11/7-11/12

Elizabeth's 1st quilt
It was enrichment week at the school the home schoolers attend part time.  Enrichment week is the week that falls between school quarters.  It is a time for field trips, guest speakers, and special activities.  One of the activities Elizabeth and I participated in was "Quilt in a Day".  It actually took place over two days in three hour blocks.  We started by hitting the fabric store so that Elizabeth could select her fabrics.  She began with the celestial print and added a few complementary colors.   It took her over 30 minutes to pick the other materials.  I could tell that she was putting a lot of thought into selecting just the right colors and patterns.

I'd purchased the amount of fabric from memory and once I got home, I realized that I didn't have enough.  So, I had to go back to the fabric store later that evening, not my first choice.  Then, when I got there, I couldn't find the fabric she'd picked.  It had been a busy day at the fabric store and together the employee and I searched through all the bolts of fabric that were waiting to go back on the floor.  We found two out of three.  With a bit more searching, we came up with the last bolt of material.  Happiness!  My mistake ended up working out because she was able to make a larger quilt than the teacher had planned for.

Once at the class at school, we started cutting out strips of materials and assembling 9 patch squares.  Elizabeth sewed every seam herself.  She was able to get every 9 patch completed and to sew each of the 5 rows of squares together.  We were sent home at the end of the three hours with the homework assignment to sew the strips together into a solid top and to select a backing fabric.

The next time we went to class, Elizabeth sewed the strips framing the quilt as well as the binding. 

sewing on the strips

assembling the backing, batting and top.  Her teacher Mrs. Peterson is on the right.  They're outside because they used a special spray to hold the pieces together.

My proud young lady and her quilt

The class with their moms and the teacher.

We pinned everything together and her teacher was kind enough to offer to take it home and machine quilt it for us.  Elizabeth was so proud of herself and can't wait to cuddle under it while watching a movie.

Seattle field trip
Another enrichment activity we took advantage of was the chance to go to the Seattle Science Center and to take a tour of Channel 9, our local public broadcast network.  Wednesday Elizabeth, Isaac, and I made the trip as soon as we got done with the newspapers.  We started our tour of the Science Center with an Imax movie, Born to be Wild.  Elizabeth loved the documentary of two women who have made it their life's work to raise orphaned orangutans and elephants respectively.  After the movie, we visited the butterfly house where Elizabeth and I both picked up some temporary hair ornaments (butterflies).  The science center also had a traveling exhibit called "Design Zone".  They taught us about the science behind things like video games, roller coasters, and music.  I had to pry the kids away so that we could get to the TV station on time.  The TV station walked us through every step of making a TV program and patiently answered all the children's questions.

getting ready for Born to be Wild in 3D

a marble maze game

playing around with her photo

This bicycle has been there since I was Elizabeth's age!

In the room where the "magic" is made.  Producers, directors, sound men all sit in here.

As long as we were in Seattle, I decided to take advantage of a chance to go to Theo Chocolates, the maker of my favorite chocolate bar.  We were able to sign up for their hour long tour.  We pulled up to the factory and got out of the car.  Immediately, the rich smell of chocolate was evident.  Elizabeth and I walked up to an exhaust fan, stuck our noses close, and inhaled deeply.  Heavenly!  Isaac sat their smirking at his crazy family.  We learned that Theo is one of less than 20 chocolate factories in the US that actually receive raw cocoa beans and takes them through the entire process of roasting, grinding, and creating tasty chocolate treats from them.  They are the only organic and fair trade certified chocolate factory in the US.  We got to taste 90% of the products they make.  Yum!  I told Dode that I'm never going back.  I can't trust myself around so much deliciousness!  I spent way too much money on treats.  Chipolte Drinking Chocolate Powder, Cocoa Nibs, 1# of Spicy Chili bar pieces (my favorite candy bar) , a Cherry Chili Dark Chocolate Bar, a Milk Chocolate bar for Isaac, a Milk Chocolate Candy Cane bar for Elizabeth, and "Big Daddy Marshmallows" (graham cracker, marshmallow, caramel covered in dark chocolate.)

on the tour, looking stylish in our caps

This machine takes the roasted beans and grinds them up.

