Hong Kong

I thought I'd post some pictures of Hong Kong. After a week long trip to Asia the company extended our stay for a couple of days. So it's back to Hong Kong for a couple of days.

One photo is of crysanthemum bonzai trees in Tokyo. The other pictures are from the market in Hong Kong. Of particular note are the dried deer tongue, the fried chicken feet, and the flattened dried ducks. Oh, and the fresh fish!

Community Newsletter

I have been working on a community newsletter for Menan. We are starting a non-profit organization to help coordinate county and city efforts and increase involvement and interest. You can see the rest of the newsletter at menan.community blogs.us.

Help!!!

I have been captured. Please help!!!!
(This picture was taken at Menan's Heritage Day on Sept. 19))

Boundary Waters 3

Kurtis walking the trail.

Dad with photographic proof that fish were caught...

and fried, in a very dramatic fashion, by C. If you look close you could see the hairs on his forearms curling.

And some very fancy-looking food was dished out, garnished with "backwoods lobster".

Boundary Waters 2

Ralph showing proof that the load was shared over our 5 portages.

And Dave, wondering why there's so much walking on a canoe trip.

And Dad making sure that we don't go hungry (fishing poles) and make it out alive (first aid kit).

We all had a chance to carry the canoe on our shoulders. Here's C doing it in style.

Boundary Waters

From 9/3-9/8 I went to the Boundary Waters (along the US/Canadian border) with Ralph Whitesides, C Whitesides, Dave Lund, Dad (that'd be Dave Johnson) and Kurtis Tucker (the other counselor in our ward young men's presidency). The trip was great. Here are a few pictures.


We camped the first night on the shores of a quiet lake just outside of Ely, MN.

This was taken from the short of the campsite on Knife Lake where we spent most of our time. The weather was clear and warm with some beautiful sunsets.

And sunrises, here on Moose Lake as we paddled out on our last morning.

Here's a shot of our campsite on the night before we paddled out (more to follow).

Catchup part two

Quinn on his first day of preschool at the YMCA. Backpack? Check. Folder? Check. Not exactly the exhaustive supply list the Davidson's needed to start school (I wasn't quite sure what a Pee Chee folder was until I found it on wikipedia) but Quinn was super excited.

We managed to finish a project that Quinn and I started last summer - a mountain for cars. Quinn was constantly bunching up blankets to make mountains to drive his cars on. We made a wood frame, covered it with chicken wire and paper mache. The kids did the landscape painting and I put on the roads the night before we took this video.

Catchup

This is a quick recap of the last few weeks. Summer blurred quickly into winter with a dusting of snow a few nights ago. We picked our pumpkins and finally gave in to buying a leaf blower as the leaves came raining down from our neighborhood trees. As the trees loose their leaves, the grass finally sees some sun but the front yard is barely visible underneath the fallen ash leaves.

Aunt Hil and Gran visited while I was at the Boundary Waters with C and Ralph. Thanks for some great pictures (courtesy of Hil and Gran) of the last few days of summer. Here are Quinn and Max riding up our street.

And Mae catching the sunlight.

Max, Mae, Quinn and I rode bikes (well, I pulled them in our long-haul bike trailer) to a nearby nature center for a fall festival. Decorating cookies (and eating the frosting) was a favorite.

Parker's Eagle Scout Project

This week the city called and needed some trees planted. Parker was able to us it for an Eagle Scout project. It worked out well and now all he has to finish is some merit badges. We had a good amount of boys come and Kurt and Thomas also came to help. It's nice to have an Eagle project just fall into your lap.