Incredible Shrinking Snowman

So, last weekend we got our first valley snow. There's been snowfall up on the peaks, but this time we had some down here in the lowlands.

The girls ran out on Sunday morning before church and threw together this delightful figurine:

He was, alas not long for this world. By Tuesday, he was a bit, uh, droopy.

By Friday, he must have gone a little crazy: he lost his head.

Now, our little snowfall is nothing compared to our Montana family who, with the same storm, scored something like 2 feet over night.

But, you take what you get. When life gives you lemons make lemonade. When you get a couple of inches of snow, make a snowguy...or some facsimile thereof.

Pirates of the Living Room

Draw yer swords, yeh swarthy vermin! Stand and fight like a man...or a girl!

Sabres rattled as we locked steel in battle to the death!

Okay, pointy things clicked as we smacked plastic in a mostly silly fight to the giggliest.

We swung from mast to crow's nest on the most thread-bare of rigging ropes!

Or, maybe we just climbed on the living room furniture.

Deep sword cuts gushed blood as we valiantly fought against faintness due to the mortal wounds we sustained.

Well, we got a few scratches due to the broken plastic.

Neither pirate emerged the victor as both lay gasping their final breaths, surrounded by friends who lamented the loss of ones so courageous.

We both ended up on the floor gasping for breath, while Anya hid under the table to do her homework far from the flailing "sabres".

Dangerous? No. Fun? Most definitely, yes!

Cross Planting ceremony

About 2 1/2 weeks ago (I know, I'm so behind...better late than never? Maybe?) our church (click the link for our website) had what we called Cross Planting Sunday. We've bought some land and are finally ready to start doing something on this land. So, in order to kick things off, we started our service on Sunday Sept 14 at our usual meeting place, a local high school auditorium, with a video that included stories from people in our church and then a 3D video flythrough of the exterior, lobby and auditorium of the building we'll be putting on the property. The elementary aged kids, led by some high schoolers, started the service with an upbeat song that they did some choreographed actions with. These snaps don't really capture what they did, but you can see all of our girls anyway.

After the service, everyone drove down to our new land, which is adjacent to the interstate that runs north-south through our valley. We had a large tent set up there, and during part of that service we took the cross that had been on top of our former building and planted it on this new property, kind of "staking our ground" for all that the Lord has in store for us, not just a building, but all that He's doing in our congregation as we work to get this built.

It was a very moving, inspirational day in the life of our church, and there's a lot I could say about it, but some friends of ours from church have their own blog, and what she wrote about that day capsulizes the event perfectly. Click here to see what they had to say.

Being a "portable" church as we are now can be draining, but days like our Cross Planting are injections of excitement that keep us going.

Harnessing the sun's power

For a recent science project, Emily had to create a solar oven. Her task was to create an oven that used only the heat from the sun's rays that would melt together a s'more placed inside it, and melt it in less than 30 minutes.

I'm sure you can easily see the far reaching ramifications of such a project. I mean, really, how many times have you kicked yourself because you were away from home, longing for some melty chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker goodness, even have said ingredients with you, and no possible means of creating the delicious treat you so heartily desire? You can easily see how desperately we all need a portable solar oven!

Armed only with instructions to keep it around the size of a shoebox, Emily began her MacGyver-like planning. Here is the process she went through, as quoted from her report on the project:

First, I chose a shoe box. Next, I cut a hole in the top of the box. I then put quilt batting into the box around the sides and the bottom. On top of the batting, I put aluminum foil. I chose the quilt batting because I thought it would be a good insulator to keep heat in. I used the aluminum foil because it reflects the sun’s rays which would warm up the oven.
On the lid, I lined it with strips of aluminum foil. Then I taped saran wrap underneath the lid across the hole I cut to make a window for the sun’s rays to enter the box. I wanted a hole otherwise the box would not be heated as well. But I needed a material to trap the heat inside the oven while it let the sun in.
The last thing I did to the oven was place a black sheet of paper in the middle of the bottom of the box, on top of the aluminum foil. This was to absorb the heat to melt the smore.

In the end, her design was magnificent. When we did a test run with a piece of dark chocolate, the chocolate became completely liquified in under 15 minutes!!

And now, we'll never be caught in the wild unable to melt those ingredients into a pile of yummy goodness.

I know I'm sleeping better at night.

"It's been almost a month, Dad"

Thus sayeth Emily to goad me into finally posting something here. I'd try to come up with excuses for not doing this in so long, but they all sound lame. I'm here now.

Okay, so first of all, Paka and Grandma are here visiting us, and tonight we decided to have a family tourney of mini golf!

The competition was fierce; with Mount Timpanogos towering over us, and pleasant temps to spur us on, we tackled the Arches course at Cascade Golf Center. Could we possibly be up to the challenge? And who would come out the victor in this epic battle? Armed with overly worn putters and golf balls the color of the rainbow, we approached the first tee.

It wasn't long before Emily used her putter as a driver and ricocheted her ball into a water hazard. Anya bravely waded in to rescue the wayward ball.

It was a course not designed for the casual golfer. Unexpected dips, huge boulders and hidden sand traps (well, sand colored thicker outdoor carpet) lay in wait, taunting us as we attempted to stay somewhere near par as we progressed down the patience-challenging fairways.

After 18 grueling holes, a champion was crowned:

With a score of 59, she bested us all. (We wanted to drive the cart through the course but the paths were a bit narrow...) Paka and Grandma tied for second with a valiant 63. Jenna won the kids division with a score of 68. Emily would prefer that her score not be publicized, but let's just say if we hadn't had a per-hole limit of 6, she probably would have scored somewhere above 100.

Ah, the smell of freshly mown grass...or freshly de-molded outdoor carpet...with the splash of waterfalls in the background and the cackles of laughter as Grandma sails a ball completely out of bounds, and everyone manages to give their ball a bath in the 6th hole watering trough.

Definitely a night to remember.

Laurie, Curly and Anya

It's official...finally! Anya is in the cast of Canyon View Junior High's production of Oklahoma!

She will be in the chorus and she is very excited! Rehearsals begin tomorrow (Thurs) after school.

Yeow!!

Casting call update

The short word is we don't know anything about Anya being cast in Oklahoma.

We went to check for the cast list and in its place was a sign saying, "Due to unforseen circumstances (the holiday weekend, a flooded basement, etc.) the Oklahoma cast list will not be posted until Wednesday eve at 7 pm."

My question, which I think is quite appropriate, is since when is Labor Day weekend an "unforseen circumstance"? Did it suddenly appear on these teachers' calendar on Sunday at 3am, and when they awoke on Sunday they exclaimed with shock, "Oh my heck, Monday is Labor Day!"? Or do they have some sort of Harry Potter calendar that changes of its own accord and at its own whim, in which case unforseen circumstances are probably the least of their worries.

Artists, thespians, musicians...an unreliable lot. But I suppose worth the hassle when we see their vision come to fruition.

And after all, supposedly, allegedly, I'm one of them.

Ack.

We'll update whenever the cast list is actually posted. In the meantime, Anya must deal with 48 hours more of nerves.

Those people are merciless.