20 May 2018

The highlight of our week was skyping Sofi on Mothers Day!  She is happy and healthy and we were delighted to visit with her.

We love this photo of Sofi studying.  Sofi went on exchanges with Sister Wu last week and Sister Wu sent us this photo.

Brandan had the idea to take a ward photo.  After church on Mothers Day turned out it to be a great day for it.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and everyone was in a good mood.  If you're trying to find our family, Brandan is in the seated row with a red tie.  Gibson is standing behind the seated row, about 3 people to the left of Brandan.  Helen and Abe are standing next to each other in the right middle mass of people.  Becky is taking the photo.  Sofi is in Taiwan.  

Here's a behind the scenes photo of the ward photo.  Abe and Ashton helped Becky set up chairs before church got out.  They also helped her find where the edges of the photo would be so everyone would fit in the photo.  With the planning done, the actual photo took about 10 minutes to set up and take.  

Helen made a chocolate cake for Mothers Day.  It tasted it delicious as it looked.

A parent helped a group of kids in Helen and Gibson's class build planter boxes and chairs for a fundraiser.  Gibson is in the middle of the photo, screwing the back on one of the chairs. 

We bought the chair Gibson built, plus another one to match.  Now we need to decide how to finish the chairs before we put them on our front porch.

Gibson made a wooden wand on his lathe.  He decided to give the wand to their teacher's aide as a going away present.  He also made a pouch to put the wand in.

Here's a photo of Gib giving the wand to Miss Halli at her going away party on Friday.

Miss Halli has been with their class for two years.  She loves theater and Harry Potter and has shared her talents generously with the class.

Gibson got to go on his first campout on Friday.  Here's a photo of him getting dropped off at the church with all his gear.

 He had to take a break from the campout and come back to civilization for piano syllabus.  Abe, Helen and Gibson all had successful evaluations.  These certificates represent months of hard work memorizing music and learning theory.  Abe passed level 7, Helen passed level 6 and Gibson passed level 3. 

Becky drove Gib back to his campout and Abe decided to stay for the rest of the afternoon.  Brandan was already at the campout.  Here's a photo of the ever popular BB range.

 This is a photo of Gib shooting a BB gun.  Gib loved the campout.  The 11 year old scouts were in charge of planning meals and Gib thought the food was delicious.  He also liked sleeping in his hammock and playing ultimate frisbee. 

Abe went to the stake dance on Saturday night.  Here he is with Camden, looking handsome.

Our ward had a combined sacrament meeting today with the two other wards who share our building. The meeting had a combined musical number with people from all three wards.  A group of singers sang "Amazing Grace" accompanied by the organ and a string quartet.  The arrangement was challenging and took a lot of work to put together.  It sounded beautiful.  This photo is from a rehearsal on Saturday night.  It was taken before the organist and about half the singers got to the church.  Helen played her violin.