Best of Our Videos for the Year

These aren't listed publicly on YouTube so for family and friends who want a place to find them, here are the videos we managed to edit and upload this year:

Haven's School Fundraiser: Run for the Money--Thank you!

Thanks so much to all who donated to Haven's school fund raiser! He exceeded his goal and will wear all your names proudly on his shirt while he runs/walks/skips/hopefully-doesn't-trip next Wednesday. In fact he could keep wearing this shirt till he goes to college because I'm pretty sure it's big enough.

Hopefully the school reached their overall funding goal as well, but according to Nathaniel, whether they did or not, we are ignoring all future fundraisers this year.

Thanks again!

Gee Family Reunion Photos

Here are some photos from our Gee family reunion held in July. During the reunion we took a tour of the Sea of Galilee even though we were actually at Bear Lake. Having recently toured the Holy Land, Nathaniel's mom was stunned by how similar the real Sea of Galilee was to Bear Lake, so we just called it that for the sake of education and took a tour of the different sites from Jesus's life.

The kids enjoyed it, and if they had a choice between the real sea of Galilee and a shorter travel time, I think they would have chosen Bear Lake anyway. Now we're going to pick a spot in Boulder City to call Disneyland so they might finally stop asking to go there. (Our current answer has been, "Yes, in two years," and a few minutes later they ask if it has been two years yet. Hopefully their sense of time will improve before their missions for their companions' sake.)

The 90 Minute Gold Rush

They say history repeats itself, presumably because humans forget to remember that they've done this before and what exactly they got last time they tried it. Speaking from my experience, I think the past does come to mind when embarking on the decision because we notice the resemblance, but our great powers of reason convince us that the present choice is fundamentally different, and we can maintain that assumption up until we run into the same results.

Yesterday we took the kids up into Mt. Evans, just beyond the historic gold mining town of Idaho Springs for a hike. We hiked along a rushing creek, and afterward dipped our feet in the water when Nathaniel noticed several shiny golden flecks at the bottom of the creek. He put them on his finger to examine them, and though he assumed they were mica, he couldn't deny the very yellow metallic nature of them.

Quaint Little Idaho Springs

So we went back to Idaho Springs for lunch and stopped at the historic gold mine where they now run tours and sell merchandise instead of mining for gold. We bought a gold panning kit that comes with an instruction booklet and a bag of sand mixed with real gold ore flecks for practice. We then took our cheeseburgers back up the mountain and Nathaniel tried his hand at panning for gold... just in case.

The kit came with a tiny glass vile to keep your gold findings, and according to the current price of gold, we would only need to fill 1/32" of that vile each hour to earn an equivalent wage to Nathaniel's current job. So he tried it for an hour, and although he was proud of his newly developed skill manifest by his being able to leave nothing but the heaviest black iron sand in his pan, the gold flecks were the first to go, and no shimmering flecks mingled with the iron at the bottom. 

At the end of the day Nathaniel remarked that it appeared the gold rush happened all over today. People came from far away to try their hand in gold, but the only ones that really profited were the ones selling supplies, food, and lodging.

But in spite of repeating history and discovering the same results all over again, we at least cut the number of years it took the first time to a 90 minute venture. And now that Nathaniel can capture iron, we can start manufacturing skillets for sale. Check back here to purchase your own in about 20 years when we've collected enough iron dust to begin.

Field Trip for the Kids, Minus the Trip

Since we've been in Denver I've tried to find an outing to get the kids out of the hotel most days. Today I suggested Nathaniel sleep in a little and drive the car to work instead of walking because Addie decided to entertain us for an hour or two at 4 a.m. this morning. 

So that left me without a car. 

After the children had exhausted their artistic enthusiasm for the day I was just looking for something else for them to do besides watching PBS Kids, which is their default, when I discovered the magical method for bringing a children's field trip right to our door: pull the fire alarm.

I actually wasn't the one who pulled it, but someone did, so we all got to do a practice evacuation down 4 flights of stairs, and play outside in the courtyard where we heard the sirens of distant fire engines approaching. Once the inspection had been made and the alarm deactivated, we went out front to see the fire truck where the fire men came and introduced themselves to the children and gave them all Junior Fire Fighter Badges!

A Baby Sister for Adalyn!

The verdict is in for baby #4 and it's a girl! That makes a nice even spread for our two kids' rooms and I'm excited to have a friend for Addie Pie!

Mother's Day Feature: All About Grandmas

So here is our traditional Mother's Day video we make for our grandmas each year.

And this is the front of the card we made for them.

With 8 wonderful grandmas we like to honor on Mother's Day, it's nice to do something that can be duplicated... or "octipated".