2 November 2025

While on a walk this week, we saw a tree near a creek that had toppled. Brandan guessed it was the work of a beaver. We moved closer to investigate.

We saw very distinct teeth marks in the trunk of the tree. While it's not great to have beavers felling trees in the neighborhood, we are impressed with the demonstration of beaver bite force.

It was finals week for the first quarter of the school year. Becky doesn't trust all of her students in Construction Math to pass the final on their first attempt, so students took their final last week and we started a new unit this week. The first topic is dimensional analysis. Becky changed the measurements in a recipe for brownies-in-a-mug to unusual volume units (like cubic meters) and students had to convert the measurements back to tablespoons in order to make brownies. The students had a great time, did a lot of math, and the hallway smelled like fresh brownies all day.

Becky belongs to a book club that meets the last Thursday of each month. The host of October invited everyone to come dressed as a character from their favorite book. Favorite book for Becky is an easy decision: The Book of Mormon. She dressed up as Sariah.

Here's a photo of the group. From the left are Liz (a witch), Jenny ( a cowgirl), Janiel (no costume), Renae (a 1950s teenager), Becky, Judy ( a witch from The Humbug Witch), Julie (Sybill Trelawney from Harry Potter), Beka (Hermoine from Harry Potter), Sandy (the caterpillar from The Very Hungry Caterpillar), and Tiffany (Emma M. Lion from The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion).

Brandan's team at work selected Toy Story as a theme and assigned him the character of Andy.

Nate and Sofi reprised their Greg and Wirt costumes for their ward trunk or treat.

The Salt Lake City offices picked superheroes as a theme and three people dressed like Clark Kent/Superman, including Helen.

Abe made a log costume. The Log is a character in a mobile game called Clash Royale.

This is what The Log looks like in the game. Abe did a good job recreating it.

It turns out that walking in a narrow, vertical box is challenging. Abe got around by shuffle jogging.

Abe and friends spent Halloween night party hopping in Provo. We're impressed with the creativity shown by these college students.

Back in Oregon, Becky and Brandan passed our candy to trick or treaters. It was a perfect evening to be outside and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset. Brandan bought 2 bags of candy (375 pieces) and we were out of candy at 7:15 pm.

We hiked the Liz Loop trail in Jacksonville on Saturday morning.

We've learned the best antidote to lack of sunshine during late fall and winter months is to spend more time outside. Even a gray, rainy day isn't really gray if you get outside.