31 May 2020

On Monday morning, Brandan and I took a walk up Old Military road and enjoyed beautiful views.

Later we rode our bikes around the neighborhood.  This is a photo of Abe and Gib riding with no hands.

Soccer practice started back up for Abe's high school team this week.  They're supposed to practice 6 feet apart, which they mostly do.

One nice thing about the corona virus is someone is always home to help carry groceries in.  Gibson is carrying 4 bags at once.

 The temperature on Friday was over 90 degrees, too hot for a hike!  We went to Applegate Lake instead with Abigail, Aunika and Alina.  The girls brought 2 tubes and we rented a paddle boat so the kids spent most of the afternoon floating on the other side of the lake from the parking lot.  I could barely see them.  

They came back to the swim area just before time to go.  The lake is created by a dam and is used for irrigation.  In a normal year, this rocky area is underwater and the beach is a smaller gravel and grassy area above.  This year is very dry and the lake is alarmingly low for May.  Even after spending hours on the water, Helen and Aunika wanted to work on their tans before we left.

I took the paddle boat out for a short ride.  

 Helen and Aunika volunteered to take the paddle boat back to the boat dock.  They managed to paddle with both of them standing up at the same time which took a lot of balancing. It was a fun way to spend a hot afternoon.

24 May 2020

Abe's friend, Grace, planned an alternative to prom since the school prom was canceled this year.  She invited a few couples to dress up and come for dinner.  From the left are Tyler, Ally, William, Grace, Abigail, Abe, Sarah, Vinny, Brooklynn and Dom.

Our county loosened some restrictions on Friday and allowed hair stylists to begin giving haircuts again.  Abe and Gib went to get haircuts on Monday.

The USDA bought a bunch of produce to support local farmers whose markets have been disrupted by the corona virus.  In our area they gave hundreds of pounds of fresh produce to our school district with the intention it would be shared with low income families.  It turned out to be far more food than could be given away strictly to people in need so the school set up a drive through and let anyone who was interested come pick up a box of food.  Our box had apples, oranges, zucchini, potatoes, onions, carrots, radishes, cabbage and lettuce.

Becky celebrated her birthday on Thursday.  This vanilla cake with fresh berries and lemon filling is worth waiting for once a year!

Before the shutdown, Becky met a group of friends at the church gym 3 times a week to work out.  The friendship is as refreshing as the exercise.  We've met a couple of times during the last few weeks, exercising outside and staying 6 feet apart.  Becky hosted the group on Friday.  None of us want a photo in our workout clothes.  This is a photo of our workout.

This photo of our puzzle was taken Saturday morning.  Gib photoshopped the exclamation point in the middle of this photo.  After working steadily on the puzzle for three weeks, we decided we would really like to have our dining table back so we made a big push to finish this weekend.

 This is Brandan and Gib putting in the last few pieces.  The elephants were very challenging-- there were so many grey pieces.

Finished!

Here's a photo of the completed puzzle.  The finished dimensions are 48 inches by 32 inches  We'll spend a few hours admiring it and then pack the puzzle up and return it to our neighbors.

17 May 2020

Helen and Abe slept outside in hammocks last week.  They were cozy and comfortable.

 Instead of hosting a regular honors night, the high school emailed a slide show to all of the families Wednesday night.  The kids got their certificates in the mail on Thursday.  Helen got a certificate for having a 4.0 GPA and also received a BIS LEADS award, one of 10 freshmen chosen for the honor.

 Abe received the BIS LEADS award for juniors and also has a 4.0 GPA.  We missed cheering for our friends and seeing the students dressed in their best, but we're thankful the school still took the time to recognize the students' achievements.

The stake presidency came to Abe's Zoom seminary class on Friday so his teacher asked everyone to dress up.  Abe gave the stake presidency a "mission report," speaking as if he were Ammon in the Book of Mormon.  He wore a backpack to look more like a missionary.  Although if the missionary is Ammon, maybe a sword would be more in character.

We went on a very short hike Friday afternoon.

 Our county relaxed some of its corona virus restrictions on Friday after 62 days of a stay at home order.  We can now gather in groups of 25 people as long as we stay 6 feet apart from each other.  Face masks are recommended.  Many businesses have reopened. School is still online and church and sports are still canceled.  One of our music teachers has decided to have lessons in person, but the others are going to continue with video lessons. Our family celebrated our tiny bit of new mobility by having the Webers over for dinner.  Our county spent the last two months planning for future outbreaks and hopefully will be able to manage the virus without another shutdown.

