26 June 2022

Gibson is back at work at Craterworks as an intern for the summer. He helps out with summer school groups and build prototypes of possible projects for the groups to make.

This week they worked on designs for sailboats that the students will build and then race in rain gutters.

Becky hasn't been inside Craterworks since last summer and was impressed with all the changes, including this wall of 3D printers. Craterworks was excited to get their first 3D printers a couple of years ago and now they are one of their most used tools.

Helen and her friends met at 4:30 am on Thursday for a sunrise hike of Upper Tablerock. It was a bright clear morning.

Here are Lexi, Emma, Helen and Molli.

19 June 2022

Gibson's scout troop had a court of honor Monday night and Gibson received the last merit badge he earned for his eagle advancement: Emergency Preparedness. 

Becky sewed his merit badge onto his sash Monday night. He now has 22 merit badges, 1 more than he needs.

Thursday was Helen and Gibson's last day of school. It was a rough year, beginning back in September with masks and distancing in school, long quarantines when students got sick, worn out teachers, rude classmates and working to make up for everything they missed the year before. We didn't make it any easier for Helen and Gibson by pulling them out of school for three weeks for our trip to the middle east. They both worked hard up to the last day of school and ended the year feeling good about everything they accomplished.

One of Gibson's last school projects was an assignment to create a board game for a his geography class. He was assigned Mauritania, a country on the Atlantic coast of Africa. Gibson created an operation style game where the operation pieces are landmarks in the country. He built the game board and wired the electronics at Craterworks.

Helen and Gibson picked up their yearbooks. Helen's design was chosen for the cover this year. It's fun to see her drawings and handwriting on the actual yearbook.

Here's a photo of the back of the yearbook. The image in the center is a drawing Helen made of a cubist sculpture outside of the school gym. It's as blocky in real life as it is in the drawing.

Gibson helped his troop with a service project Thursday night. Medford is holding their annual classic car show this weekend and the troop striped the field for the car show so participants would know where to park their cars. Most of the project was fairly tedious as the boys marked off the field with string in preparation to paint lines on the grass, but the boys also got to ride along with their scoutmaster and take turns painting the lines with a paint sprayer attached to a golf cart.

Becky's doctor is a huge fan of genetic testing and has encouraged Becky to submit for testing to screen for various genes linked to cancer. Testing is expensive, however, and without specific concerns, Becky has declined genetic testing until now. Oregon's biggest medical school, OHSU, offers free genetic testing as part of a giant study they are conducting in Oregon. Collecting a sample was fairly easy. Becky only needed to swish strong tasting mouthwash for 60 seconds and then spit into a vial.

After collecting her DNA sample, Becky returned the sample to OHSA through the mail. Currently the study reports 32 genetic markers linked to different kinds of cancer and cardiovascular disease. OHSU will only report an abnormality if there is a treatment for the disease that is linked to the genetic abnormality. They don't want to make people anxious without offering help. It will take about 6 months to get the results back. 

On Saturday morning Brandan, Gibson and Becky helped clean the church and then got breakfast at a cute French bakery that recently opened close to our home. The bakery is located between the chocolate shop and the cheese shop, a perfect location for gourmet treats like the pastries we had for breakfast.

12 June 2022

On Wednesday Gibson submitted his Eagle Scout application. When our church stopped sponsoring Boy Scouts of America at the end of 2019, Gibson joined another troop in our community. We thought it would take Gibson about 6 months to finish the requirements in order to receive his Eagle rank. Then covid happened and it ended up taking 2 years and 6 months. Our district advancement committee will meet the end of June and schedule his board of review.

After 15 years and over 308,000 miles, we donated our van to public radio. The van still runs great and is very reliable, but we don't need the extra space anymore. With gas over $5 a gallon, it seemed like a good time to downsize. 

Siskiyou Violins held a benefit conference to raise money for Ukrainian refugees living in Nuremberg, Germany. The concert was held outdoors at a science museum.

This is a photo of Helen with the director of Siskiyou Violins and her violin teacher, Faina. Faina was born in Ukraine and left as a teenager to study music at a prestigious school in Kazakhstan. Except back then everything was part of the Soviet Union. Faina has a deep love for her homeland-- all of her homeland including Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Russia-- and has been devastated by the war in Ukraine. Her love has motivated her to raise over $25,000 to send to her sister who lives in Germany. Her sister uses the money to buy Ukrainian comfort food to give to refugees. 

This is a group photo of the kids who played at the concert. The program included Ukrainian, Russian and American music.

Meanwhile, Brandan and Gibson were attending another music recital. Gibson and Ed played Cello Ascends together for Ed's piano recital. Cello Ascends is a Piano Guys arrangement of music from Kung Fu Panda and Chopin's Prelude No. 20.

Still more music! On Saturday we attended Helen's violin recital. This is the first recital her teacher has held since the pandemic started. We were super impressed with all of the beautiful music played skillfully.

Helen played Allegro di Molto by Mozart. The name of the song means "an extremely fast tempo." Helen started playing the violin in 2009, just before she turned 5, and she has matured into an accomplished musician.

5 June 2022

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Bandon. Sunday was a bit rainy, but the weather cleared up in the afternoon and we went to the beach. We took Mother's Day photos a few weeks late.

Here's another fun photo of Helen and Gibson. 

We enjoyed a light show as the sun set.

Helen dunked in the ocean.

On Monday morning we went to explore tide pools at Elephant Rock.

This is an artist's creative redrawing of Elephant Rock to show it could possibly look like an elephant.

The tide pools were amazing, filled with thousands of sea anemones and dozens of star fish.

We walked around downtown Bandon, a charming beach town.

And stopped for treats at a candy store.

This is a photo from the docks in the harbor.

It was a perfectly relaxing and beautiful weekend. We were so glad to spend time together.

Two of Becky's classmates are expecting babies this summer. Becky hurried to make baby quilts for the new babies in time to give them the quilts at our last class for the term. Ben and his wife's baby boy was born over the weekend, a month earlier than his due date. He's very tiny, but otherwise healthy and home from the hospital.

Jordan and his girlfriend are expecting a baby girl in August. Both of these quilts were fun to make and surprise her classmates with.

Our stake partnered with the local chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace to make beds for low income children on Saturday. Sleep in Heavenly Peace provided the tools and logistical support. Our stake bought the wood and supplied a work crew that joined with Sleep in Heavenly Peace volunteers.

The event was highly organized and we completed 30 bed kits, ready to deliver and assemble, in about 3 hours. Brandan, Becky and Gibson worked at the sanding station (Helen was taking the SAT on Saturday morning.)

The assembly line started with chop saws cutting the boards to length, then the boards were sanded before the holes needed for assembling the beds were pre-drilled. Then the headboards and footboards were bolted together.

We used up sanding discs quickly on the rough 2x4s.

All of the wood pieces are stained. The stain was created by leaving steel wool to rust in barrels of vinegar-- simple, inexpensive and nontoxic.

The final step was branding the headboards with Sleep in Heavenly Peace's logo. Gibson got to brand one of the beds.

Here's a stack of headboards ready for each to be packaged up with a footboard, side rails, mattress supports and hardware to make one bed kit. The finished beds can be assembled as single beds or bunk beds.

Volunteers from Sleep in Heavenly Peace will deliver the beds and assemble them. They will also provide new mattresses, pillows, sheets and blankets with all of the beds. The organization has a simple and effective mission, described by the slogan on the back of their T-shirts: "No kid sleeps on the floor in our town!"

On Saturday Brandan took Gibson driving for the first time, an exciting step on his way to getting his driver's license.