28 September 2014

Helen made a beautiful flower arrangement using one of the last of the summer roses with some of the first leaves that are changing color for fall.

 Helen helped Brandan divide some day lilies and spread them around our backyard.  Next summer she'll have even more flowers to make bouquets.  Dividing the day lilies is like getting plants for free!

Sofi made a cookbook with the recipes she collected for her Personal Progress project using an online photo book site.  The finished product arrived this week.  It looks gorgeous!  It is a great way to keep her recipes where she can use them and remember the generous women (and Brandan) who helped her finish her goal.

 Sofi, Helen and Becky enjoyed a great ladies' night together Saturday night.  We went out for dinner at a barbecue restaurant and then to the General Women's Broadcast.  We loved the singing, the videos, the story about Sister Stevens' mother (also named Helen) and darling Sister Marriott.

 The boys had their own fun night.  They went out for hamburgers, stopped for some ice cream and spent the rest of the evening building a solar hot dog cooker.  Abe tried the cooker after church today. It was late afternoon and the sun was too low for the oven to be effective.  We'll try again when we're home in the middle of a sunny day.

21 September 2014

Our kids built a rope swing in the backyard.  It's great fun.  They sit on a piece of wood, hoist themselves up with the rope and swing back and forth.

 Sofi went on a mini-mission this week.  In our stake, teenagers 16 and older can spend 24 hours with the full time missionaries to get a sense of what a mission is like.  Our sisters picked Sofi up after school on Friday in their zippy red car.  They stopped by briefly Saturday morning so Sofi could pick up work shoes for a service project.

 Sofi enjoyed her mini mission very much.  She helped give out food at a food pantry and raked leaves for 2 ½ hours.  She participated in 4 lessons.  She enjoyed the missionaries' simple food like bread and cheese for lunch.  A couple of adjustments: no books to read when Sofi is used to having a book available at all times.  Also, she was surprised how frequently the sisters prayed.  Besides the regular prayer times, they prayed before leaving their apartment, before leaving their car, before getting on facebook, with the investigators, pretty much all day long.

Today was our Primary sacrament meeting program.  Abe, Helen and Gibson all did a great job.  Gib and Helen had their parts memorized and spoke clearly and evenly.  Abe wrote his own part about participating at the stake day of service.  Helen played an introduction to the song "The Family is of God" on the violin.  This photo is from the practice Friday night.

14 September 2014

Three cheers for Sofi who got her drivers' license this week!  Her first solo drive was to the church for mutual.  Helen made a cute poster to congratulate her.

 Abe ran in his first cross-country meet this week.  He finished in the top third of the runners.  

 The sister missionaries gave our family a message about superheroes this week.  Sister D. compared Nephi to a superhero.  Gib quietly slipped away after superheroes were mentioned and returned in this costume.  We think missionaries are like superheroes, too.

About 300 people from our stake met Saturday morning to build a trail along a local creek.  We had to remove a lot of brush and blackberries before the trail liner and gravel could be put down.  

This is a photo of Helen wheeling her cart back after dumping a load of branches.

 Here's Sofi carrying part of a dead tree.  Our kids were good workers, but it was the senior citizen crowd that really impressed us with their raking, digging and stump removal.

 Abe liked carrying branches, the bigger the better.

 Brandan replaced the speakers in our car Saturday afternoon.  He put Addi and Gibson to work removing the old speakers.

Sofi makes her Sunday School class a treat every week except for Fast Sundays.  This week she picked a more complicated recipe (apple pie cookies -- cinnamon sugared apples between two layers of pastry) and needed some help to finish up before church.  Helen also helped by crimping the edges of the cookies and Abe cut the slits on top.  Sofi's class is a little spoiled!

7 September 2014

For family night this week our family had the opportunity to work on beautifying the temple grounds.  For many years, the building coordinator's priority has been frugality.  The temple grounds were very unremarkable, mainly shrubs and grass, and not always well maintained.  We have a new building coordinator, Ray, who feels the temple needs a jewel box setting.  A senior couple has been called to oversee the landscaping.  

 The senior couple have supervised some massive projects-- removing dead trees and bushes, redesigning every flower bed, digging out tired and overgrown ground covers.  Besides the big projects, they put in about 20 hours a week maintaining the grounds.  We joined Ray and Andrea's family and helped the couple until dark. 

 Abe, Helen and Gibson helped dig two ditches to improve drainage.  Sofi fertilized the last of the summer blooms.  Becky deadheaded zinnias, coneflowers and cosmos.  Brandan fertilized boxwoods.

 Abe is just making a fierce face for the photo.  The reality is working at the temple is delightful and our evening was over too quickly.

We loved working in the shadow of the temple.  Brandan was thinking of a story he heard at church  about President Eyring's dad.  "I wasn't there for the weeds."

 Our other big event this week was the kids heading back to school.  This is Gibson's second, milder hairdo!  Gibson started 2nd grade and loves his teacher, one of only 2 men at the school.  His teacher incorporates lots of technology and science in his class, two of Gib's favorite interests.

 Helen is a 4th grader.  Her teacher gave the kids owl pellets to dissect this week and Helen brought home the mouse bones she found.

 Abe made a smooth transition to middle school this year.  Besides school, he is on the cross-country team and playing soccer.  

 Sofi is a junior and has an exciting schedule.  She is taking an international humanities block-- a 2 year course that will culminate in a trip to Latin America her senior year.  She is continuing in Chinese and Spanish.  Chemistry and AP Statistics round out her schedule.   For electives, she is taking Zumba, yoga and creative writing.  It's been a great first week of school, with lots of foreshadowing of good things ahead.