24 June 2018

Here's the excited group at the airport before the ladies take off for their trip to Paris and Denmark.

Meanwhile, Abe, Gibson and I planned our kind of fun here at home.  We had purchased a Staycation punch card that offered discounts on a bunch of local attractions.  Tuesday we drove out to the coast to ride jet boats.  

The boat trip was mellow.  A few spins but mostly just motoring along and looking for ospreys and herons.  I saw about 10 herons along the trip, I think they're my favorite bird.  Here we are passing a sea lion sunning on a rock further up the river.

It felt like a natural roller coaster -- just driving up the river, looking at whatever wildlife presented itself to us, 64 mile round trip.  That stretch of the river is really calm.  We may have seen a class 2 rapid.  We rode from Gold Beach at the coast up to Agness.

In Agness we stopped for lunch, then sat on the lawn in the shade and relaxed.

While Abe and Gib played around a sprinkler, Brandan took a nap.

Wednesday we played this.

Here it is with a flash -- laser tag!  We played 2 games and both times Abe doubled Gib and Brandan's score.

Thursday we went to the Family Fun Center.  Abe won the first 9 holes, and Gib won the 2nd 9.  Overall Abe scored 55, and Gib and Brandan scored 59.  Abe's time on his high school golf team really showed.

We raced each other on the go cart race track.  Gibson is tall enough to drive himself now.

We played a bit in the arcade.  Abe and Gibson raced each other on motorcycles.

Then they rode a ride together like a roller coaster.  The ride blows fans on you while it rocks and vibrates.

Friday night our friends Willie and Andy invited us over for dinner.  We got to hear some fun stories about Andy when he was younger.  He showed us some manuals he still has for how to drive and fix a tank.  The manuals are from the Korean War -- 1953.  Abe and Gibson raced each other on their exercise bike.

We slept outside in hammocks one night.  We string them up between 2 trees, 2 in line with each other and the third above them.  Abe needed a stool to reach his.  The temperature at night was really pleasant.

Throughout the week we've been working on projects.  Gibson's class built some adirondack chairs.  One of them wobbled, so Gibson sanded the legs to make them level.  We picked out some stain and will get the chairs finished this next week.

Gibson is also making a box to store his cello.  We call it a cello box.  Instead of putting his cello in a case, he will just stand it up inside this box.  Here he is standing the edges.

We pulled out some old cans of stain from previous projects, and he made a sample board to compare the different colors and darknesses.  He plans to go with a cherry stain.

Abe continues working on his harmonograph table.  He needed to make some metal bars to support the pendulums.  We loaded a metal cutting blade on the chop saw and he cut an aluminum bar down to size.

Earlier Abe rough cut the circles in the table top where the pendulums (pendula?) will pass through.  Here he is sanding the holes nicely round and smooth using a drum sander bit in the drill.

Saturday our ward enjoyed a picnic together.  As part of the picnic we talked about emergency preparedness.  Several people brought their 72 hour kits.  Allyson and Rob shared some food from their MREs (meals ready to eat).  

It was a beautiful day.  We had bounce houses for the kids.  Some of the kids played flag football.  And here some of the older kids and several dads played soccer.  The other adults sat in the shade and ate and talked.

This week we also watched some of the World Cup games going on right now in Russia.  We forgot to get a photo.

Brandan lost the Staycation card later in the week.  So next week we'll come up with another list of fun things to do.  

It has been fun to get daily emails from Becky.  Their trip sounds fantastic.  Saturday they flew from Paris to Copenhagen.  It will be fun to hear all about it when they return.  She plans to post a lengthy blog post so you can read all about it.

17 June 2018

Helen and Gibson's last project for the year was a health fair.  The class divided into small groups and researched a health topic.  They presented their topics at a day long interactive health fair at the middle school next to their magnet school.  Gibson's group researched the benefits of exercise.

His group created an obstacle course where kids could race their friends.

 Helen and Clara researched the digestive system and told people how to have a healthy gut.  They passed out yogurt parfaits as an example of food that will help keep your gut healthy.

Abe didn't have seminary or his early bird school class on Wednesday morning so Becky took him to breakfast at a new restaurant in town.  They serve gluten free pancakes as big as a plate.

We have at least one mole digging in our backyard, maybe more, so Brandan bought some stakes to put in the yard and disturb them.  The stakes emit a high pitched noise and vibrate in the ground which is supposed to annoy the moles so they'll move.

Gib's scout patrol learned how to take care of the American flag this week.

This is a photo of Jacob and Gib folding the flag while Benny looks on.

Becky helped Helen and Gibson's class plan some activities for Friday,  the last day of school.  One of the activities was building mouse trap powered cars.  She woke up Friday morning worried that someone would break a finger with a mousetrap.  The first thing she did was pull off the teeth and trigger mechanism from the mousetraps, making them a little safer.  A couple of kids pinched their fingers anyways, but there were no serious injuries.

The class divided into 8 groups to build the cars.  Besides being powered by a mousetrap, the design of the car was up to the kids.  They could use legos, drinking straws, wooden dowels, wooden wheels, CDs, string, rubber bands, tape and hot glue.  It was a tough design challenge and even after a group figured out a workable design, it took a lot of fine tuning to get the car to move.  By the end of the day, 7 of the groups had working cars.  Two of the groups used kinetic energy from a rubber band instead of the energy from the mousetrap spring to move.  This is a photo of the teams lined up to race.

