26 November 2023

Brandan, Becky and Gibson made a whirlwind trip to Utah and Idaho to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. We picked Abe and Helen up in Salt Lake City on Wednesday night and drove to Park City to stay with Drue and Maggie's family. We started our Thanksgiving with Pie Breakfast, a Park City tradition sponsored by 6 families. The families baked 125 pies for the event which was open and free to all.

 

Here are Xander, Salem, Sutton, Helen, Gibson and Abe in line for pie. Gluten free pumpkin pie was on the table.

The variety of pies was impressive, with only a few duplicates.

After breakfast we walked around downtown Park City. We ran into Bigfoot, an Oregon native.

Here are Drue, Salem, Xander, Gibson, Becky, Brandan, Helen, Abe and Sutton.

Park City is very charming.

After breakfast, we helped Maggie get ready for dinner. Salem and Sutton made beautiful charcuterie boards.

Abe and Helen arranged a board of gluten free crackers.

Gibson peeled potatoes.

Abe decorated the refrigerator for the holiday.

The kids played foosball and ping pong while they waited for dinner.

Gibson got a drumstick.

After dinner we played games, watched football and listened to music. Helen played the guitar.

This is Gibson playing the piano.

It started snowing Thursday night and Abe and Helen ran outside to catch some snowflakes.

On Friday we drove to Pocatello. We met Joe and Sarah and Joe and Keri's family at Grandma and Grandpa Larsen's house. It snowed much more in Pocatello than in Park City. Some of us helped clear a parking spot in front of their house. This is Kolter shoveling snow.

Here is Abe.

Here is a photo of all of the grandkids in front of Grandma and Grandpa's house. From the left are Abe, Helen, Gibson, Kolter, Sawyer, Hayden and Gage.

Grandpa Larsen was recognized at a luncheon recently for almost 30 years of volunteer service to the police department. He received this plaque at the event.

Sarah and Becky stayed with Grandma while the rest of the group went to the Pocatello temple and were baptized for family names. From the left are Brandan, Gibson, Abe, Joe Hatch, Helen, Joe Larsen, Larry, Gage, Sawyer and Hayden.

We drove back to Park City on Friday night. On Saturday we went to the field house and played basketball, pickle ball and soccer.

Maggie and Drue made us shabu shabu for lunch, which is similar to Chinese hot pot. Everything was delicious.

Saturday evening we went to see the lights at Temple Square. The core area of Temple Square, including the temple, is under construction, but we still saw lots of lights.

We stopped by the tabernacle to warm up and happened on a short concert.

The band played a selection of Christmas music, mostly in Spanish. They ended by singing Feliz Navidad with the audience which was a highlight of a fun concert. Helen had a paper to finish for school by midnight on Saturday so we drove her back to her dorm after the concert.

We took Abe back to Provo after that. We ate such a big lunch that we decided to have dessert for dinner. Abe directed us to the Penguin Brothers, a quirky ice cream shop near BYU.

We ate delicious warm cookies with generous scoops of ice cream before taking Abe to his dorm. It was hard to say goodbye to Abe and Helen, but we will see them in a few weeks when they come home for Christmas break.

19 November 2023

Helen made T-shirts for her friends' intramural basketball team, "The Shanghai Sharks" She drew the design in sharpie. The Chinese characters on top of the shark say, "Learn Chinese, buddy!"

 

This is a photo of all of the shirts she made. The design itself is impressive, and even more impressive when you see all of the shirts together.

She made a shirt for herself in black and white.

Here's a photo of Helen with the team. Back row: Helen, Joey, Jacob, Jake and James.
Front row: Nils, TJ, Logan, Rowan and Sogo.

Sofi invited us to join her on Zoom as she was sworn in as a CASA, a court appointed special advocate. CASAs support children in foster care and Sofi completed extensive training to become qualified to volunteer. Before the judge completed swearing in the new CASAs, the director read from the letters of recommendation each person submitted as part of the application process. Sofi was described as "reliable, kind, knowledgeable, cheerful, thoughtful, honest, hardworking, an asset to a team, someone who cares deeply, genuine and great at diffusing tension." Hip hip hooray for Sofi for taking on a new challenge!

