Remembering Grandma Halverson

My Grandma, Nathalie Helena Hafield Halverson Hansen, died last Saturday.  Her funeral is tomorrow.  I was asked to write a few memories to share at the service.

Grandma described herself and mean and ornery, but I remember her as being loving, kind and concerned (with her fingernails always painted!  Must be where Kate gets if from.).

 Why are most of stories I remember about Grandma involve her getting in trouble?  HEHE!

I have lost most of the details, but I remember visiting the beach with Grandma and Grandpa.  It was a cold and windy day, but Grandma still insisted that I roll up my jeans and walk in the tide.  She joined me, but didn't roll up her pants enough.  She ended up drenched from the waist down.  Instead of complaining, she simply stripped out of her pants and hopped in the car.  In her underwear!  I couldn't believe it!  Grandpa wanted to stop and grab something to eat, so Grandma found a blanket, wrapped it around her and walked right into the store like nothing was wrong.  I couldn't believe she was brave enough to do something like that, but she didn't seemed to be a bit bothered.

I remember driving from California to Utah and stopping in Nevada.  Grandma and Grandpa wanted to eat at a buffet and most of those are in casinos.  I was a bit awed by everything (having never been in a casino before).  Grandma handed me a quarter, told me to pick a machine and put it in.  I did.  Security was there in a flash, pulling me away and getting after Grandma.  She just laughed and walked off.

The thing I remember most about Grandma is she would talk to me, tell me about my mom.  I didn't have a lot of people in my life who would tell me stories about her, tell me what she was like, and how I was like her.  She understood how much I needed that.  I don't know if it was easy or hard for her to remember my mom, but she was always willing to talk for my sake.  I loved her even more for that.

When I feel sad or overwhelmed by losing Grandma, I think how happy and free she is now.  I love her so much and I know her happiness is complete now.

In honor of Grandma, we ate chocolate cake, her all-time favorite.

We love you, Grandma!

Candy Catapult

As I've mentioned before, Enoch loves science.  We try to encourage this obsession whenever we can and Science Fair is a great way to do that.
This year's project was Candy Catapult.  Enoch chose eight different kinds of candy to launch from a wooden catapult.
He weighed the candy:

He had to weigh ten of each candy (because one candy was too light), divide that number by ten and record his results:

Now the fun part!  He launched each candy three times.  He did the launching and Greg did the measuring.  We had to keep Guard from getting to the candy before Greg could see how far it flew.  Not a easy task, and Guard was none too happy he wasn't getting any candy:

And, onto the board.  Yuck - this is the worst part.  Visual organization is not one of Enoch's talents, so, I admit, I help a lot with his board.  He did do all the typing though.  I thought it turned out well:

It's always a big sigh of relief when Enoch turns in his board.  Another year over!
That night we were able to go to the school and look at our the projects.  Guess what Enoch found in front of his project?

First place for the entire third grade!  He was so excited!  We are so proud of him!

The Year of the Horse

 

We had a great time at the annual LHS Chinese Club New Year's celebration.  We had never been before, but had heard how incredible it was.  Since Gavin is now a Chinese student, he was required to attend and the family had an excuse to be there.

Since it is the Year of the Horse, we were able to ride a horse, Mr. Chips.

Inside the school, they had different stations set up with a lot of different activities.  We tried:
Calligraphy -

A matching animal game -
Doing Tai Chi with Gavin -
Being a dragon -

Finding out what animal we are based on our birthdays -
Greg - Rat
Tresa - Dragon
Gavin - Tiger
Enoch - Rooster
Kate - Rat
Guard - Rabbit
(I think mine is the best!)

Watching the Dancing Dragon show -
Guard really enjoyed this.  The kids all thought it was so fun!

Supporting our awesome Chinese student -

So Handsome and Grown-Up!

I couldn't resist.
Greg laughed at me.
Guard smiled and smiled.
Kate ohhed and ahhed.

I had to get pictures of my little guy this morning before church.  He looked so handsome and grown up.

