Remembering Miyu

We invited Miyu, a 12 year old student from Japan, to stay with us for one month during the summer. She has been studying English for several years and wanted to experience American culture. We are still unsure if our family life represents regular American culture (we are pretty weird!) She came to Utah through a program called Premier International Exchange. We quickly grew to love her.We enjoyed her and she seemed to enjoy being with us. She showed kindness to everyone and tried to help with anything she could. We took her on several adventures to meet extended family and to see new places. She filled the one seat left in our suburban. The first weekend she arrived, we traveled to Rexburg, Idaho, to help my sister's family to put siding on their shed. while there, the kids slept on the tramp, witnessed several meteorites (shooting stars), and we experienced the "giant swing."

Miyu liked the American food we served. She cooked Japanese food for us several timesand invited us to eat with the chopsticks she brought for us.We learned so much from her!
She also showed us how to fold origami and create beautiful things with paper.
She left many beautiful things from Japan behind for us.
Whenever we see these things, we think of our new friend, Miyu, and smile.

Bountiful Harvest

Autumn is the time of Harvest. We have reaped many good fruits and vegetables, though not all of them were from our garden. Thank heavens for generous friends and neighbors! We did enjoy peas, corn, and potatoes from our garden this summer and this fall we harvested 10 heads of garlic, 12 squash, and 4 pumpkins from our garden. The pumpkins grew from the plant Rachel brought home from kindergarten and we transplanted. We watered the garden almost every day through the summer--by hand. Weeding and cultivating was a weekly chore that was never quite done. You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt. Scraping and digging weeds to give the desired plants more room to thrive and grow is satisfying. It is great to enjoy the fruits of our labors. The tomatoes finally started turning red in October as it started turning cold. So we enjoyed a few tomatoes fresh, but there were not enough from our garden to can. A friend let us pick several boxes of tomatoes so we could use them to make salsa, tomato sauce, and spaghetti sauce. That was a fulfilling harvest activity. We put many green tomatoes on a shelf in our pantry to enjoy as they ripen. The butternut squash also line the pantry shelf, waiting for their turn to grace our table.

Some harvest celebrations include art work. Isaac carved pumpkins with his "Friday School" group. That's a local home school group that gets together each Friday to learn together and work on projects. During the term, they learned about plants, created terrariums, went on a nature hike, and carved pumpkins. They used sharp tools to make 3 dimensional figures. Isaac chose to make Mike Wizowski out of his pumpkin. Do you see the resemblance?

Last week, we picked apples from our neighbor's tree and Isaac, being the monkey that he is, made the best apple picker. He could climb up to the highest branches and collect beautiful apples. He and Rachel came up with a system that she would stand on the ground with the long apple-picker, which is basically a basket on the end of a stick, and he would fill the basket will apples until it was full, then she would pull it down, unload it into our box, and put it up again. Yesterday, we made apple pie filling to add to our stock of food in the freezer. I couldn't resist making one fresh apple pie. It was delicious!

Our neighbor also has a beautiful raspberry patch that she let us pick from a couple times this year. We LOVE to pick and eat raspberries! In fact, when I bring Isaac along to pick, he ends up eating every one he picks! Rachel eats about half of what she picks. The raspberries that we collected that didn't get immediately eaten were made into a beautiful raspberry freezer jam. There is nothing better on a cold winter day than some of that homemade jam on toast. It comforts our souls and reminds us of bountiful days of harvest. We are grateful for the bounty the Lord blesses us with.

4 Birthdays, an Ordination, and a Budding Chef

October is birthday month for Rachel, who turned 7, and Brigham, who turned 14, and their "Papa," who is older than that. Their birthdays are 3 days in a row. Because Papa was in town, we started celebrating several days before their birthdays with this cake that Rachel helped make. You can see her little hands here putting the finishing touches on.

Since she learned to read, Rachel has been skimming cook books looking for yummy recipes and insisting we try them. At 7 years old, she is following recipes to make cookies and other sweet treats (with a little help). She is a happy girl with a big heart, always thinking of others and making sure everyone gets a share. She loves to read and daily has a pile of books to read through at bed time. Lately, our visits to the library result in several new children's cook books for her to sift through. I wonder what recipe she will come up with next.

On Sunday, October 23rd, Brigham had an extra special birthday as he was ordained to the office of a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood. We are so grateful that he has made good choices in his life to be worthy to hold the Priesthood of God. We are very grateful that our dear friends made the trip to be here to support him in that ordination.
Following the ordination, our friends joined us for another birthday cake to celebrate 3 birthdays again. The girls frosted it beautifully. We sang to Brigham, Rachel, and Lorenzo, who turned 4 the same week.
We missed Grandma and Grandpa because they rarely miss such events, but we felt of their love and support from the mission field. Brigham has recently surpassed his father in height, pushing past 6 feet! It's apparent that he has not stopped growing. It is our hope that he continues to grow in truth and righteousness as well as stature so that he will be prepared to serve the Lord as a Missionary in a few years.

When Rachel's birthday arrived, we celebrated yet again. Rachel claimed she likes surprises, so we decorated the house and wrapped some little gifts for her. Her friend came home on the bus with her and they enjoyed playing together while we made another cake. I have to say that the third cake within a week is not quite as enjoyable as the first. (In fact, I couldn't even get myself to eat any.) But, Rachel was happy with it. It is fun to celebrate birthdays. We are lucky to have these beautiful children to celebrate with. They make life so fun and meaningful.