4 June 2023

On Sunday we tried to go to the tide pools at Elephant Rock, but they were closed because of the baby seals resting on the rocks. Two volunteers were at the beach to keep an eye on the seals and educate people. The baby seals were about a month old and nearly the same size as the mama seals. You can tell them apart because the mama seals are brown and the baby seals are grey. We learned baby seals grow quickly and only stay with their mothers for 4-6 weeks.

Here's a photo of Helen at Face Rock Beach.

Here's Helen reading below a cliff covered in gorse. Gorse is a prickly, spiny plant that shines in the spring when it blooms with coconut scented yellow flowers.

Sunset at the beach is an event.

Selfie with the sunset.

On Monday we stopped at Cranberry Sweets for all of the delicious samples.

We drove up the coast to Shore Acres, a state park that once belonged to the Simpson family. Their house burned down and the family moved away, donating the land to the state of Oregon in the 1940s. The gardens are a beautiful mix of Pacific Northwest plantings.

Here's a view of Simpson beach, another part of the state park.

The three wards that meet in our church building held a combined Pinewood Derby activity on Tuesday. Gibson had symphony rehearsal on the night the kids made their cars, so he brought a favorite car from Cub Scouts to race. He won the second place medal for the night. From the left are Gibson, Emma, Eddy, Jason, Crew and Cason.

Here's a flashback to 10 year old Gibson, back when his car won first place in his troop.

Brandan spent some time this week helping Sofi get her car fixed. The rock did a lot of damage to the car, including cracking an air tube in the engine. Our mechanic replaced the tube, but recommended we take the car to a body shop to get the rest of the damage repaired. It's going to be a long process.

For the past two years, Helen and Gibson have eaten lunch at El Poblanos on Wednesdays. Since Wednesday was Helen's last Wednesday in high school, Becky met them for lunch this week. From the left are Cason, Emma, Eddy, Gibson, Helen and Becky.

One of the best parts of teaching has been working at the same school Helen and Gibson attend. It's been great to see them throughout the day. They are fantastic kids.

Another teacher covered Becky's class for 15 minutes on Thursday so Becky could watch Helen's statistics presentation. Her question was "Is there a correlation between the political party in power and the severity of the rate of inflation?" Her conclusion, supported by data, was no. Helen's last day of school was Friday.

For mutual on Thursday our ward honored the graduates and asked each of them to give advice to the younger teenagers in the ward. 

Brandan repaired our outdoor ceiling fan on Saturday. He tried replacing the remote sensor last summer when it stopped working, but that didn't fix it. It was still under warranty and the manufacturer sent him a new fan. When he removed the old fan to replace it, he found a wasp nest inside the fan that was preventing it from working. He cleaned out the wasp nest and now the fan is working again and we have a spare fan for future repairs. Gibson helped Brandan hold the heavy fan in place.

On Saturday we celebrated Helen and all of our ward's high school graduates at a party. Becky helped make a balloon arch.

Here's the balloon arch in place, The party was at the Nadauld's house

Here are photos of all the graduates.

Here they are all together. Back row: Scott, Luke, Spencer, Marcus and Seth. Front row: Helen, Sierra, Emma and Annie.

Becky only took one photo of the evening, but it was a good one with Gibson, Helen and Angel.