Abe and Camden attended the BYU football game on Saturday. 

The residence hall association sponsored a screening of the new movie, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. From the left are Paige, Hannah, Helen and Kristen.

12 November 2023

Every year Southern Oregon University sponsors a scavenger hunt for high school students, putting together a packet of about 65 really tough research questions. Teams get three days to answer and document sources for as many questions as possible. Abe, Helen and Gibson have all participated. The past coach moved to another school which meant Crater would not have a team this year. Although teams are usually led by social studies teachers, Becky signed up to be the coach just so Gibson could participate. Another math teacher joined as a second coach. We had a group of about 20 motivated students who worked crazy hard for 3 days. This is a photo of about half of the team after we submitted our answers. Back row: Ben, Jordan, Jacen, Malachi, Becky, Gibson, Abby, Grace, Jadyn and Halle. Front row: Victor, Will, Sarah.

Christmas is coming which means Christmas music! Gibson, Eddie and Mary started praticing "Silent Night" for our upcoming ward Christmas party.

We had a three day weekend because of Veteran's Day so we headed north to Wenatchee to visit Sofi and Nate. Nate and Brandan woke up early Saturday morning to go on a bike ride in the foothills nearby.

They saw a beautiful sunrise and a rainbow.

We drove to the nearby town of Moses Lake and did baptisms at the temple.

The Moses Lake temple was dedicated by Elder Cook on September 17 of this year. The temple repeats an apple blossom motif in stone, stained glass and wood, recognizing the predominant orchards in the area.

We ate a delicious lunch at Michael's Market and Bistro, where a live DJ played music.

We took a scenic route home, driving up the Grand Coulee, a geologic feature formed by floods at the end of the last ice age. Our first stop was a short hike to caves along Lake Lenore

Gibson crawled to the back of this cave.

Further up the Grand Coulee is Dry Falls. An ice dam formed at this location. As temperatures got warmer at the end of the ice age, water broke through the ice dam several times, resulting in massive floods that ran across Central Washington, down the Columbia River and into Oregon. The floods carved out the 15 mile long Grand Coulee and would have been the world's largest waterfall during the few days each flood lasted.

We could imagine water rushing along the basalt cliffs behind us.

Here's another view. The lake at the bottom of the cliffs was dug out by the crashing waterfall. Now ground water replenishes the lake.

Wenatchee is known as the apple capital of the world so we were excited to stop at a fruit stand and buy apples. We got some Pink Lady, Yellow Delicious and Fiji apples. 

Meanwhile, out in Provo, Abe was having breakfast with his roommates and Jake's parents who were visiting. Clockwise from the left are Malakai, Brant, Jake, Abe, Camden, Spencer and Ashton.

5 November 2023

Typically, Brandan does not wear bow ties. In fact, the last time he remembers wearing one was for our wedding reception in 1995. However, at a stake priesthood meeting on Sunday, the stake president invited Brandan to trade ties with one of the Young Men from the stake. President Hungerford asked both of them to keep track of the times they wear their borrowed ties for one year. He plans to ask them to report their experiences next year at a similar meeting. 

For Halloween, Brandan's team at work dressed up in costumes inspired by the Middle Ages. Brandan went as a knight.

Abe dressed up as a meme based on a Nickleback song.

Helen went as a broken heart. Here she is with Paige (Gwen Stacy) and Kristen (skeleton).

Here's a photo of Helen with Lilly (another skeleton) at a party.

Here's a close-up of Helen's costume. She made the broken heart by sewing beads onto a shirt.

Gibson and friends dressed up for our ward Halloween party. Emma came as Wednesday Addams. Eddie, Jason and Gibson went through Eddie's dress up box and wore an assortment of random items.

Malakai's aunt visited Provo for Malakai's birthday and took him and his friends to dinner. Clockwise from the aunt are Whitney, Kayden (Malakai's cousin), Jake, Spencer, Camden, Abe, Ashton and Malakai.