24 July 2016

We enjoyed a very quick visit from Dan and Martha for Brandan's ordination to the office of bishop.  

Our activity day girls came over Wednesday night and we cooked a dutch oven dinner in honor of Pioneer Day.  We cooked chili mac and peach cobbler.  From the left are Sierra, Annie, Olivia, Mary, Helen and Addi.

Abe went to an advanced robotics camp this week.  The class worked all week to program robots to complete a variety of tasks.  Their teacher set up a mat with a complicated storyline involving stopping a bank robber from escaping with a bag of money.  The teams earned points by completing a task and lost points for touching their robots during a task, knocking into the wrong things or driving off the mat.  They had 5 minutes to accumulate as many points as possible.

Abe worked together with Jackson all week (in the baseball cap).  They learned the importance of precise programming and durable construction.  If their robot was programmed half an inch off, they would miss their target.  Similarly, a weak tool would break off of their robot instead of completing the task it was intended for.  The boys reworked their program dozens of times.   Their patience and hard work paid off and they won the competition at the end of the week. 

 On Saturday, we hiked Mount McLoughlin.  We've been working all summer toward our goal.  Although the trail is long and hard, it's a very popular hike and many people get lost on the mountain every year.

 A large sign at the trailhead emphasizes the importance of staying on the trail.  The sign seemed a little much at the beginning of our hike.  After we finished, we understand how easy it is to get lost.  The last 2 miles of "trail" to the top are very undefined.

 We expected a steep hike and enjoyed the hike up to the tree line.

The trees gave way to a bare cinder cone.  The last mile to the top looked like this.   Someone helpfully spray painted pink dots every few yards to mark a path to the top.  Sometimes just getting to the next pink dot was our goal.  For part of the time we walked up loose cinders, sliding backward for  a half step or more for each step we took.

 The view!  We were so high up at the top compared to the surrounding landscape that it almost felt like we were looking down from another planet.

 We were so proud of our little family making it to the top together!  Earlier in the summer we talked about "grit" and sticking to a job even when it's hard.  We wore matching sisu T-shirts for our hike.  Sisu is a Finnish word that means something like super-grit.  We stayed on top for a long time-- marveling at the view, eating lunch, signing the summit register, napping in Sofi's case-- then we finally headed back down.  This meant creeping back down the steep slope carefully watching for pink dots.  Abe rolled his ankle and Gib practically ran the last 2 miles because he was so disgusted by the mosquitoes, but we made it home again!

 At scout camp this year, another troop invited Abe's troop over for a fireside and dessert.  They set up a huge buffet of candy like rolos, peanut butter cups, starbursts, snickers and cinnamon bears.  Each scout could choose a piece of candy, wrap it in biscuit dough and deep fry it.  The scouts loved the dessert, but Abe couldn't eat it because of the wheat.   He asked Becky if we could try to make the same dessert allergy friendly.  This is a photo of Abe and Helen getting their dough ready to fry. 

 Helen and Abe tried filling their dough with starbursts, chocolate kisses and chocolate covered caramel popcorn.  They thought the dessert was delicious!