It's Chemistry

Jaclyn is out of school for exams, and got to spend the day job shadowing in the lab at Ken's office. When I picked her up at 2pm the lab technician came out to greet me and to let me know that Jaclyn was just finishing up an experiment and would be out in 5 minutes. I knew right then she'd had a great day. No, that's an understatement. More like died and gone to heaven.

When Ken arranged for Jaclyn to check out the lab, and then the lab said to plan for 5 hours, Ken told me he had no idea of what they would do with her for so long. Neither of us really expected that she'd get to participate fully in the operations around the lab. Well, she did. And how. In the car she gave me every detail of the experiments she'd participated in and their purposes. As Neighbor Jane Payne said today, I listened and did "my best to catch a word or two".
k


She got to bring home samples of sand and gel (which I think she made) used in fracking oil and gas wells.

h

If only she'd brought her camera to the lab! At least she accommodated me with a self-portrait in her new safety glasses. She'll be the envy of Chem 30 AP with her superior safety eye wear and experience working with 28% Hydrochloric Acid.

lh

This fantastic day at the lab and the satisfaction she derives from chemistry reminds me of something I overheard her teacher say to another student last week. He said, "There are people wandering around out there who know something is missing from their lives, but don't know what. It's chemistry."

I may be crazy

I've hit the switch in the laundry room every time I've walked in today (so dozens of times) and each time I do it the light is still burned out. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results then . . . yeah. (This could also apply to my continual tidying efforts.)
g

Ken got called as first counsellor in Young Mens on Sunday. After he was sustained the Bishop was reminded by a counsellor that he had forgotten something. No, not to release me as Young Women's president, but to release the previous Young Mens first counsellor.
g

So last night Carmen and Chloe got their first taste at raising themselves for however long this lasts while Ken, Jaclyn, Steven and I went to class and quorum presidency meetings (Steven because he is deacon's quorum secretary and Jaclyn because she needed to be there later and we were her ride.) Then Ken and I both participated in Bishopric Youth Council which was followed by Stake Standards Night. Jaclyn remarked to me later that she sure gets more compliments when she plays the organ than when she plays the piano.

g

While we were gone Carmen and Chloe made a chocolate milkshake, which wasn't much of an ability stretch for Carmen who made dinner two or three times last week, not counting the sandwich cook-off that was our dinner on Sunday night. Ken challenged Carmen earlier in the week to see who could make the best sandwich, and we finally found out last night. (Both of them put white bread products on my grocery list, am I the only one in this house who prefers brown bread?)

g

Ken's

.g

Carmen's

g

We all ate 1/2 of each kind of sandwich and then Chloe, Steven, Jaclyn and I voted on which we liked the best by scoring each sandwich out of ten - Carmen won by two points. Chloe took her judging very seriously, and I wish we hadn't been in such a hurry to get out to our Sunday night meetings because I think she would have liked score cards - it would have been fun.

g

g

Chloe takes just about everything very seriously, or maybe the right word would be intently. Last week a scout who attends our school organized a shoe drive for shoes to be shipped to Haiti. While the other kids in our family dug around the house, Chloe canvased our neighbours and brought in 3 garbage bags of shoes to the school. I told the parents of the scout behind the project about Chloe's efforts and they were so glad to hear it because it made them hopeful that the project would be a success, which I totally understood since Steven has been working on his citizenship project through the school to earn the Chief Scout award.

g

g
(He used leadership on his hockey team to fulfill the leadership portion of his challenging program.)
g

Speaking of which, just over a week ago the Young Mens president in our ward asked me if it might be possible for Steven to complete his work for the Chief Scout Award before the Baden Powell dinner on February 2nd. Considering I had just asked two laurels to complete their Young Womanhood Recognition requirements before New Beginnings (one of them being Jaclyn) I felt like I had to ask Steven to try. He didn't have much left, in fact the request to finish up was helpful because by Wednesday he was done and Wednesday night he met with the Scout Group Committee Chairperson as well as his scout leader to go over his binder of completed badges, camping, and projects. They approved him for the award. We then warned them Steven will be late to the Baden Powell Dinner because of a basketball game the same evening, and that was that.

g

One last thing: Jaclyn wrote the SATs on Saturday. Her results will be available February 11th and it will be interesting. She thought the test was very easy - much easier than her finals last week had been and she got 100% on her math final (as well as her final mark in the class). Ken pointed out awhile ago that finding a test easy probably means one of two things: 1) the student was well prepared and aced it, 2) the student is clueless and failed it. We shall see.

m

Oh, Ken and I have been up to stuff to. On Saturday night we attended the Stars & Spurs Gala which is an event to raise money for Stars, a charity that provides rapid emergency transport. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Stars, and a young woman who flew in the Stars Air Ambulance as a premature infant and the first Stars Air Ambulance passenger was there to give a touching address. Mostly we just watched the money fly in raffles, silent auctions, and live auctions. It was incredible and by the end of the evening over $400, 000 were raised. My favorite experience of the night was touring the Mobile Simulation Van which drives out to smaller rural hospitals for education on emergency medicine. I kept thinking on that tour that I need to find out about opportunities for future tours of the Stars facilities and vehicles, but a tour for who? The Young Women? Well, we're planned out for long enough that I may not need to make more plans. Scouts? Nope, Steven's all caught up till he becomes a Venture. Maybe I don't need to be thinking of taking a group out then.

n

More time for tidying up and thinking it will stay that way, I guess.

