25 July 2021

 Helen went to Girls Camp this week as a Youth Cabin Leader. On Sunday night she watercolored these cute tags to go along with a devotional she planned for her cabin.

She wrote a scripture on the back of the narwhale tag. Helen was gone from Monday until Saturday.

Here is a photo of Helen with her cabin leaders, Kim and Melody.

Helen loved the other YCLs in her cabin. Back row: Talli, Elizabeth, Kim, Melody, Helen, Kadyn, Molli. Front row: Lexie, Annie and Emma.

Becky also went to Girls Camp from Tuesday through Friday to help in the kitchen. Here's a photo of the kitchen crew. From the left are Beka, Becky, Andrea, Kristi, Jodi and Erin.

Our crew started cooking at 7 am and finished up about 9:30 pm every day. We had a couple of free hours during the week. Becky used her free time to read next to the beautiful Lake of the Woods.

Here's another photo taken by Tiffany, the craft cabin leader. This photo was taken after lunch as we planned our strategy for cooking dinner. From the left are Tiffany, Beka, Kristi, Andrea and Becky.

Helen had a fabulous week. She loved paddling through the water lilies.

Here's another photo of Helen with her cabin 13 friends.

The girls painted vinyl records for one of their crafts. Back row: Aubrey, Lexie, Helen, Elizabeth, Talli. Front row: Emma, Elyssa, Annie, Kadyn.

The furniture company we ordered our patio furniture from sent a replacement set after we reported that the feet were incorrectly drilled. We tried to cancel the order after the boys fixed the feet, but it was too late. Four giant boxes were delivered on Friday. The furniture company told us the extra set was ours to dispose of. 

Becky shared our predicament with the ladies working in the kitchen at girls camp. She thought it would be hard to find a home for the extra set, but three of the women said they would take it. We drew a name out of a hat to choose the winner. It was a fun end to an odd dilemma.

Abe gave his mission farewell talk in church today, along with his friend, Jake. Jake and Abe's siblings performed a musical number, "Savior, Redeemer of My Soul." Gibson played the cello, Helen played the violin, Beka played the piano and Seth, Kate and Ike sang.

Here is a closer photo of Gibson and Helen. Becky took these photos while they were rehearsing. The musical number was quite beautiful. Abe spoke about faith and repentance and Jake spoke about the power of the Book of Mormon. Both talks were very nice.

Abe was set apart as a missionary this afternoon by our stake president, President Hungerford. This is a photo of the men who participated in the ordinance. From the left are President Hungerford, President Idiart, Abe (Elder Hull), Brandan and Grandpa Dan.

The rest of us were happy to be present for the blessing.

We're thankful Dan and Martha visited for this special occasion.

We took lots of photos. Here's Gibson and Abe.

And Abe and Helen.

Abe and Brandan.

We're so proud and happy for Abe!

18 July 2021

The first of Abe's missionary friends, Spencer, left this week to complete his home MTC training with his grandparents in Utah. Here is one last photo of the 6 boys together. The rest will leave over the next few months. From the left are Abe, Spencer, Malakai, Jake, Camden and Ashton.

Abe received his missionary tags in the mail this week. He'll start wearing them when he begins his home MTC experience in a week.

 

We ordered some patio furniture and it arrived in 4 giant boxes. Abe and Gibson spent a couple of days assembling the furniture.

Some of the holes were incorrectly drilled so Abe used a tap and drill set to enlarge the holes.

Ahhh! Here are the chairs, completely finished and ready for relaxing on. Thanks, Abe and Gibson!

Our Ash tree has grown so tall that some branches were scraping against the shingles of our neighbors' house. On Saturday Brandan, Abe and Gibson climbed onto their roof to cut back the tree.

After more than 15 months, our church has finally returned to a normal Sunday schedule. It felt good to set up the chairs for the Gospel Doctrine class today. For months we didn't hold Sunday School classes, then we met on zoom, then we used the chapel with everyone spaced apart from each other. It's nice to be back in a classroom setting.

A woman in another ward created this bulletin board to welcome everyone back. 

This is a fun summer memory: Helen, Abe and Gibson sitting inside on a hot afternoon, playing games together on their phones.

11 July 2021

July 5th began with our neighborhood's traditional firework cleanup. Our kids were great sports about waking up early and picking up all the bits of cardboard and plaster leftover from the fireworks show the night before.

Monday afternoon we went rafting with the Prices. All the teenagers rode in one raft, While Angel, Greg and their two daughters rode in a raft with Brandan and Becky.

We called the other raft the Pirates of the Rogue River. From the left are Abe, Gibson, Zaya, Scott, Jason, Helen and Sam.