 Gib and Alina moved the fire pit onto the patio and we made smores.

We made a lot of progress on our 3000 piece puzzle.  The weather was much cooler this week so we ate crowded around the counter or on a blanket on the floor more than we ate outside.  It will still be a while before we get our dining table back.

10 May 2020

We finished the 1000 piece puzzle we started last week.  It was missing a couple of pieces, but otherwise it was a fun puzzle to put together. 

Now we're working on a 3000 piece puzzle.  We've never attempted a puzzle this big before.  It takes up our entire kitchen table so we've been eating outside on our patio.

 Helen learned how to play "Forever" by Lewis Capaldi on the guitar this week.  She taught herself and sounds great.

 Becky had midterms this week which meant lots of studying and meeting with her classmates on Zoom.  She finished Friday and celebrated by spending the afternoon reading in the backyard.

 For date night we went on a bike ride and then planted some tomatoes, cucumbers and basil in the fading daylight.

 On Saturday we went back to the Applegate Ridge Trail so Brandan could see the views.  We also saw a rattlesnake, the first we've seen in southern Oregon. We are used to the desert camouflage of Great Basin rattlesnakes and this one had dark brown stripes, even on its rattle.  We think it was a Northern Pacific rattlesnake.

Southern Oregon has very low rates of corona virus infection and no new cases for over 2 weeks so we felt comfortable inviting Abigail and her sisters, Aunika and Alina to dinner.  We love these fun, smart, kind girls.  One of the blessings of the shutdown has been their friendship with Abe, Helen and Gibson.

For dinner we made gyros with the naan we made last Friday night.  

3 May 2020

Our ward joined together through Zoom on Sunday to listen to Logan Thurman report on his mission to Guatemala.  He was able to tell stories and share photos while everyone watched from their own homes.  It felt great to gather together with our dearly loved ward.

Our public library opened this week, sort of.  Patrons can request items online and then pick the books up at a table near the front door, with both patrons and librarians wearing face masks.  Before the pandemic, our family visited the library once a week, typically checking out 30 books at a time.

Helen painted this beautiful card for our librarians and we dropped her card off along with some gift cards for smoothies at a nearby coffee stand.  We're thankful to be able to access books again.  We could never afford to buy all of the books we read.  Or fit them all in our house.

Abe joined his online school class from a hammock in the backyard one day this week.  He was super comfortable, but still managed to stay awake for the hour and a half class.  He got lots of admiring comments from his classmates. Maybe this will become the classroom of the future. 

 On Friday we went to the Avenue of the Boulders.  When they were younger, this was our kids' favorite hike.

Nearly every time we came here, someone would get hurt sliding down this slick piece of basalt.  

 

It's been a few years since we have been on this hike and it was shorter than we remembered.  The kids still enjoyed clambering around the boulders.

Spring runoff tumbled between the boulders, eventually emptying into the Rogue River.  Gibson is in the center of this photo.

 Across the river, Mill Creek forms a beautiful waterfall as it meets the river.  It was a gorgeous day for a hike and fun to revisit a favorite spot.

Abigail is the manager of the high school green house and a member of FFA.  Before school closed, she helped plant some radishes to test out a watering system in the greenhouse.  Even though school is closed, Abigail continues to manage the greenhouse and brought 4 trays of radish starts home.  Abe took half of a tray and transplanted them to our garden.  They're almost ready to harvest.

We realized a couple of weeks ago that even though we see each other a lot more than we did before the pandemic, we missed our regular dates.  We decided to bring back date night, corona virus style.  This Friday we learned how to make homemade naan, a delicious flatbread from India.  It's an easy recipe, but takes a fair amount of time, perfect for a date.

 Here is our finished naan.  It tastes delicious, very tender and slightly buttery.  

Besides toilet paper and hand sanitizer, the stores have sold out of puzzles.  No one in our family wants to do the same puzzle twice so I usually donate puzzles we have finished to a retirement home in our neighborhood. Since the shutdown began, we have given our remaining puzzles away.  Brandan brought home a puzzle that someone at work loaned to him and we are enjoying having another activity at home.