This enrober and cooling tunnel looks just like the one they use at Aunt Bessy's honey factory!  What's in those red garbage bags?  Cocoa beans!

This is what chocolate looks like during the fermentation stage.  Look tasty?

Theo's retail store

After leaving Theo, the plan was to go out to dinner with my mom.  It was dark out and I had a terrible time finding Hwy 99 to head to her house.  I spent 30 minutes driving around in circles trying to find the correct road.  The kids kept asking me, "When are we going to get there?"  I didn't have a good answer for them and was so wishing I had a GPS to help me out.  I finally made it to the correct road and we eventually made it to my mom's. 

A Tree Falls
There is an alder tree that grows right next to the sidewalk outside the living room window.  It has three trunks and makes a nice scenic view.  I'm the kind of person who spends quite a bit of time looking out of windows and I've enjoyed this tree for the six years we've lived here. 

One trunk already gone, the view from the window

Dode on the other hand has been getting more and more worried about the tree.  The roots have buckled the sidewalk already and he was concerned they'd soon crack the foundation on the house.  He finally convinced me that the tree needed to go.  Randy came over and cut the tree down for us. 

The kids were in the hot tub watching and they were all very put out to see the tree go. Elizabeth would not even look at Dode after they cut down the tree.

Our zip line ends on one of the trunks and they thought that with the tree gone, there would be no more zip line.  Randy left the stump tall enough for the zip line.  Dode thinks the stump will be stable enough for the next year after which he'll have to come up with another spot to anchor the zip line to.  Hopefully, some day my girls can forgive their Uncle Randy for destroying their tree.  Dode says he's sure they aren't the first kids who Randy has made mad while taking out trees.  My only consolation is that we can use the trees to heat the house, the wood should give us about a month of warmth.

Fixing a pipe
About six months ago, Dode got called over to his grandparents to repair a leaky pipe.  His Uncle Dave and Aunt Viv had been remodeling the bathroom and had accidentally screwed into one of the pressurized pipes.  Dode put a new piece of pipe in and soldered it into place.  They proceeded to fix up the bathroom and all was well.  At least, everything was well until Saturday when water started flooding into the downstairs of the house.  After removing ceiling tiles, and eventually bathroom walls, they chased the leak down to the pipe behind the shower.   Had Dode's fix failed? 

Nope!  They'd managed to hit that pipe a second time when they finished up the bathroom.  This time, they weren't aware they'd done it and the screw stayed in the pipe all this time.  Eventually, it rusted away, leaving a hole that quickly created a major flood.  Dode fixed it up again a second time.  Thankfully he's thorough.  As he was preparing to apply heat while putting the pieces of pipe together, he tried to feed a piece of aluminum foil behind the pipe.  It kept getting stuck on something.  When he put his finger back there, he found that the screw had gone all the way through the pipe and was sticking out the other side.  If he'd missed that, it would not have been long before that piece of screw rusted away and he'd have been going back over to the house to fix another leak.  Our fingers are crossed that this time when the bathroom gets re-assembled everything goes where it should.

Work Bonus
At work, Dode sometimes goes out in the field with the employees of the fisheries department.  He heard that they do monitoring crab pots where they put down pots, pull up crabs, take them back to their lab to study them, and then get to keep them, since they're dead when they're done with them.  It's just a couple of single guys pulling up 40-80 crabs at a time and they sometimes have extra.  Dode told them he'd sure be willing to take some off their hands and Thursday, he came home with 5 crabs.  We had a real feast.  It's a lot of work to get full off of crab!  They told him that when it's time to do monitoring for shrimping season not to expect any extras.  Good thing I prefer crab!

not my most glamorous photo ever!

Hot Sauce Go Fish
Jacob and his friend Shamois came up with a fun and exciting game to pass the time.  Hot Sauce Go Fish.  They assembled several of Jacob's bottles of hot sauce and anytime someone had to go fish, they had to take a spoonful of hot sauce as penalty.  Shamois has hot sauce almost every day and has built up a tolerance for it.  Jacob hasn't been using so much of it and he was definitely struggling.  He learned it burns going down, burns coming out the other side, and burns coming up when he decided to make himself throw up to get rid of it.  He shouldn't have any stomach or intestinal parasites for a while!