Garlic and Carnations

A few random pictures to wrap up July:

Daddy recently bought a book of John Williams sheet music.  Daddy, Joy, and Daniel have been playing a lot of Star Wars tunes lately. 

Daniel enjoyed his bacon quesadilla at lunch today, but what really put a smile on his face was that Joy secretly added a bunch of garlic powder to his water.  Daniel believes that garlic and bacon make everything better.

Lately, I've started buying a little bouquet of flowers every time I go to Trader Joe's.  These pretty carnations bring a smile to my face every time I see them.

And speaking of pretty, I think Luna looks rather lovely in Anna's sunhat.  Don't you?

The Whole Lemon, Half Day Tart

Anna has really gotten into baking during our "coronacation."  At least once a week, she asks to bake something with me.

This week, she asked to make a pie.  I rarely make pie because it takes a lot more time and effort than a batch of cookies or my favorite (read: fast and yummy) olive oil cake, so I proposed a compromise: a whole lemon tart recipe I've been wanting to try.  What I didn't realize was that the tart's crust would take over three hours to prepare before we even started on the filling.  At least Anna enjoyed the epic baking session . . .

. . . and the tart was tasty.  We won't be making that crust again, though.

Pest Control Goes Green

Last night . . .

. . . I spotted this little guy outside our sliding door, waiting for dinner to buzz by.

There goes a mosquito now!  Get it, Kermit!

Golfing with Scoundrels

In yet another act of Hendrickson geekiness . . .

. . . Joy bought some Star Wars playing cards online last week.

(After I took the first picture, she insisted I take a second one with ALL the cool people.  Why Palpatine made the cut and Luke didn't is beyond me.)

We've mainly been using the cards to play Golf (which I learned from my sister Heather at my parents' cabin years ago).  After the first few rounds, Joy started brainstorming ways to make the game more Star Warsy.  I assured her that wasn't necessary, but . . .

. . . she apparently disagreed.  Here are the new rules she came up with.  They made my head spin the first few times, but once I got used to them it was kind of fun . . .

. . . to try to match up three Jedi (or scoundrels, or Solos, or people who set foot on the second Death Star), or to turn a 10-point ace into a -3 bonus by pairing it with someone who rode in the ship on that ace card.

After a bunch of Star Wars Golf games, the kids used the cards to act out Episodes 6 and 9.  Here are Luke and Vader having a little chat about ethics while Palpatine sits on the Death Star Card Box, Han and Leia are on a mission to the Forest Napkin of Endor, and Lando and Mon Mothma (yes, she got her own card) are trying not to get blown up while Han and Leia get the card box's shield down.

Looks like the conversation didn't go well.

Semi-Virtual Sacrament Meeting

For weeks, we have held a short family sacrament meeting in our living room each Sunday, then headed to the family room to watch our ward's Sunday Zoom.  The Zoom presentations have included everything from talks to a Sunday school lesson to a musical presentation.  You never knew what you were going to get, but it was always uplifting.

Today was different, in a very good way.  Phillip brought our sacrament bread and water to the family room so we could join our ward for a semi-virtual sacrament meeting.  For the first time since everything shut down in March, part of our ward gathered in a highly-sanitized, socially-distanced chapel to listen to talks, hear (but not sing) hymns, and partake of the sacrament together.

Attendance was capped at 25, so the rest of us tuned in via Zoom.  The audio and video was turned off during the sacrament, so Phillip took that time at our home to bless and pass the sacrament to our family.

I wondered if all of these restrictions and the fact that we weren't physically present would make this gathering a pale shadow of what sacrament meeting used to be.  Instead, it was one of the most inspiring sacrament meetings I've ever participated in.

Prospects and Chainsaws

This weekend . . .

. . . Joy attended virtual youth conference . . .

. . . Daniel and Daddy cut lumber for some new raised beds . . .

. . . Anna and Todd built an epic marble run . . .

. . . our friend Frank showed Phillip how to chainsaw some random bushes in the corner of our yard . . .

. . . and I drove to a couple nurseries to buy blueberry bushes to replace the random bushes.  On the way there, I passed Prospect Avenue.  I love that so many towns across the country have a street by that name.  It warms my heart to think of that little street in California where our family lived for over a decade.  We made many fun memories there.

The Perfect Couch

When is a couch more than a couch?