Here's a photo of Gibson, Abe and Helen on the last day of school.  It's been a year of growth, physical and mental!  

Helen made herself a paracord bracelet after school.

Abe went from school to a 4 stake youth conference.  It was our stake's turn to host the youth conference.  The theme was Peace in Christ.  Not so much peace at the 2 dances!  Brandan taught a couple of youth how to DJ and helped DJ both dances.  Here's the view of the gym.

 Here's another view of the gym.  Over 400 kids attended the youth conference and the dances were many kids', including Abe's, favorite part.

Zina and Sarah arrived Saturday afternoon.  Zina went to the testimony meeting and dance Saturday night.  This is a photo of Helen and Zina hanging out on Sunday.

Zina, Sarah, Helen and Becky are leaving Monday morning for Paris and Denmark.  Becky made this itinerary to hang on the refrigerator so Brandan, Abe and Gibson can keep track of them.  Brandan has taken the next 2 weeks off work and has a fun staycation planned for the boys.  He may post some photos, but if not, see you in two weeks!

10 June 2018

Becky got a cookie decorating kit as a gift and she and Gibson decorated sugar cookies while they listened to President and Sister Nelson's devotional on the internet.  Brandan, Abe and Helen listened to the devotional at the Bishop's youth fireside.  Gibson is using the sprinkles to make coral on his cookie for an underwater scene.

Friday was the last day of early morning seminary and several moms made a waffle breakfast to celebrate.

Our stake has 2 early morning seminary teachers.  Jeff teaches the juniors and seniors and Sarah teaches the freshmen and sophomores.  They have to get to church before the kids every day, with a lesson prepared.  They're both positive, caring and dedicated.  We're lucky to have them!

Our ward held a father/son campout in the rain Friday night.  This is a photo of some of the boys staying dry while playing cards in the back of a van.

 The rain let up on Saturday morning and the boys had fun playing kickball and frisbee on the wet grass.

 Brandan, Abe and Gibson stayed dry while they were sleeping, but there was a huge puddle of water under their tent in the morning.  This is a photo of Eddy and Gib packing up.

3 June 2018

The Thurmans invited Abe to spend Memorial Day weekend at the coast with their family.  They went to church on Sunday in Brookings.  From the left are Logan, Abe, Malakai, Eddy, Camden and Ashton. Abe had a fun weekend.

The rest of us went for a bike ride along the Rogue River on Memorial Day.  We went along a cute trail in Gold Hill.  In this photo, Helen, Brandan and Gibson are standing in front of Ti'lomihk Falls.

There was a skate park next to the trail and Gibson tried it out on his bike.

Here we are riding back into Gold Hill.  California poppies lined the sunny part of the trail.

 Becky, Helen and Gibson spent Wednesday and Thursday on a class field trip to the Siskiyou Field Institute.  SFI runs many programs for kids and adults that focus on local ecology.  In the photo below, the kids are moving three footballs around and obstacle course.  Anyone holding a ball couldn't move so the challenge was learning to work together to move the balls.  If a person dropped a ball or had to step off the obstacle course, that person had to start over with the ball.  It took the group about an hour to get everyone around the course.  Helen is wearing a blue jacket and green hat in the photo.

 The kids got to climb a tree as far as they felt comfortable.  They wore harnesses and helmets for safety.  Here's a photo of Gibson getting ready to climb.

 This is Helen's super big smile after she climbed the tree to the top.  It was approximately 50 feet off the ground.

 The kids waiting for their turn to climb belayed the rope.

 This is Gibson swinging on a giant swing.

 And here is Helen.  The swing is so high that they wear helmets and harnesses just in case.

The kids did a little bit of science exploration.  This is Helen checking the pH of a creek.  The creek's temperature is cool and the pH is almost neutral so it would be a good home for salmon.

 The kids looked at macroinvertabrates in a different creek.  They used nets to scoop tiny animals out of the creek and into buckets where they could look at them closely.

 After they identified the animals, they put them back in the creek.  The kids found a lot of larvae from many species, a crawfish and a tadpole.  The tadpole is a vertebrate, but it was also interesting to look at.

Our last stop was the Oregon Vortex, a tourist trap we've resisted going to since we moved to southern Oregon.  Our tour guide gave us three different and fairly nonsensical explanations for why people appear to change height when they are in the vortex.  The tour was entertaining and mercifully short.  In the photo Helen and Sophie are comparing heights.  In real life Helen is about 5'3" and Sophie is about 5'10"

Here's a group photo of Helen and Gibson's class.  Front row: Javis, Paige, Gibson, Sam, Lily, Mya, Nick and Alli.  Middle row: Lucy, Aubrynn, Wyatt, Aubrey, Lillian, Kylie, Helen and Roberta.  Last row: Michael, Clara, Ethan, Nicole, Caleb, Hannahmarie, Hannah, Sophie, Evan, Lily Mae and Chayton.

On Saturday we drove up to Portland to watch a professional soccer game between the Portland Timbers and the LA Galaxy.  Abe got the tickets for his birthday and we all got the treat of going to the game.

Here we are walking into the stadium.  It was a beautiful sunny day in Portland.  Both teams played well.  The game ended in a tie, 1-1.  The crowd was almost as entertaining as the soccer game.  By the time the game started, the 22,000 seat stadium was packed.  

On our way home we stopped at Burrito Boy in Eugene for a cheap, quick, allergy friendly dinner and we made it back home by bedtime.