David’s class did a project in which each student displayed their heritage. David did an incredible job creating a doll with traditional Ethiopian clothing. He modeled it after clothes we bought in Ethiopia, and used fabric Sary-Jo bought just for the project.
His display was chosen to be exhibited at the Spring Fair. He also spent a few hours at the fair talking to people who were interested in Ethiopia. It was very cool!
This year, Daniel was not required to do a project for the Science Fair, so imagine how proud we were when he said he wanted to do one anyway! Science is his favorite subject so we should not have been surprised. He worked on his project about the same time we were painting the boys’ room, so he chose to test the claims of Frog Tape – specifically, that paint does not bleed through with Frog Tape as it does with other tape.
He did a great job of framing his question, conducting his tests, and documenting his results. He demonstrated that Frog Tape really does prevent bleed-through! Here are a few pictures of him working on his project.
We moved the boys from the smaller back bedroom into the room that used to be Janel’s. It is much more spacious, and the boys really didn’t use it as a play room nearly as much as we thought they would. So it just made sense to put them in the larger room. We had fun shopping together for paint, with Daniel & David each picking a favorite color. When all was said and done, the colors seem to match the Seattle Sounders’ colors (must have been just a coincidence). Randy did a good portion of the painting, but Daniel & David pitched in. You can see some of the painting in the video.
After they moved in, we expanded the lower bunk to a full-size and added a storage drawer underneath. We also added some sports decals, curtains and a rug. We love it!
Daniel played with the Diamondbacks for spring soccer, and he will continue with them in the fall. They play tougher competition than he has faced before, but he is very comfortable at this level. Click the picture above to see some more. He is so much fun to watch and we took a bit of video. We only included a few clips here – in the last game pay attention to David’s commentary. The final comment is made by their cousin, Mason.
On Saturday, our great friends the Beards came to visit. We are truly blessed every time we get together and this was no exception. We enjoyed talking about raising boys, how God is using them in their ministry, and and just life in general. We were not able to get together over Christmas so this visit was long overdue. Our boys enjoyed playing together, including some time spent on the Wii. Here are a few pictures of the kids.
The boys enjoyed Math Night at Karshner Elementary School. Teachers, staff and volunteers prepare games and learning aids. The kids spend time with them learning how to make and use the aids. The kids got to use the computer lab, eat pizza, and bring home some math manipulatives. Thank you, Karshner staff!
So it turns out the snow did stick around… In fact, we experienced a sequence of storms that caused a lot of damage throughout Western Washington. We started with a couple days of snow and it looked like it was going to be fun. The boys played outside, school started a bit late, and all was good. After a few inches of snow, everything turned to freezing rain, which built up on the plants, cars, roads, house, and pretty much anything else. And the wind blew. About 300,000 homes and businesses lost power, including us. Our electricity was off from Thursday morning at 6:30 to Saturday noon. Life changes without electricity and with limited mobility. And mobility was not all that useful since none of the restaurants or anything else had power. We largely stayed home, read, and played board games and with non-electric toys like Lego’s. It was a very good time for the boys to exercise these skills. When it was all over (hopefully, it’s all over), Randy spent some time removing tree branches that had broken (mostly) off. Then we ventured out and took some pictures of the damage. Some places (as in one street over) looked as if a hurricane had struck. Our old home had a tree completely uprooted.
We’re grateful to have our power back, but the close family time was also nice. The boys were fantastic through it all. Daniel had some glasses with a built-in flashlight (in case you’re wondering what he’s wearing in some of the pictures). He used the glasses to build his Lego chopper in the dark.
Note: we combined the new pictures in the same slideshow with the previous snow pictures, so both this post and the one right below use the same slideshow.
We got some snow last night and today. David made a snow-sheriff and the boys had a pretty good snowball fight. It looks like the snow will stick around for a couple more days so we don’t know if school will be canceled yet. We took a few pictures and a little video today. Enjoy.
Sarah & Kyle gave us a membership to the Pacific Science Center for Christmas. When the girls were younger we loved going there, so it was gratifying that she (they) got this gift for us. We took the boys for our first visit and, knowing we will go back with some regularity, we took our time with a few exhibits rather than trying to take in the whole thing. We watched an IMAX movie (The Adventures of Tintin – 3D); you’ve gotta love the glasses! We all enjoyed the day tremendously.
On Thursday (12/29) we took Daniel and David up to the snow. In another car, Sarah took her exchange student, Sara, Stefano (our past exchange student) and Chiara (Stefano’s girlfriend), and Felix (Julie & Cindy’s exchange student). So, if you’re keeping score we had two Italians, two Ethiopians, a Spaniard, a German and a Puerto Rican – it’s hard to imagine more national diversity in two carloads!
The boys took snowboarding lessons for a couple hours. Sarah and Sara took skiing lessons. Then, after lunch, it was on to the slopes! Click the picture above to see more; watch the video below.