When it doubles as playground equipment, because it has the perfect arm . . .

. . . perfect cushion firmness . . .

. . . and perfect length . . .

. . . for performing couch somersaults!

Ta da!

The Same Old New Stuff

Sometimes it feels like the movie "Groundhog Day" around here--just the same day, over and over.  The same people, the same rooms, the same routine.  There are some new things happening too, though.

Like a new way of getting library books (by reserving them online, then calling from the parking lot so a librarian in a face shield can bring them out to a book cart for us).

Or the new music apps we downloaded to help the kids improve their rhythm and note recognition.

Aaaand we're gonna need a new landscaping rake, 'cuz this one broke while I was leveling part of our yard for some new raised beds.

Down A Dusty Road

Daddy likes to go for a drive on Sunday afternoons.  Sometimes he has a specific destination in mind, but other times he just picks an unfamiliar road . . .

. . . and starts driving along it to see where it goes.  Even if it's a dusty, no-name road that the kids are sure we're not even supposed to be on (we didn't see any warning signs though, so I'm sure it was OK).

This particular road led past an old train yard . . .

. . . and through the woods . . .

. . . where we admired some Queen Anne's Lace by the roadside.

The dirt eventually turned back into pavement, and we found ourselves driving past some enormous grain silos.  Then Todd begged us to go home, because he was tired of being in the car. :P

Easy Come, Easy Go

On a bike ride today, Joy noticed that a neighbor was giving away a fancy glass vase.  Joy thought it would look nice in her room, so she put it in her backpack and brought it home.  A minute after she arrived with her prize, I heard a loud crash in the bathroom.

The vase slipped out of Joy's hands while she was washing it, and the base had shattered on the floor.  Joy was really disappointed, but she insisted that I take a picture of her with the broken vase . . .

. . . so she can laugh about it someday. :)

Hearts and Pink Muffins

Stuff we've been doing lately:

Playing Hearts

Baking our own sacrament bread (sometimes)

Yard work

Trying a healthy muffin recipe with grated beets that turned the batter a weird shade of pink (the muffins looked and tasted normal though)

Playing a duet with Daddy

Seeing lots of cute bunnies in our yard

Birthday Tomatoes, Sushi, and Ice Cream

I had a really nice birthday today.  Some friends brought me flowers . . .

. . . Joy treated me to ice cream at Kimball Farms (thanks, Joy!) . . .

. . . and I harvested my first delicious Sungold cherry tomatoes to eat with lunch.  I also met some friends for sushi, and we sat and talked until the restaurant closed.  What a lovely day. :)

The Empire Striketh Back

Just when I thought our family couldn't get any geekier . . .

. . . Joy found copies of the original Star Wars trilogy written in the style of William Shakespeare.  They have stage directions, asides, words like "doth" and "belike," and everyone speaks in iambic pentameter (except for Yoda, who speaks in haiku).

Joy read the entire series in about a day, and her siblings have started reading it too.  I guess that's one way to introduce kids to Shakespeare: take a story they already know and love, and Shakespeare-ize it so they get accustomed to the Bard's style.

Oh, and speaking of Star Wars, I've been leading the kids in some resistance exercises lately (e.g. push-ups, lunges, and crunches), and they suggested that "blowing up Starkiller Base" would be a good Resistance exercise too.  Just for fun, I turned on the end of Star Wars 7 yesterday, and we worked out while watching Poe Dameron and the Resistance destroy Starkiller Base.  I think we'll keep doing resistance with the Resistance this summer, because it's more fun to think about Finn, Rose, and Poe than about how much we hate push-ups.  The exciting music helps too.

Eggs and Music on the Farm

We got together with some friends from church today . . . 

. . . to tour a small farm in a nearby town.  I'm so grateful that COVID-19 cases in our area have dropped to a tiny fraction of what they were a few months ago.  We still wear masks at stores and limit our social contacts most of the time, but at least our kids can get together with a few friends now and then . . .

. . . and just be kids.

E.B. White is the farm owner's great-uncle, and we got to listen to a recording of that author reading the opening chapters of Charlotte's Web.  It was fun to hear his wry intonation in the sort of rural setting that inspired his classic story.

The owner of the farm let each visitor collect an egg from her hens . . .

. . . then Anna led the girls in singing a song for her.  The woman was very impressed with Anna's poise and confidence.  Nice job, Anna!