6 December 2015

Becky almost decided not to set out our kids' nativity this year, thinking they were getting too old to want to play with it.  Later she found the pieces arranged with the animals standing on the people's heads.  They're not too old, after all!

Brandan and Helen put together a presentation on eyes and taught a short lesson in Helen and Gibson's class on Wednesday.  Helen colored a diagram of an eye to use in their presentation.

Helen and Brandan planned lots of "eyes-on" demonstrations during their presentation to teach the students.  Gibson and Ava are staring at each other's eyes.  They learned every person has a unique iris pattern.

In this photo they are learning about the eye's blind spot.  Each piece of paper has a small picture of a dog and a turtle.  By covering one eye and moving the paper slowly away from their noses, Gib and Ava watch the turtle disappear.

Friday was an inservice day for teachers.  Brandan took the day off and we drove to Sunset Bay on the Oregon coast.  Sofi had to stay home because of her college physics class.  The rest of us had a great weekend exploring Sunset Bay.

We liked watching big waves crash over the rocks at the mouth of the bay.  By 4:30, the sun was already going down and we headed to our campground.

It rains year round at the coast.  Camping in the winter in the rain did not sound like fun so we tried yurt camping.  Yurts are circular walled tents.  Here's a photo of the outside of the yurt.  Brandan is getting a fire going so we can cook dinner.

Here's the inside.  Although the yurts supposedly sleep 8, there are only beds for 5 people.  The beds are bolted to the floor so it would be hard to find room for 3 more people to sleep.  We also had a small table and 2 chairs.  The yurts have electricity and heaters.  We were very cozy.

A bridge next to our campsite led to the tent campground.  It was closed to campers for the winter and our kids used the whole area as their playground.

After dinner we drove to Shore Acres, a botanical garden located on the cliffs above the ocean.  The gardens are lit with hundreds of thousands of lights for the holidays.  We enjoyed walking around the gardens on a surprisingly pleasant night.

This is a photo of Brandan cooking pancakes on Saturday morning.  Although the forecast called for a 100% chance of rain on Saturday, it didn't rain while we were there.

We hurried home on Saturday for a couple of recitals.  The first one was Music at the Mall for Helen and Gibson.  Helen played "What Child is This" and "I Saw Three Ships."  Her piano teacher, Marsha, turned pages for her.

Gibson played "Away in a Manger" from memory.

Then he played "Away in a Manger" and "Jingle Bells" as duets with Marsha.  This was Gib's first piano recital and he played like an old pro.

 After the piano recital, we drove to the Festival of Trees where Helen was scheduled to play the violin.  One of the trees was themed "Monsters University."  There was a cut out ID card to play with.

 Here's Helen with her ID card.

 Helen needed to be to the festival early to get ready to perform.  While we waited for the performance, Gib tried out the teddy bear hospital in the corner of the display hall.  

 After Gib had taped up his teddy bear's broken leg, he had a chance to vote for his favorite Christmas tree.  Gib picked this Star Wars themed tree.  Many of the tree's ornaments were made on a 3D printer.

 Finally Helen got to play!  Helen's new violin teacher, Faina, leads a violin ensemble.  Faina directs the older group and one of her former students directs the younger group which Helen plays with. This is a photo before they played, while their director decided where to place everyone.