28 October 2018

On Friday, Becky dropped Helen, Gibson and some of their friends off to help with the elementary school Halloween carnival.  The carnival is a beloved tradition and a big fundraiser for the school.  It takes dozens of volunteers to make it work.  A wise organizer decided to ask middle school kids to help.  In general, the kids have more time than adults and are enthusiastic volunteers.  From the left are Ben, Helen, Paige, Aubrynn and Gibson.

The girls ran the cake walk.  Ben and Gibson staffed the "Oh No! Vertigo!" booth.  The black spiral on the orange disc was fuzzy.  Kids threw velcro bats at the disc.  If the bats stuck, the kids got a piece of candy.  The boys spun the disc before each turn to make it more challenging.  The volunteers divided up the leftover candy and treats at the end of the night to take home as a reward for helping.

Gibson tried out the goalie position in his soccer game on Saturday.  He didn't like it very well.  In the second half he played both defense and offense which he likes better.

 Abe's team played their last game of the season.  They had a rough season and ended with 2 wins, 11 losses and 1 tie.  Most of the varsity players are sophomores like Abe and they hope to be stronger and faster next year.  Abe is jersey number 3.  

Helen and Kate played catch during halftime.

 Brandan and Becky dressed as French Kiss for a couples' Halloween party Saturday night.  

21 October 2018

Our ward had a combined Relief Society and Young Women's meeting to learn how to make bread and freezer jam.  Becky and Helen demonstrated how to make strawberry jam.  After we filled jars with the finished jam, Helen started licking the bowl clean which made everyone laugh.  Homemade jam is delicious enough to eat with a spoon.

Erica, a friend from our ward, felt sorry for Helen not being able to eat the bread we made at the activity.  Several of Erica's family members have celiac disease and she has perfected gluten free cinnamon rolls.  She invited us over on Friday to learn how to make them.  The hardest part of the recipe is rolling up the soft, sticky dough to cut into cinnamon rolls.  It took 4 hands to keep everything together.  The results were amazing!  The cinnamon rolls were perfectly tender and fluffy and tasted great.

Helen is helping plan a table tennis tournament for an upcoming Beehive activity.  Since it's close to Halloween, Helen painted the table tennis balls to look like eyeballs.

Brandan is helping Gibson make a wooden pen on his lathe.  

 Gibson used sandpaper to smooth out the pen after the cut it to the right size.  He's making his pen from a piece of walnut.  This is half of the pen.

14 October 2018

Gibson's cello teacher, Lisa, plays the piano as well as the cello.  Sometimes they play duets after Gibson has learned a new song.  Here they are playing Minuet in G by Beethoven.

Helen gets home 2 hours from school earlier than Abe and Gibson on Wednesdays.  This week she finished up the puzzle we started on Sunday.

Here's the finished puzzle.  It was fun to work on a fall themed puzzle at the same time we were watching all the leaves turn colors outside.

Gibson got a stack of patches at the troop court of honor on Wednesday night.  From the left are Cody, Luke, Andy, Tyrone, Marcus, Gibson and Bob.

 Gib advanced to the rank of First Class scout and got his first five merit badges: First Aid, Pets, Swimming, Astronomy and Personal Fitness.

Helen was measured at her annual check up in August and is now 5'4 ½" tall, half an inch taller than Becky.  Becky took her to lunch to celebrate.  We went to the Breadboard in Ashland so Helen could order her favorite blue cheese burger.

Abe's soccer team played Friday afternoon and lost.  It would be nice if they had another win before the season ended, but with a shrinking roster due to injuries, it looks unlikely.  Abe is still playing hard and other than bruises and scratches, he's injury free.

 We went to our friend, Masood's house for dinner on Saturday.  Masood has many oak trees that drop acorns all over his yard and walkways.  Abe, Helen and Gibson used his leaf blowers to clear them away.

 Here is Gibson blowing leaves out of Masood's parking area in this photo.  The kids thought using leaf blowers was very fun.

7 October 2018

This week brought cooler temperatures and plenty of rain.  We pulled out most of our vegetable garden before it got mushy.  We left one cherry tomato plant and a basil forest.  Here is a tangle of cantaloupe, cucumbers and flowers before we pulled the plants out.

We grew mini pumpkins this year.  The pumpkin vine barely grew, but we still got 4 tiny pumpkins from it.  

Now the pumpkins are on our front porch with a few professionally grown pumpkins.

 Last month, Sofi shared the Taiwanese mid-autumn festival with us.  Sofi loved the food and gatherings that went along with the festival and said it could be her new favorite holiday.  We realized we have our own mid-autumn festival.  It's called General Conference weekend!  We gather with friends and family and enjoy delicious food all weekend.

 We set out a puzzle to work on during conference.  This 500 piece puzzle turned out to be far too easy.  It only took a couple of hours to finish. 

 The puzzle was full of clever and humorous details.  For example, these unicorns are wearing signs that say, "Heck no, I won't go!"

With the new General Women's Session this year, our ward started a new tradition.  All women, ages 8 and up were invited to watch the session together and enjoy dinner afterward.  Almost 60 women came with their daughters, granddaughters and friends.  A couple of women knitted.  Several took notes.  We all basked in the Spirit and in our love for each other.  At the end of conference, Bishop Hull arrived with plenty of gourmet pizzas to share.

 Brandan cooked a pile of crepes for breakfast Sunday morning.

 Here's Abe assembling the perfect crepe.

 On Sunday morning Helen decorated the notes she took Saturday night during the Women's Conference.

 We set out a second puzzle on Sunday.  This one is 1000 pieces and might last until tomorrow.  The sister missionaries in our ward came to watch the afternoon session with us.  We gave them the softest seats in the house.

 Sister H.'s note taking style reminds us of Helen's.  She borrowed some of Helen's pens to add more style to her notes.

Conference weekend flew by in a flash!  We will need a few weeks to absorb and reflect on everything we heard.  We've already adjusted to the idea of two hour church which seems simple enough.  Gibson's favorite part of conference was President Uchtdorf's joke about being a German Shepherd.  Helen liked listening attentively in order to make her notes more meaningful and listening to people in the conference center cheer when new temples were announced.  Abe liked Elder Andersen's talk.  Becky's most favorite conference experience was attending the women's session.  Her favorite talks were by Elder Rasband, Elder Gong, Elder Uchtdorf, Sister Jones, Sister Craig, Sister Franco, President Nelson (women's conference), President Ballard, Elder Gay, Elder Renlund and Elder Gerard.  Brandan loved the efforts of many of the speakers to comfort the many people listening who are facing challenges.  Hooray for living prophets and for the gospel of Jesus Christ!