25 November 2018

Gibson loves butter flake rolls.  Last Sunday he got out the recipe and ingredients and mixed up a batch of rolls on his own.

Here's a photo of Gibson with a perfect dozen rolls.  Gib ate 9 of them for a snack and then he didn't eat any dinner.

On Wednesday, Ireland came home from her mission.  She served in the same mission as Sofi and facetimed Sofi in Taiwan just a few days before she came home.  They were assigned to the same city for a few months earlier in their mission and got to go on exchanges with each other.  It's pretty amazing that two friends from the same small town in Oregon got to serve their missions together! 

We started out Thanksgiving off by running together in the Turkey Trot.  Abe finished 16th out of 711  runners.  The rest of us were a bit slower.

After the fun run, Abe and Gibson headed out to play football with friends and neighbors.

 Here's Gibson.

 Brandan went out to the garage to do some woodworking.  He was working on a dovetail joint when his chisel slipped.  The chisel cut the corner off the piece of wood and stabbed into his hand between his thumb and first finger.

 The cut was wide and deep, but fortunately the chisel missed arteries and tendons.  Brandan asked Becky to drive him to his clinic.  It was closed for Thanksgiving.  With Becky's help for anything that required 2 hands, Brandan stitched himself up.  Here is the before photo.

 Here is the after photo.  Giving himself stitches was definitely cheaper and quicker than going to the ER.  His hand is healing well.

On Thanksgiving, we listened to a crowd sourced poem on npr.  The theme was "Thank you, America" and over 1000 people contributed their ideas.  A poet combined all the submissions into one long poem. (It is doubtful that all 1000 poems made it into the final version.)  Our family liked the poem so well we created our own poem with everyone contributing a few lines.

We started putting up Christmas decorations this weekend.

We're remembering our Danish heritage with some of our decorations.

 

Becky went hiking the Friday after Thanksgiving.  The oak trees were full of mistletoe, some of it growing very low to the ground.  She couldn't resist snapping off a bunch to take home.

We gave up on cutting down a live Christmas tree a long time ago.  Cutting down live mistletoe and bringing it home is much more manageable.

On Saturday we asked Andy and Willie if we could help them put up their Christmas lights.  Our plan was to keep Andy, who is over 80 years old, off his ladder.  It turns out Andy has several tricks for hanging lights and doesn't get on a ladder anyway.  He showed Abe how to use a long pole to hang lights along his rain gutter.

 Andy and Willie's neighbor, Jacob, runs over whenever he sees something interesting happening at their house.  Christmas lights are definitely interesting!  Jacob helped Helen put lights on stakes around the edge of the grass.

 We ate Thanksgiving dinner with Gregg and Pam and they sent us home with the wishbone.  It has been drying on our counter since Thursday.  First Abe, Helen and Gibson had to play rock, paper, scissors to decide who got to break the wishbone.  Gibson and Helen won.  The wishbone is still too flexible to break.  It will have to dry out for a few more days before they can try again.

18 November 2018

We went to a memorial service on Monday morning for Veterans' Day.

Our neighbor, Addi, and her friend rang our doorbell and ran away, leaving a mysterious baked object on our front porch along with a note asking how we liked it.  We lied and said we loved it, then we threw the not poop away.

Becky is teaching a gluten free baking class at Helen's school.  Her class has 11 students, ages 6-14.  This week we made gluten free cupcakes and decorated them.  Here are some of the finished products.  The cupcake with eyes is supposed to be a turkey-corn, a cross between a turkey and a unicorn.  We probably wouldn't eat these if we found them on our front porch, either.

 Our stake kicked off the holiday season with a 5K on Saturday.  It was very low key-- just show up and run through the neighborhood near the stake center.  Missionaries stood at critical turns to direct the runners.  Becky and Helen ran it along with Helen's friends, Sarah and Emma.

Abe, Gibson and Brandan didn't run the 5K because they were picking up canned food for Scouting for Food.

 Helen played Christmas music along with a group of violinists for beginning of holiday shopping at Paddington Station, a local store.  

Brandan's office held their annual Christmas party on Saturday.  They've started holding it early to avoid competition with all the other activities in December.  The party was at an ice skating rink and we all had a great time.  Helen and Gibson liked using the walkers so they could skate extra fast.

 Helen and Gibson are getting ready for another musical number in sacrament meeting.  They're playing the hymn "Be Still My Soul" with Eddy on piano and Mary and Addi on violin.  The photo shows them practicing after church today.  They'll play in sacrament meeting next Sunday.

In case you are wondering, Abe successfully completed the crocheting challenge at the SOU scavenger hunt this week, earning full points for his team!

11 November 2018

For family night we went to see the Harlem Globetrotters play.  We enjoyed their good natured humor and fancy basketball tricks.  Unsurprisingly, the Globetrotters defeated the hapless Washington Generals again.  

On Friday we formed two teams and held a baking competition.  Abe and Helen made a peach mousse dessert.  Brandan, Becky and Gibson made a peach upside down pie.  The peach mousse won the most votes and we enjoyed eating both desserts.

 Brandan and Becky enjoyed a beautiful hike up Roxy Ann on Saturday afternoon.

 Every year, our local university holds a scavenger hunt for high school teams.  They spent three days this week working on finding the answers to obscure clues.  Next week, all the high school teams will meet at the university for the final competition.  Besides the answers to their questions, they earn points by completing tasks or bringing scavenger finds to the competition.  This year the list includes a crocheting challenge.  Abe spent the weekend learning how to crochet so he can compete for his team.  For full points at the event, he will need to complete 11 chain stitches, 11 single crochets and 11 half double crochets in less than 5 minutes.  

4 November 2018

Helen spent a lot of time on Tuesday getting ready for her class Halloween party.  She decorated a bunch of oranges to look like jack-o-lanterns.

She also made jello worms by putting straws in a jar of jello before the jello set up.  The jello filled the straws, but it was impossible to get out of the straws after it set up.  Helen threw this little experiment away.

Brandan's clinic dressed up as the office manager, Eric, for Halloween.  Eric is known for wearing a plaid shirt and khakis every day.  He also has a goatee and glasses.  Here is a photo of everyone who dressed up.  Two women wore the exact shirt Eric was wearing by coincidence.

Brandan started growing a goatee on Monday for Halloween which was Wednesday.  Here's a close up so you can see it.  He shaved his goatee before bedtime on Wednesday.

Gibson went trick or treating with Eddy and Stephen.  Gib was the 10th doctor from Doctor Who.  Many people guessed he was Donald Trump which would be a frightening choice for sure!  Eddie was a lumberjack and Stephen was Smartie Pants.

Helen went trick or treating with friends and then went back to Sophie and Clara's house to swap candy.  She dressed as a scarecrow.  Clara is a 50s girl.  Abe went to a friends' house and watched a scary movie.

On Thursday, we went to Abe's soccer banquet.  The team had plenty to celebrate.  Only 3 of the team members are seniors so most of these boys will be back next year.  Abe received one of the 4 awards voted on by his teammates, "Most Improved Player."

On Friday Helen's class went on a field trip to the Rogue River.  They talked about salmon habitat and looked for macro-invertebrates. 

Brandan organized a flash mob Saturday and sent groups across our ward to rake leaves.    Gibson and Ben helped fill a trailer with leaves.  

One of the groups called for reinforcements.  The group raked up 30 bags of leaves from one giant walnut tree.

Our missionaries called for help.  Another ward was having a baptism for a family of 5 on Saturday night and couldn't find a piano player.  Becky volunteered Helen to play and she did a beautiful job.  This is the goal for piano lessons-- preparing to serve.