18 December 2022

We made sugar cookies on Sunday. Gibson used his lay out skills from using the laser cutter at school to minimize the amount of wasted cookie dough. 

Then he decorated a candy cane cookie to look like Peppa Pig.

Gibson received his Eagle award at a Court of Honor on Monday night. It took longer and was harder to complete than we anticipated and we're proud of him for getting it done!

Gibson earned most of his advancements as a member of Troop 102, which disbanded in 2019. His old scoutmaster, Bob Lebel, and old advancement chair, Andy Dekorte, came to celebrate Gibson's Eagle award. From the left are Brandan, Gibson, Andy and Bob.

Brandan also helped shepherd Gibson through his final years, navigating completing his Eagle project during covid and a fair amount of disorder in our local council. Gibson has grown a lot as a leader in the intervening years. Way to go, Gibson!

Brandan's employer, still maintains a small trailer park, three Christmases after a devastating fire destroyed thousands of homes. Affordable housing is still challenging to find in our area. As he has for the past three years, Brandan set up a Christmas tree for the residents. Gibson helped him stake the tree down and Brandan strung lights on the tree. The residents appreciate this shared decoration and the message that someone in the community is thinking of them.

Helen is a TA for Becky this trimester. It's a win-win: Becky appreciates her help and Helen appreciated a class with no homework. This is a photo of Helen dressed like a reindeer for spirit week before Christmas break.

Becky had lousy technology in her classroom, but the portable she is in temporarily has an 86-inch TV. Watching the World Cup semifinals on Tuesday and Wednesday seemed like a good use of the resource.

Before moving to the portable classroom, Becky would send students who needed band-aids to the office. Now it's a long walk across campus to the office. When a student asked for a band-aid this week, Becky finally opened the school-provided first aid kit she has been storing since the beginning of school. It contained a tourniquet, face shield, duct tape, a sharpie, gloves, a trauma field dressing and scissors, but no band-aids. What exactly is this first aid kit for?

On Thursday, Helen played with the Siskiyou Violins at a benefit concert for Ukrainian refugees held at a local synagogue. We learned so much about the many things people in our community are doing to support refugees. About 8 families have relocated here because of local support and they are learning English, getting drivers' licenses, jobs and homes. Some of the Ukrainians attended the concert and one played the piano as part of the concert. We know they would prefer to be in their own homes, but many of their homes no longer exist. We admire their courage to start over in a new country. We didn't take any photos of the concert, but this is a photo of a beautiful window in the synagogue.

Helen and Gibson and friends finished a nativity puzzle Sarah sent us. They mostly worked not he puzzle in the 45 minutes they have between the end of seminary and the beginning of school.

Our ward celebrated Christmas together at a party Friday night. One wall of the gym was decorated with heroic sized posters for each of the 10 missionaries serving from our ward. Our entire ward feels a lot of pride in this little battalion of missionaries. 

There was a photo booth set up along one wall. From the left are Reese, Ed, Helen and Gibson with Jason lying across the group.