25 December 2016

Abe started working on his Eagle Scout project this week.  He met with our city's Parks and Recreation director to talk about identifying and labeling trees in our city's newest park.  The land was specifically donated as an arboretum.  The previous owner's father planted every tree species native to Oregon on the 3 acre lot.  All of the trees haven't survived, but so far they have identified about 60 distinct species of trees.  This is photo of Abe at the edge of the arboretum.  

Between Brandan being busy on Sundays and Abe having basketball games on Mondays, we got a late start on our Christmas concert series.  With no school this week, we made up for lost time and performed 6 mini concerts.  Our largest audience was about 15 people and our smallest was 2 people. In this photo Helen is watching Gibson play the piano.

 Here's a photo of Abe.  Here's our program for this year: Gibson played Little Drummer Boy on the piano.  Helen played Have a Holly Jolly Christmas on the violin.  Abe played his What Child is This/ O Come, O Come Emmanuel medley on the piano.  Gibson played Away in a Manger on the cello.  Sofi sang Hallelujah while accompanying herself on the piano.  Helen played one of her Christmas piano pieces.  We ended by singing Christmas carols, accompanied by Helen on piano.  

 Brandan and Becky attended a Christmas benefit house concert sponsored by our friend Emily on Thursday night.  Emily plays with the symphony and joined friends from the symphony to raise money for the indigenous people protesting the North Dakota pipeline.  The string quartet played Christmas songs and selections from The Nutcracker.

We had a few guests for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner and talent show.  Brandan's former medical assistant, Susanne, joined us along with the elders and Jonny, a recent convert in our ward.  We took this photo afterwards.  Helen, Abe and Sofi played the piano.  Gibson and Elder A. showed us card tricks.  Elder H. played a song on his guitar.  Johnny played several tunes on the keyboard.  Brandan recapped our "Light the World" adventures and we sang Come Follow Me.  We ended the evening acting out the nativity story.

The kids almost posed for a new nativity photo for our collection.  This is the best photo we got.

 We've had a lovely Christmas, sleeping under the tree, opening presents, church at 11 am where we sang wonderful hymns, dinner with friends and then relaxing at home together.  However, we didn't take many photos.  Here's one of Brandan, Helen and Gib playing Spy Alley together.  Abe and Becky were playing, too, but they lost early.

 And here's Sofi chilling with a book.

Brandan was the concluding speaker in Sacrament Meeting today.  Here is Becky's favorite part of his talk:

We adore him as the King of Kings, as the all powerful Messiah, as one who heals us, feeds us, makes it possible for us to be forgiven. We adore him as Jehovah of the Old Testament, who humbled himself and was born to a mortal mother as a little baby, just like each of us. . . Some day we will each get to stand then kneel before him and hear him say our name. We will learn then, if we don’t know it yet, that he adores us. 

18 December 2016

Gibson's class presented their projects this week.  The students set up their displays around the classroom and then parents and students from other classrooms rotated between the displays to learn about the projects.  Gibson learned a lot about animal habitats in Australia and shared his knowledge clearly and with eloquence.

 Helen's class attended The Nutcracker for a field trip.  They dressed up for the occasion.  In the photo are Clara, Helen and Lucy.

 Three cheers for having Sofi home!  She finished her fall semester this week and will be spending three weeks in Oregon.  Tonight she lit the candles on our advent wreath.

11 December 2016

This is a photo of Abe and Gibson racing in their laundry baskets when they should be getting ready for bed.  Lots and lots of laughing was involved.

Abe is playing on the 8th grade JV basketball team this season.  He has games twice a week and we have enjoyed watching them.  So far his team has won 5 games and lost 3.  They have 2 more games to play before the season ends.

We had a little snow Tuesday morning.  It snowed steadily all morning, but most of it melted before it touched the ground.

 

Tuesday was also St. Nicholas Day.  Abe has basketball practice at 6:45 am so he was the first to find his shoe full of candy.

 We helped decorate for our ward Christmas party Thursday night.  The party was on Friday.  Here's a photo of Abe stringing lights on a tree.  

 Saturday was the annual Music at the Mall event.  Gibson played Jolly Old St. Nicholas, Away in a Manger and Little Drummer Boy.

 Helen played Toyland.

 She also played a duet of Let it Snow with her piano teacher, Marsha.

 Abe played a medley of What Child is This and O Come Emmanuel.

A toy store in the mall was having a bug exhibit at the same time.  The presenter had a selection of living and dead bugs.  In the photo the kids are petting a whip scorpion (it doesn't sting.)  They also petted a tarantula, a hissing cockroach and a stick bug.

 Becky's primary class made Angel Moroni ornaments today.  Here's the sample she made to show the class what to do.  Abe had the idea to cut the ends off of golf tees to make trumpets.

4 December 2016

While we were in Utah, Parker took us hiking up Adams Canyon in the rain.  

 We took a wrong spur and missed the waterfalls we hoped to see.  We were pretty soaked by the time we got back to our car.  We want to go back in the summertime so we can see the falls.

Back in Oregon, our kids raked the leaves in our yard on another wet day.

Gibson made this map of Australia for school.  The red paint marks kangaroo habitat (almost the entire continent), the yellow lines show koala habitat and the blue dots show wombat habitat.  The green spot on the left is the Gibson Desert, named for an explorer who got lost there in the 1800s and is presumed to have died.

 Gibson took his koala bear to the Festival of Trees for a checkup.

 Should we be concerned that none of Koaly's X-rays look like him?  The doctor diagnosed him with a broken leg and put a bandaid around his leg.  She recommended keeping the bandaid on for 4 days and reading lots of books to him.

Helen played the violin with Siskiyou Violins at the Festival.  Her first performance with Siskiyou Violins was at last year's Festival of Trees and she performed with the Junior group.  The juniors were missing lots of performers so the director asked some of the advanced performers, including Helen, to help out.

 The advanced group played a selection of classical music and Christmas carols.  The group sounded great.  We love watching all their bows moving up and down together.

 After just a few days, we're enjoying the Light the World countdown to Christmas.  Some days we've done a service project together and some days different family members have chosen different activities to do.

 We've hung the Light the World calendar next to our advent calendar.  Before taking chocolate out of the calendar, you need to finish your service!