7 January 2024

We started our New Year with a 5K fun run sponsored by our stake. Brandan and Becky had an early night on New Year's Eve so waking up for the run was easy. Props to Abe and Gib who went to bed much later and still came along for the fun. We're feeling optimistic about 2024 and looking forward to a lot of great opportunities.

 

Before the pandemic, Brandan and Abe started building a harmonograph. A harmonograph is a machine that uses pendulums to create geometric designs. Brandan worked insanely long hours through the early years of covid and work on the harmonograph paused. By the time his schedule eased, Abe had left on his mission. Brandan and Gibson have worked on it a little bit over the past year and then they finished it up with Abe since he was home for his winter break. They decided to install it in Becky's classroom so more people would have the chance to try it out.

Here is the completed harmonograph.

The harmonograph has three pendulums, 2 which swing at right angles to each other and a third that is mounted on a gimbel and can rotate in a circle. When all three pendulums are moving, the pen inscribes a figure known as a Lissajous curve, which can be described by the parametric equations 
which is more advanced that math than is taught in high school. Becky's students have enjoyed creating their own designs. Some of her students sign the creations they are most proud of and leave them for other students to admire.

We ended the day by trying out Korean face masks.

On Tuesday Becky and Gibson went back to school and Helen and Abe drove to the coast. They hiked to Secret Beach.

The coast is seldom warm, but always beautiful. This is a photo of Helen on the beach.

Nate and Sofi brought a puzzle with them which we completed last week. We completed 2 more puzzles this week. We typically get 1000 piece puzzles, but with puzzlers this quick at putting them together, we might need to move up to 2000 piece puzzles.

Gibson was nominated to be the Chemistry Student of the Trimester by his teacher, Michelle Shaw. He received a certificate at The Breakfast of Distinction on Wednesday morning.

Gibson and friends get lunch at El Poblano's every Wednesday. Abe, Becky and Helen joined them this week. From the left are Abe, Casey, Keven, Cason, Chase, Ed, Gib, Helen and Becky.

Brandan had a packed day with work and church interviews on Thursday, but we met up in the evening to celebrate his birthday. 

This is a photo of Gibson demonstrating how to eat Brandan's birthday dessert. Hot raspberry sauce melts the chocolate dome, revealing a brownie filled with mascarpone cream and more raspberries. The raspberry sauce and melted chocolate combine to make a decadent accompaniment to the brownie. 

Here is Brandan's math problem for this year. The answer equals Brandan's age. We passed a milestone this year with everyone in our family learning calculus so Becky decide to write a problem that could be solved by taking a derivative. Brandan already wrote the answer on the notecard if you're having trouble solving it :)

It snowed on Saturday, an unexpected and fleeting surprise.

Our stake met Saturday morning at a tiny home village to help prepare some of the tiny homes to be painted. The tiny homes are part of a network of housing solutions for people experiencing homelessness. The homes are close to services like medical care, drug treatment programs, counseling and job readiness training while transitioning people to permanent housing.

The homes consist of one small room with heat, air conditioning and electricity. Shower. laundry and kitchen facilities are shared on-site. While the homes are bare bones, they give residents stability and security while they work on improving their situations.

Ed and Jason were also at the activity. There were more volunteers than supplies. All of the work except for the actual painting was completed before we finished taping one tiny home.

Sofi and Nate gave Brandan a pasta machine for his birthday and we tried it out on Saturday. Homemade pasta is a 2 person job. The pasta machine rollers stretched the dough into long sheets. It took one person to manage the sheet and another to turn the handle of the machine.

We made spaghetti.

Brandan made a simple sauce of olive oil, garlic and lemon to eat with the freshly made pasta. It was delicious. We're looking forward to making more.