30 September 2018

On Wednesday, Brandan followed a prompting to check out our crawl space and discovered two leaking pipes underneath our house.  It turned out to be an easy fix for a plumber, but it could have been a much bigger problem if the leaks had gone undiscovered.

Our library received a generous bequest and decided to use the money for a new digital play space for kids and teenagers.  The new space has computers for music, video, writing, coding, robotics and more and librarians ready to teach kids how to use the software and equipment.

In this photo Gib is programming the robot on the floor to move and navigate a maze made of the blue tape on the floor, while Helen is looking through the goodie bag given out at the open house  They both look forward to learning how to use the new digital resources at the library.

Brandan took Helen and Gibson to the symphony on Saturday night.  They enjoyed music by Bernstein, Schumann and a Hungarian composer named Kodály.  Becky and Abe were in Eugene for Abe's soccer game.  His team lost 2-1.

They went to the symphony to hear our houseguest, Alexis, play the piccolo.  Alexis lives out of town and usually stays with our neighbor for symphony concerts.  Our neighbor is repainting her guest room and asked if we could host Alexis this week.  She was the easiest house guest ever and even made dinner for us Friday night

Alexis left Sunday afternoon.  Before she left, she played a trio with Helen and Gibson of "Finlandia."  Helen and Gibson have learned a violin and cello duet of the song.  This time, Helen played the piano and Gibson the cello while Alexis played her flute.  Abe fell asleep on the floor right after church and slept through the jam session.

Helen took this photo of Brandan and Becky reading the Sunday paper in the warm autumn sunshine.

23 September 2018

Blue skies have returned!  The fires are still burning and we don't know where the smoke is going, but at least it's not in our valley!  This photo was taken from Old Military Road and you can clearly see Mt. McLoughlin, 40 miles away.

Abe's soccer team played against Milo Adventist Academy in Days Creek on Wednesday.  It was a beautiful afternoon.

 Abe's team won, 4-3.  Abe contributed one goal on a penalty kick.

 The Milo Adventist Academy is a college prep boarding school on a long, narrow country highway in rural Oregon.  We didn't know it existed until Wednesday.  Students from 10 different countries attend the school, including Mexico, Kenya and China.  Becky rode to the game with another mom.  The GPS route ended at this cute covered bridge and we couldn't see the school.  It isn't well marked, but this is the entrance to the campus. 

 From the left are Jake, Camden, Spencer, Malakai, Abe and Ashton.

Abe ministers to our ward music director and she talked him into playing a musical number for sacrament meeting.  Abe chose an arrangement of "If You Could Hie to Kolob."  This is a photo of Abe practicing in the chapel earlier in the week.  Abe played beautifully.

While Abe was practicing, Helen discovered one of the organists had left the organ unlocked.  Helen's dream is to play the organ in sacrament meeting.  She loves watching the organists during general conference.  Helen played "How Great Thou Art" using both keyboards and the pedals, although not all at the same time.  

 Gibson took a break from soccer for a couple of years, but decided he wanted to play again this year. His season started a month late because of the poor air quality.  His first game was Saturday.  Gibson has grown a lot as a soccer player even though he's only been playing for fun lately.  He's solid on offense and defense and shows good tactical knowledge.

 Abe had a home game on Saturday.  His team lost.  Abe showed great discipline, mental toughness and endurance.  Even when his team was discouraged, Abe stayed relaxed and focused.

In between soccer games, Gibson and Brandan went to Brandan's work summer picnic.  It was held at a beautiful family farm. 

They had time to speed through a corn maze before heading over to Abe's game.

Helen went to a paint party on Saturday.  This time the girls laid out eight canvasses and drew giant paintbrushes across all of the canvasses as if they were just one large canvas.  Then each girl took one canvas and painted it however she chose.  From the left are Clara, Helen, Isabel, Symphony, Jules, Alli and Mari.

 This photo shows the completed paintings.

This is a photo of each girl with the canvas she painted.

Back row: Symphony, Isabel, Helen, Jules, Clara.  Front row: Alli and Mari

16 September 2016

Abe's soccer team won their game this Thursday and Abe got a nice shoutout in the newspaper.  

 Helen's school added another class this year so the school now offers kindergarten through 8th grade.  On Thursday, the whole school met together to make salsa.  The kids used plastic knives to cut up the ingredients so no one got hurt.

Each student could make up their own recipe of salsa using homegrown tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic and cilantro.  Then they sat outside and enjoyed their salsa with tortilla chips.  The teachers dumped all the leftover ingredients together into a big bowl and made the tastiest salsa of all. 

Helen accompanied our ward choir today on her violin for the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee."  Here she is practicing one more time before we went to church.

It feels like we've been going 100 miles an hour since school started.  We're especially enjoying the Sabbath today and the opportunity to slow down.  Here's Abe reading a spy thriller, just for fun.

 Gibson set up a wooden village and a track for racing cars.

9 September 2018

We spent Labor Day weekend in Bandon, Oregon. 

