25 April 2021

A couple of weeks ago, Gibson helped plan the Young Men's activity with Jason and Eddy. The boys brought a bunch of items like take out containers, balloons, tape, drinking straws, and cotton balls. The boys each built an egg holder to protect an egg from breaking when it was dropped from a ladder. Everyone enjoyed the challenging and fun activity. 

This is a photo of Abe's egg after it was dropped.

The boys have moved on to a new project at Craterworks: building a chess set. They haven't decided how to make the pieces yet (wood turning? 3-D printing? laser cutter? cast pewter? Too many choices!), but they are making the chess board out of wood. This week they worked out their design and tested some finishes.

Gibson started club soccer this week after a long pause because of the corona virus. He last played in October of 2019. His first day of practice was on a beautiful spring afternoon.

Each Friday we "Celebrate Success" by finishing another week of school. This week we had bubbles because bubbles are very celebratory.

On Saturday, Brandan and Becky volunteered at a vaccination clinic organized mainly for Spanish speaking farm workers. Our community has plenty of vaccines right now, but people are hesitant to get a vaccine for a variety of reasons. The county health department and its medical partners are working with community groups to reach some of the hard to vaccinate groups. This event was organized by Unete, a center that supports farm workers and immigrants.

Becky doesn't speak Spanish and has no medical skills so she assigned herself the task of wiping chairs to sanitizer them between people. The clinic vaccinated fewer people than they hoped would come, but hopefully those who came will influence their friends and family members to get vaccinated later. We are anxious for the pandemic to end and the current vaccine hesitancy only stretches out the pain.

18 April 2021

 Helen is the only person in our family who performed for syllabus this year, the annual piano evaluation sponsored by the Oregon Music Teachers Association. Syllabus requires months of preparation. Helen tested for level 9 which meant she had to learn 4 pieces from different time periods and 3 of the pieces had to be memorized. She also had to learn a lot of theory, scales, chord progressions and modes. Because of covid, she submitted recordings of her pieces on Tuesday and then completed her evaluation on Saturday by playing for a judge on zoom. Hopefully she will hear her results at her piano lesson this week. This is a photo of Helen practicing earlier in the week with her sheet music scattered around.

Gib's boombox bluetooth speaker is done! It turned out great and easily connects to his phone to play music. This was his most complicated project so far. His favorite part was designing how the boombox looks.

On Saturday Brandan, Becky and Gibson helped beautify the area along the Bear Creek greenway. The greenway is a fantastic idea: a paved bike and pedestrian trail that runs for 20 miles along Bear Creek, connecting Central Point, Medford, Phoenix, Talent and Ashland. The reality is a little less sunny, with homeless people setting up illegal camps along the trail, creating mountains of trash. When Brandan signed up our family for the clean-up day, we expected we'd be picking up trash all morning. Instead, we were assigned to a lovely stretch of the greenway where the biggest issues were blackberry vines and a bit of poison oak. 

Here Gibson is using loppers to cut back some vines.

The dumpster quickly filled up with dead bushes, branches and sticks from the area. Brandan and Gibson jumped into the dumpster a few times to pack down the plant material. As we were leaving for the day, Brandan realized that his glasses which were hooked into his shirt front were gone. We were worried they had fallen off while he was in the dumpster, but thankfully he quickly found them in the dirt next to the trail.

We ordered a yard sign to celebrate Abe's graduation. Only 7 weeks of school left! (8 for Helen and Gibson.)

11 April 2021

 This week at Craterworks the boys continued working on their blue tooth boombox speakers. It took longer than they thought it would to program the speakers and fine-tune the sound quality. It looks like it will be another week before they finish.

Crater had the opportunity to play in a soccer tournament this week as the culmination of the brief season. They beat the number 2 seed in the tournament. Abe scored a goal during regular play and another goal in the shootout that decided the game. The newspaper printed a long story about the game and Abe is in both photos. You can see his legs behind the goalie in the top photo and he is in the top right of the bottom photo. 

Helen took a live photo of Abe's shootout goal and the next two photos are stills from the live photo. Here's Abe preparing to kick.

And here the ball flies past the right of the goalie as the goalie dives to the left. We have so much sympathy for goalies in these high pressure situations when each goal comes down to guessing which way to block. It was a super fun game to watch.

Helen, Gibson and Becky hiked Lower Tablerock with Angel and Jason on a gorgeous Friday afternoon. Helen hiked out to the very edge.

