year old Chinese teenagers are pretty much the same as 16 year old Americans.  We'll remember Frank for his earnestness in practicing English, his athleticism, his helpfulness and his American girlfriend.

 We'll remember Oliver for his excellent English (much of it learned from American movies), his love of music, his sense of humor and his natural cool factor.  We learned about Old Mother sauce (a spicy condiment), Jay Chou (a Taiwanese musician) and gained a greater appreciation for the United States. Frank and Oliver are smart boys with bright futures-- we think Frank will be a CEO in 10 years-- but their experiences growing up in China make us very thankful for our freedom and opportunities.

3 August 2014

 We have two Chinese students staying with us for 2 weeks.  He Haocheng (Frank) and Liu Bing Xiu (Oliver) are part of a group of students from Nanchong, Sichuan province, China who are studying English and American culture in Oregon this summer.  They choose American names to make it easier for us to say their names.  We went hiking to Mill Creek Falls and Avenue of the Giant Boulders on Saturday.

 This is Abe sitting on a giant boulder.

 And Sofi sliding down one.

The river is very low this year so there was more beach to play on than usual.  There was also a shallow pool alongside the river.

Frank (He Haocheng) showed us how to write his name in Chinese characters and in Pinyin, the phonetic way to write Chinese.  He then showed us how to write each of our names in Chinese with characters and phonetically.  From the top, the names are Becky, Helen, Abe, Gibson, Brandan and Sofi.

We started a fun family history project with our kids this week.  We got family history Bingo cards from a neighboring stake.  The kids cross off squares by doing the activity listed on the square.  When they get a Bingo, they can choose a prize (Helen chose mints for her first Bingo.)  Anyone who gets a blackout gets to go out for frozen yogurt at the end of the month.  The activities are things like "print a fan chart on FamilySearch" and "find an ancestor on findagrave.com."

 Here is one more food photo from Sofi's personal progress project.  At Brandan's family reunion, some of his cousins remembered Grandma Beth serving them Fruit Loops and ice cream for breakfast when they visited her.  They served this dish at the reunion in her memory.  It tastes like it looks.