26 March 2023

Brandan, Becky, Helen and Gibson left home as soon as Brandan got off work on Friday, making maximum use of every minute of Spring Break. We headed north and spent the night with the Mays in Vancouver. Sadly, no photos, but we loved catching up with them. Tim is traveling the world spreading high level design with XPlane. Kirse is teaching 4th grade as a long term sub, a bit over qualified with her PhD in History, but she likes having her schedule match Sullivan's. She is also adjunct faculty at BYU-I and teaches online history classes. Ethan just finished his first quarter at UW after a mission to Cote d'Ivoire and Gabon. Karina is in Brighton, England for a semester abroad. Sullivan is a junior in high school and towers over the rest of his family. We left the Mays house on Saturday morning and headed north to the Olympic National Park. Brandan, Becky and Sofi vacationed here over 20 years ago and wanted to experience the park again with Helen and Gibson.

 

We explored the area around Lake Crescent. We loved that the trail went through a tiny tunnel under the highway.

This is Merymere Falls.

Moss and ferns grow in the most unlikely places, including all over this rock, which also had several trees wrapping roots around it.

This is Lake Crescent. The water is exceptionally blue because the lake's low nitrogen level inhibits algae growth.

We're staying in Sequim (pronounced "Squim") which is along the northern border of the park. If the weather were clear, we could look across the Juan de Fuca Strait and see Canada. After our hike we stopped for dinner. Helen ordered a delicious mug of lavender lemonade. Sequim is known for their lavender farms. It's too early for lavender now so the lemonade was a good way to experience the local specialty.

After dinner we stocked up with groceries for the week. Gibson found some lumpy fruit labeled "sumo citrus." We're looking forward to more adventures and beautiful places to explore.

19 March 2023

Becky moved back into her regular classroom as the HVAC updates in her hallway are complete. This was the 4th time she moved classrooms this year and hopefully the last.

Gibson and Becky were unexpectedly caught in a snowstorm driving to cello lessons on Tuesday afternoon. Gibson's cello teacher lives 30 minutes away and though it was raining where we lived, it was snowing near her home. The snow snarled traffic and caused delays as semis needed to put chains on their tires. We never made it to cello lessons. It took us the entire time of his lesson to exit the freeway, turn around and head home again. Gibson showed superior driving skills and expertly avoided an accident.

We got back home in time for Helen and Gibson's school exhibition night. Exhibition night gives students an opportunity to show parents the projects they are working on. Helen displayed her watercolor that represented the book, The Alchemist.

She also showed us the business plan she created with a group in her business class to open a Nothing Bundt Cakes franchise.

Gibson showed us his report about La Sagrada Familia for his history class.

He built a game in programming that lit up randomly and asked players to try to predict which lights would activate.

Gibson made a poster about Madame C. J. Walker for his English class.

And he built a catapult for Physics.

Brandan and Becky celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary by attending a sealing session at the temple. Doing sealings in the temple on our anniversary is one of our oldest and most meaningful traditions.

On Saturday we helped out at the pear orchard by hanging pheromone strips. The strips deter coddling moths. The worm stage of the moth likes to burrow into the pears, lowering the yield and the value of the pear crop.

We worked in teams of three to place the strips. One person put the strips onto poles and the other two used the poles to place the strips high into the branches of the tree. The pear farm focuses placing pheromone strips on the outer perimeter of the orchard.

Here's a photo of Gibson in action. It was a beautiful morning to be outside. A large crew from our stake  showed up to help and we finished the entire orchard in an hour and a half.

12 March 2023

 

Eddie and Jason came to Gibson's symphony performance on Sunday afternoon. This is a photo of the handsome boys after the concert.

Brandan is currently building cabinet doors. He taught Gibson how to refine the tenon joints with a chisel to make the joints fit better.

Helen and Gibson's school is getting ready for exhibition night where the students share what they've learned with their parents. Gibson researched Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia for a history class. He 3D printed a model of the cathedral to use with his presentation. Gibson built the stand for his model using a laser cutter to cut the plywood.

5 March 2023

Gibson has been getting ready for the Winter concert series with the Youth Symphony. This is a photo of their rehearsal on Sunday.

We had a real snow day on Tuesday. Brandan shoveled the sidewalks before going to work. Becky, Helen and Gibson got to stay home.

Gibson built a snow Baby Yoda.

The first Youth Symphony concert was Saturday night. The kids sounded amazing and looked great in their concert attire. One small complaint: the conductor has rearranged the sections. She used to have violins on the left and cellos on the right, so we had a great view of Gibson during concerts. Now she has violins on the left and the right and cellos in the middle. It's harder to watch Gibson and hard to get a photo. This is a photo of the strings warming up. Gibson is in the back, about the middle of the photo.

This is a photo of the Symphony taking bows after the performance. They played pieces by Dvorak, Lecuona and Verdi.