 We never spend as much time as we like with the Mays.  After a super quick visit in March, we made plans to meet at the Oregon coast for Labor Day.  We had a late lunch/early dinner at the Bandon Fish Market.  Helen didn't want fish so Brandan walked with her to a Mexican restaurant for a tostada.  In the photo are Ethan, Gibson and Helen.

This is the Coquille River Lighthouse which is no longer in use.  Our beach house was directly across the river from the lighthouse.

This is a photo of the beautiful beach outside our house. 

This is Abe, Karina, Gibson, Helen and Sullivan.

 We enjoyed three sunny days.  The water was freezing.  In the photo are Karina, Helen and Abe.

The kids got in the hot tub to warm up after playing in the ocean.  Clockwise from the top are Abe, Gibson, Sullivan, Karina and Helen.

On Sunday we all went to the Bandon branch.  We took up an entire row in their small chapel.  From the left are Ethan, Karina, Tim, Sullivan, Kirse, Helen, Becky, Gibson, Brandan and Abe.

After church we drove to another part of Bandon to explore the beach.  This puffin is made from pieces of plastic that washed up on the beach.  From the left are Karina, Ethan, Sullivan, Gibson, Helen and Abe.

Sullivan found this tiny crab.

We found some sea anemones and starfish.

Ethan and Abe built a sandcastle behind some large rocks.

The large rocks provided shelter from the wind.  You can see the sand being blown across the ground in this photo.  To any exposed skin, the wind felt like a sandblaster.

We found several crab traps in the garage at the beach house and decided to give crabbing a try at the port docks.  This was the first time any of us had tried to catch a crab in a trap.  

 We saved some raw chicken from lunch for bait.  The trap lies flat on the ocean floor.  Crabs can wander over the trap and hopefully they will stop to feast on the chicken.  When a person pulls up on the trap, the trap expands into a cylinder and the crab is caught inside.  

Most of crabbing is waiting for a crab to wander into your trap.  From the left are Ethan, Karina, Kirse, Becky, Gibson, Sullivan and Brandan.

We stayed until it was time for dinner and we were too cold to wait any longer.  No luck!  Tim pulled the trap up empty.

 This photo shows us playing games on Sunday evening while Becky emails Sofi (her favorite Sunday pastime.)  We played Snake Oil, Apples to Apples, Telestrations and Mafia.  The Mays are all witty, clever and talented which makes games hilarious.  Clockwise from the top are Sullivan, Kirse, Ethan, Karina, Becky, Gibson, Helen and Abe.

 Tim and Sullivan woke up early Monday morning to try crabbing again.  The rest of us hurried to the docks when they called to say they caught a crab.  It was a female which are illegal to keep, but they would have let a male go, too.  Helen threw the crab (which Sullivan named Craboo) back into the ocean.

We said our first goodbyes to the Mays at Cranberry Sweets, an amazing candy store.  The store offers platters of samples of a wide variety of delicious sweets.

 We said our final goodbyes at Face Rock Creamery.  Then the Mays headed north and we headed south.  It was a delightful weekend, full of good times.

 At the candy shop, we watched a video about cranberry production.  As we drove down highway 101, we realized the fields we were passing were cranberry bogs.  The fields are flooded in the fall and the cranberries float to the surface of the water where they are easily harvested.

We drove down highway 101 all afternoon.  It was a sunny and windy day.

 We stopped at a turnout with a few small hills on the edge of the ocean.  We decided to scramble to the top of one of the hills for a better view.  At the bottom, the trail was easy to scamper up.

 The trail ended and we found ourselves climbing up scree.  Any solid looking rock crumbled when we tried to use it at a handhold.  The wind was fierce so we turned back.  Getting down was even more challenging than going up.

 Here's a photo of the hill from the road.  It looks like there is a well used path to the top, but you can take our word that the trail ends about halfway up and what looks like a path is only a rockslide from the point up.  We felt like we earned our lunch after such an adventure!

Tuesday was the first day of school for Helen and Gibson.  Helen is an 8th grader at CAMP.  She's a CAMP counselor this year, her school's version of student government, and she's looking forward to planning fun activities.

These 5 friends have been in the same class for 4 years.  From the left are Caleb, Lucy, Clara, Helen and Sophie.

Gibson is a 6th grader at Scenic.  He was nervous for his first day of school, but he had a great week! His favorite class is math.

Abe is a sophomore at Crater.  We forgot to take a photo on Wednesday, his first day of school.  This photo looks like it was taken in the dark because it was. This is 6:20 am on Thursday morning as Abe left for early morning seminary.  Abe jumped right back into school.  His favorite class so far is Advanced Programming.

Our family has thought a lot about the word "stretch" ever since Abe got the nickname Stretch at the pear farm.  We think it's a great goal for the 2018-2019 school year.  Abe put the word in action for his first Language Arts assignment.  The basic requirement for the assignment was to make a name tag large enough for the teacher to read from across the room.  Abe cut his name out of a lovely piece of maple and glued the letters to a piece of paduk.  Stretch!

 Gibson wasn't even awake when Abe left for school on Friday, yet he randomly chose the same outfit to wear to school.  This is a photo of the boys coming home from school together.