Division of Labor

Marie and Dirk came up on Friday night - they had tickets to Fiddler on the Roof here in Calgary so they dropped their kids off at our house to play while they went out and then their whole family slept over.
j
It was almost no work at all on my part:
j

j

Earlier in the evening Chloe watched Harrison,

j

j

and Carmen looked after every one else.

j

Once bedtime hit I took over from Chloe and Ken took over from Carmen. (Chloe and I know how to tip the scales in our favor.) (Oh, and I should mention that when it came right down to it Jaclyn was the only big person Maxwell would settle with in the absence of his mom and dad.)

j

j

Ah, staying up with a baby, watching Dave . . . it took me back about 16 years.

j

Ken had plotted all sorts of corruptions against the niece and nephews (particularly Carter who Ken thought it would be fun to add to his vocabulary). In the end it was Harrison in front of late night television, but hey, it didn't hurt Jaclyn. Harrison's probably going to be fine.

j

Flowers

Last weekend Steven had an out-of-town basketball tournament taking both he and Ken out of the house Friday night and Saturday. It was the perfect opportunity for some girl time.
.
We watched Little Women and got creative.
.

.
This flower headband is a satin covered headband from Goody with an organza flower. Tutorial here. The only changes I made to the tutorial was that I liked the base flower to be the same size as the first layer of folded flowers so I eliminated the first size on the template and cut 5, 4, and 2 from largest to smallest of the remaining sizes.
.

.
Jaclyn liked the one I made for Carmen, but chose her flower to be a little smaller so I made a new template for the smallest size (cut 2) and started the whole thing one size smaller (eliminated the largest 2 sizes in the Design Sponge template.) Jaclyn's flower is made from a satin fabric backed with crepe.
.

.
Chloe really wanted a headband like the one I bought myself at Anthropologie in Arizona. I found a tutorial for tattered roses and as per usual made my own adjustments. First of all, to duplicate my headband I sewed right sides together and turned the fabric inside-out for a 'finished' flower (rather than tattered). I cut my fabric strip 2" wide and sewed only 1/8" seams.
.

.
After I'd done 3 roses I hand sewed them onto a satin headband and then backed them with black felt, just like mine. Only for $4 instead of the $27 I paid at Anthropologie. What can I say, I was working hard to catch up to Ken on the shopping (I didn't succeed).
.
Both of the headband flowers were a little tricky, but the last fabric flowers were kid-craft friendly:
.

.
I found this awesome tutorial here that reminded me of the poppy hair pin I bought on Etsy a couple of years ago.
.

.

At that point Chloe had gone to a friend's house (all day Saturday) and Jaclyn had abandoned the sewing machine (she's making an apron) for studying so it was just Carmen and I. Carmen especially enjoyed playing with fire to make these flowers and we're considering it as a craft for her birthday party. (Maybe.)

.

Sunday all the girls (me to!) went to church with flowers in their hair.

,

We looked smashing.

Home Again

We went home from Arizona via the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas.
k

k
We crossed so quickly I basically missed the part where we were driving on the dam.
k

k
The water level of Lake Mead seemed alarmingly low, especially after we learned on our tour that 1/3 of America's fruits and vegetables are grown from this water supply. It turns out that yes, the levels are low (42%) but the ideal level is only 50%. Residents in the area probably worry more if the levels get too high.

k

There are a couple of choices of tours at the dam. The top tour takes you into the dam for $30/person. (Everything seems expensive when you multiply it by six people!) We chose the Power Plant tour which was $10/person. All the tours start out together watching a movie about the building of the dam. The film had a very 1950's propaganda feel to it which kept me chuckling, but at the same time it was interesting and inspiring to learn about the history of the Hoover Dam.

k

k
After the film we descended down into one of the shafts that had diverted the Colorado river while the dam was being built.

k

k

Our guide then took us over to the power plant. There are 9 turbines on the Arizona side and 8 turbines on the Nevada side. Water supply, not electricity, was the objective of the Hoover Dam, but the electricity produced serves 1.3 million homes and pays for the operation costs of the dam - you Americans aren't putting any tax dollars into maintenance of the dam. Well actually, neither am I .
k

k

Here's a look at the power plants from above.

k

k

The tourists in the yellow plastic *hard* hats continued on deeper into the dam while the rest of us went back up the elevators to the museum. Chloe was a little jealous of the hard hats but not of continuing the tour. Later, in the gift shop, an adult asked Chloe out of the blue if she'd like to have her yellow hard hat. Chloe was thrilled and no longer wanted anything from the gift shop, Woo-hoo!

k

k
Steven took this photo of the dam from the back. I love the curve in this picture (the shape of the dam forces the pressures it is under into the sides of the canyon wall) and the reflection of the intake towers in the water (I didn't realize before that no water passes through the dam, but rather is taken in through these towers and diverted around or through the power plant).

k

k

The Hoover Dam was always intended to be a tourist attraction and there are many sculptures and plaques. (The floor of the power plant is marble and inlaid with artist renditions of water and electricity.)
k

k

Our only family picture of the trip. It seems like I am having trouble with graininess from my camera lately, but this was by far the worst - I don't know how that nice lady managed to take such a bad picture.

k

k
We'll probably take this new bridge the next time we cross from Arizona into Nevada and by-pass the traffic on the Hoover Dam. I think we'll get spectacular pictures of the dam from our moving car as long as we travel from east to west. We actually had no wait at all on the Arizona side, but when we left we saw traffic backed up on the Nevada side all the way to Boulder City.

k

As for being home, I've adjusted quickly and happily back to our cold winter. Surprising, considering how I enjoyed the warm weather and snow-free sidewalks in Arizona. I think it helps that my best clothes are winter clothes and I love all my cute scarves, boots, hats, gloves and mittens. As Chloe shared with Emerson while we were shopping: "We're lucky we're girls because we get to have accessories."

Happy New Year!

l

Our 'Eve' included:

k

k

Games: Curses & Pictureka!

j

k

Food

l

j

And helium balloons to make it feel like a real party!