 

What a cutie!
He hates getting dressed for church, but loves to have his hair combed.  He climbs up on the bathroom counter, sits still while I am combing and spraying and then runs off to show his dad.
He must think he is grown up too - old enough to shave!

Fence Sitters

For his 1st birthday, Guard received farm animals.  I have seen them every day since then.  He really does get them out and play with them every day. 
One of his favorite things to do is set up his accordion fence, put all his animals inside the fence and then crawl in with them.  Then, he will take all the animals and line them up on top of the fence.  If they long enough legs, they straddle the fence, if not, they just balance on top.  I'm actually quite impressed, that take a lot of fine motor skill.

And then he takes them down individually, and show each one to me while I make their sound.  Each one.  Every day.  Multiple times a day.  He is finally picking up 'moo' and he will say 'se, se, se' for horse.  He can identify each animal and we are working on sounds.  I still don't know what a turtle or hedgehog says, but we get the others.

Maybe Guard isn't too happy about his animals sitting on the fence!

Powdered Donuts

If is amazing to me how I see so much of both Gavin and Enoch in Guard.  He is like both of them in his own way.
One things he shares with Enoch is his love of mini powdered donuts, chocolate milk and heater vents in the morning.  Every morning I can find Enoch and Guard sitting on the heater vent warming up.  Today, they snuck some donuts after breakfast.

Such cute boys!

RADKids Graduation

A few weeks ago, Enoch came home very excited about what they were doing in PE.  That's new, because Enoch usually finds PE boring.  He explained that they were doing RADKids, a self-defense and self-awareness program for kids.  They were learning how to stay away and get away from people who were trying to hurt them.  It reminded him a lot of karate (sounds like we might need to get him back into that).
Kate, Guard and I were able to attend his graduation today.  Enoch was really looking forward to it because they got to beat up a police officer!  He thought that was awesome.  But only this one time, he told me.
(Sorry my pictures are so bad.  Enoch was on the back row and the lighting was awful!)
Warm-up stretching:

Showing off his moves:

Getting away!:

Guard's Laugh

Who can make Guard laugh the hardest?
Gavin.

The Island of Sodor

Guard loves trains, especially Thomas the Train.  He likes the books, the movies and really the Legos.  When Enoch was Guards age, he really liked trains too.  We found a bunch of Thomas trains on Ebay and bought all we could find.  Since all the kids have loved them, it was a great investment.
We have brought them out again for Guard and have fell in loved with them all over again.  On Sunday afternoon the kids built an extensive track for Guard.  Some of it survived until today.

Guard's trains even fly and make lots of different noises.

Look at that smile!  He really does love his trains.

A trip to the Zoo

We were surprised when Greg got today off of work.  We decided to do something fun along with finishing some small projects. 
It was a warmish day for January and we were trying our darnest to get out of the inversion, so we took an afternoon trip to the zoo.  I'm not sure we avoided the smog completely, but the zoo is up high enough that we got out of most of it.
We had a great time!
Of course, we had to stop by the elephants - Guard loves them.

But, we discovered that Guard is really fascinated by the big cats.  They were all out and very active.  The leopard was pacing frantically,

the Siberian lynx was stoic,

and the tiger was playful.  It rolled on the ground, paced and posed for pictures.

Guard couldn't get enough of the tiger.  He watched, pointed and kept whispering, 'kitty'.  It was quite adorable.  Gavin declared he wanted one of each cat and he would train them to be nice to Coal.  Yep.

We were also able to see Kate's favorite animal, the wolf.  She was so excited to see them this time.  Up next was Greg's favorite, the tortoises.  The big one just kept staring at Greg and Guard.

The reptile and small animal house was warm (and stinky).  We loved the birds,

the small monkeys,

and the small animals.

Rocky Shores was buzzing today.  The sea lions were having so much fun...and we had so much fun watching them.

The polar and grizzly bears were loving the cool weather and put on quite a show.  How do we measure up?

We finishing up our visit with a ride on the carousel.  Enoch found a bear, Kate a wolf and Guard a rhino.  The kids all had a great time.

We had an awesome time - we always love the zoo!