Becky got her first dose of a COVID vaccine on Saturday morning. She was a little nervous (would she find the vaccination clinic, would they have enough vaccines, would she feel woozy afterwards) so Brandan came along for support. She didn't expect the intense rush of gratitude she felt after receiving the vaccine, for the travel nurse who has spent 2 months away from home to help staff the clinic and for the faith and prayers that led to the creation of vaccines in record time. This is a photo of Brandan and Becky in the observation area afterwards.

Brandan and Gibson tuned up our sprinkler system on Saturday, replacing broken parts, uncovering sprinkler heads that grass had grown over and adjusting the spray patterns. We're ready for warmer weather!

We've had a bumpy couple of weeks as our schools have prepared to increase the amount of time kids spend in person at school. Their new schedules start tomorrow. The middle school is going to have in person school 4 days a week and online school on Wednesdays. The high school decided to leave schedules the same unless parents or students requested more in-person class time. They are going to use the extra days to make up missed classes or offer fun electives like PE or Art. Abe was already going to school 4 days a week before the changes and Helen feels like she has plenty to do with her core classes, work, piano and violin. The only change to their schedules is school now begins and ends an hour later. Each of our kids does a good job remembering when and where they have classes, but Becky needs a chart to keep them straight. There are 9 weeks of school left and hopefully this is the last time the schedules change.

4 April 2021

For our Easter countdown this year, we considered what it means to become like Jesus. Every night this week we read scriptures that taught us about Christ as our perfect example and the giver of grace that allows us to change.

Our bishop invited Abe to speak to the youth last Sunday about his decision to serve a mission. They met outside the temple.

Chinese New Year was on February 12 this year, but because of his unusual pandemic school schedule, Gibson had a break from his Chinese class until the end of March. His teacher celebrated Chinese New Year this week by making tiny lanterns and learning about the traditional holiday. From the left are Gibson, Brodi, Jason, Tayvon and Harmony.

Abe had a soccer game Monday night at Ashland High School. Our area entirely lifted limits on the number of spectators for games so we were able to attend the away game and watch in person. 

This is a photo of Helen and her friend, Kate, after the game.

After playing 2 or 3 soccer games a week on turf all month, Abe has turf burns on top of turf burns on his knees and elbows.

On Wednesday, Gibson got braces!

Here's a close up of his handsome face.

He also kept working on his speaker at Craterworks by finishing his box and installing the speakers. He should finish up this week...hopefully...we keep thinking the project will only take one more week.

And just like that, it was senior night for soccer. The school decided at the last minute that they could celebrate the seniors and still follow safe practices. Each senior was introduced at the last home game, along with his parents, and given flowers, balloons and candy.

It's been a strange and long soccer season. Beginning in the fall with a few scrimmages, then a dark winter when they didn't even know if they would play, to a short season with an odd roster of schools cobbled together, the team faced many setbacks. Despite the challenges, the team showed grit and hustle and left it all on the field in the end. This is a photo of the team after Wednesday's game. Back row: Coach Bones, Spencer, Malakai, Abe, Diego, Camden, Jonah, Logan, Clint and Coach Tester. Front row: Ben, Bennett, Toby, Brayden, Cooper, Carson and Gabe.

This is a photo of the team seniors with their coaches: Coach Bones, Logan, Spencer, Toby, Abe, Camden, Malakai, Jonah and Coach Tester.

Helen started her first regular job on Friday at Old Navy. She is training with her friend, Jessica, and this is a photo of them after their shift.

Saturday was Abe's birthday. He couldn't decide on a birthday treat so Becky surprised him with a bunny cake. Abe guessed she was making a soccer ball which is a pretty good guess with a round cake and green coconut grass.

The poor bunny was a bit of a bonfire with 18 candles on top.

Abe is thoughtful, hard-working, a humble leader, funny and perceptive. We're so thankful he is part of our family.

Sofi sent a photo of herself playing conference squares with her friends while watching General Conference on Saturday. We love it! From the left are Peter, Eric, Nate and Sofi.

Our friend sent this photo of Brandan, Gibson and Abe watching the priesthood session at the church. We were glad the stake opened the building for those who wanted to keep the tradition of attending in person.

It's been a weekend of celebration: Abe's birthday, Easter and General Conference. This colorful puzzle went together very quickly while we watched the sessions. We enjoyed all of it and look forward to digesting the messages in the coming weeks. Gibson's favorite part of conference was the bunny videos during Elder Stephenson's talk . Helen liked Elder Dyches talk about Christ begin the light of the world. Abe liked the priesthood session, Elder Bednar's and Elder Stephenson's talks. Brandan and Becky loved the feeling of the Sunday morning session and the deliberate celebration of our global church membership and leadership. Brandan also liked hearing frequently from President Nelson.