Our stake is collecting items for the Children's Advocacy Center, a local organization that supports children who are recovering from child abuse. Becky made some child sized masks to donate.
Brandan had the week off and he took the kids mountain biking one morning along the Sterling Ditch Mining Trail.
The trail was more challenging than they were prepared for, but they enjoyed the relatively easy stretches.
Chinese workers dug the ditch in 1877 to bring water from the Little Applegate River to the Sterlingville gold mines. The entire ditch was dug by hand, including this tunnel through the ridge of Anderson Butte.
The kids were very tired at the end of their bike ride, but we had already made arrangements to go to Lake of the Woods for the afternoon. Our church owns a beautiful camp on the edge of the lake. The camp is closed this year because of the corona virus, but the camp hosts welcome individual families up for day use. They limit the number of people who can come at the same time and they ask the families to help with projects while they are at the lake. Our family service was collecting branches from recently cut trees and adding them to a burn pile.
We quickly finished our work and then we had the lake to ourselves. It was hot in the valley, but surprisingly cool in the mountains. Abe was the only one of us who swam. It was too chilly for the rest of us.
It was a very relaxing afternoon. We had a picnic dinner on the docks and then drove home.
Abe had been working about 30 hours a week. Between work and soccer practice, he is quite busy. We went to Chick-fil-A for lunch on Friday and hoped to see him. We had good luck; he was working the drive through window. Currently the restaurant is only open for drive through orders.
We have been following news of the protests for social justice in the news and knew similar protests were being held in our community. We feel a need to listen, learn and show our support for marginalized groups, but are also very aware of the corona virus pandemic. Nevertheless, we decided to attend a march and candlelight vigil for Juneteenth on Friday night. We felt we could wear masks and keep appropriate distance while still participating.
People started to gather in small groups in the plaza in front of the Medford city hall. Everyone was respectful, friendly and welcoming. Many people brought homemade signs. We live in an overwhelmingly white community and almost all of the protestors were white.
The protest march was well organized and peaceful. We marched around downtown Medford while chanting slogans like "Black Lives Matter" and "No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police."
The march ended at a park where we all knelt, sat or laid on the ground for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time a police officer knelt on George Floyd's neck, killing him. It is a very long time to kneel. We then lit candles in memory of the hundreds of black men and women killed by police and listened to a few people tell their stories of injustice.
It was an extraordinary and thought provoking experience. We left with better information, hope for change and a desire to help change happen. We're so glad we went.
Helen talked us into a sunrise hike for the summer solstice. This meant waking up at 4 am so we could be on top of Upper Table Rock by the time the sun came up.
Gib's buddies, Eddy and Jason, joined us as well as their parents.
The sunrise was gorgeous, definitely worth the early morning.
The boys had plenty of energy, even before 6 am.
From the left are Andrea, Becky, Blake, Helen and Angel. It was a golden morning and we're thankful Helen suggested it.
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