By happy coincidence, we met our friends, Emily and Aaron, rafting with their family. Emily shared this great photo taken as they attacked the pirate raft with water guns. 

It's time for Gibson to move up to a full sized cello. Bellwood, the local luthier, always feels a little mysterious and magical with instruments stashed in every nook and cranny and interesting projects in progress in the workroom. Gib found a beautiful cello with great sound to take home and try out.

At Craterworks, he finished a prototype shield for a middle school teacher who is teaching a unit on the Middle Ages and wanted to build some weapons. 

Siskiyou Violins performed its first concert since the pandemic began. It was a beautiful night to sit in a warm breeze and listen to the lilting music. We were surprised to see Dr. Alexander Tutanov, a renowned performer and professor, accompanying the ensemble. While accompanying a student group is unusual for a pianist of his caliber, he cheerfully helped his friend, Faina, the director of Siskiyou Violins. 

This is a photo of the radiant Faina with Helen. Faina is endlessly optimistic, warm and loving while demanding near perfection from her students. Since temperatures were near 100 degrees, the group performed in T-shirts and shorts instead of their usual formal wear.

We spent Saturday exploring the lava tubes in Lava Bed National Monument, about a 2 hour drive from home, just over the border in California. The tubes were formed by the gentle eruptions of the nearby Medicine Lake shield volcano that resulted in massive lava flows. As the lava cooled, the center of the streams of lava stayed hot whole the outside cooled. The hot lava drained out of the cool lava, leaving a hollow tube. Today there are over 700 lava tubes in the monument that formed over a period of several thousand years. We explored 7 of the caves. Our first one was Mushpot, a well-lit and paved cave near the visitors center designed as an introduction to caving.

Mushpot was very interesting, but we were ready for more adventure. Next we explored the Golden Dome cave. This is the steep entrance to the cave.

 The color of the cave comes from light reflecting off water droplets that bead up on the hydrophobic bacteria that line the cave. The bacteria can glisten or glitter when the light hits it right. Besides headlamps, we each wore a bike helmet or a hardhat to protect our heads from the roof of the cave. Some places we needed to crawl on our hands and feet to get through. The ground was too rough to make crawling on our knees comfortable.

This natural bridge is the remnant of a collapsed lava tube.

This divided tunnel is located to the Hopkins Chocolate Cave. In many of the caves we turned off our lights to experience the complete blackness.

This is the beginning of Skull Cave, the tallest cave we visited. We descended 5 flights of stairs to the bottom of this cave which had pockets of ice. The hot air rises to the top of the cave, trapping cold air underneath. The cold air was very refreshing on a hot, smoky day. This cave was named for the animal and human remains early explorers found here. The park rangers left one bighorn sheep skull in place.

It's hard to imagine living in this dry and desolate area, but the last Native Americans were forcibly removed in the 1870s. We hiked along a very dusty trail to the Big Painted and Symbol Bridge Caves to see pictographs made by native Americans hundreds or maybe even thousands of years ago.

The drawings blend in with the rock. Both of these caves are large and filled with light. 

The meaning of these drawings is lost to time, yet the stick figures and squiggly lines feel familiar.

Abe made homemade waffle cut fries after church today. Maybe he is missing Chick-fil-A?

4 July 2021

Barely after reopening from covid, our temple closed again for major renovations, inside and out. Hopefully when the projects are completed in October, our temple will be able to open completely and permanently.

Since he's vaccinated, Gibson got to go back to Lisa's house this week for in person cello lessons. We're thankful Lisa persisted with zoom lessons during the covid restrictions, but lessons are much, much better in person.

Abe and Gibson made delicious, custardy vanilla ice cream this week. It was a treat, especially with record breaking temperatures of 113 degrees.

Gibson is doing a summer internship at Craterworks. He goes twice a week for 3 hours. Right now he is working on projects for some of the school teachers and helping prep for the summer school classes that will happen later this month at Craterworks.

Abe signed up for some pre-mission language classes from the MTC. He meets with a tutor online for one on one instruction.

The Webers invited Abe to float the Rogue River with them on Thursday. 

The missionaries came over on Friday to help Gibson put varnish on the pieces for his Eagle project. From the left are Gibson, Elder Ellsworth, Elder Mason and Abe.

Ashton's family took Abe boating on Saturday and Abe learned how to wake surf. According to Abe, wake surfing is easier than wake boarding and it doesn't hurt as much when you fall.

Helen decorated her berry cheesecake poke cake to look like an American flag. The cake was a delicious was to celebrate the 4th of July.