The Weekend of the Apples

We in the Coder household have just lived through a momentous time. Not the Year of the Scorpion, not the Month of the Dandelion (you like that? No, it's not a real thing, I just made it up. But, yeah, it's good enough to have been a real thing. Maybe. Well, you may thing this is just another totally random and non-essential parenthetical rabbit trail. But I don't want to put thoughts in your head) - oh no. Our past few days have been prodigiously dubbed the "Weekend of the Apples" *queue dramatic music*. Yep. A week or so ago, a crazy trip to Hood River resulted in this: 

(In case you're wondering, the smell is heavenly)

Namely, twenty-seven hundred pounds of apples taking up residence in our garage. (Actually, originally there were forty-five hundred, then some friends came and picked up their two bins, leaving us with three, two of which were ours, the third belonging to a soon-to-be-named, family of friends who, upon taking their aforementioned third left us with two, the weight of which was approximately eighteen hundred pounds - but I'm getting to that.)

What does one do with hundreds of pounds of apples, you ask? Allow me to inform you: "One" makes apple cider! 


Soo yum!

Where was I? Oh yes, the Weekend of the Apples *queue dramatic music*. With hundreds of pounds of apples, and mouths watering for a sip of freshly-pressed cider, we invited our awesome friends the Spaffords over for a little cider-pressing fun...

                 

...which soon turned in to some friendly-competition-cider-pressing-fun...


The Little Girls' Team (Megan, Madeline, and Ania)



They were a wee bit short for the wheel, so their
heroes (the big bros) had to help

  

Then The 14-Year-Old Team (JT and Kayleen)



(In case you're wondering why Ben and Jonathan are in almost every shot and seem to be doing...something...with every team: they were necessary to stabilize the press because of the great speed as which the teams were cranking out the cider!)

The Mama Team!!!

Aren't they great? :)

The Awesome-ness Team (haha - that'd be me with the...hair, and
Charae with the beautiful smile!)

 
This is "The Boys Team" and - though I know this breaks your heart - it is my unpleasant duty to inform you that they beat the stellar, unbeatable time Charae and I set. But, rest assured, if we were them, we could have beaten us, too. :D

In the end though, the ultimate, Cider-Pressing Champion was (drum roll, please), Daddy! Single-handedly, he schooled "The Boys" by having the the best time by 30 whopping seconds! Sadly, the only picture I have of this strapping specimen of a man is at the beginning of the post, pouring cider for the taste-testing! We made over 15 gallons Saturday, followed up by another 10 or so Sunday afternoon. It was truly a crazy, yummy, full-of-fun, Weekend of the Apples *queue dramatic closing music*. Now we only have about 500 pounds left to process! I feel a "Weekdays of the Apples" coming on.

*queue dramatic music*

Off the Face of the Earth - Part 1

A week and no post? I bet you thought I'd dropped off the face of the earth (because of course, you noticed and missed me, right? Right)! Well, you're just about correct, for I've certainly had a glimpse of heaven since last I blogged. The Heritage Bible Church Family Camp took place Labor Day weekend - and what a fun-filled, fellowship-packed, iron-sharpening time we had!

Camp preparations began (for me) on Tuesday, when I jumped at the opportunity to accompany and assist with the grocery shopping. Let me tell you, skating through Costco with a couple filled-to-the-brim shopping carts is an experience worth paying for. :p  We repeated the adventure on Thursday, when we shopped for the cold food items, and Friday morning I was actually at camp!

It's nigh-impossible to know where to begin in describing camp. I got to see and hang out with my dear friend from St. Louis (they moved away two years ago, but came back so two of the girls could get baptized with our church family):

Volleyball is the game of choice at our camp. We have the speed volleyball tournament Saturday morning, the teams-of-four volleyball tournament all weekend, and if you happened to stroll by the gym at midnight on any of the evenings, your ears would be greeted with cries of "Service!", "Mine!", loud thumps, and cheers.

Saturday is the truly crazy-packed day. After morning prayer meeting, breakfast, and chapel, there's the speed volleyball, apple bobbing...

First the Little People

Then the big girls (I abstained in order to take pix :)

...and then the big boys...

Then, of course, sack races!! Meggers almost didn't want to do it, but she finally agreed at the last moment to run with me in the open-ages girl race. :)

Hmmm...I think the person who borrowed my camera was having too much fun... :)

After these, there was the traditional egg toss, and then (drum roll, please) Family Challenge! This year was fantastic because it was actually hot outside, and we got to add a water-on-your-head relay to the team challenge. So much fun! I only got pix of one station before I got way too carried away with the competitive spirit decided I should help out more with the games.

Two barrels...

A small wooden roller...

A rope...

...and two, 3 ft. square mats - could you get over 20 people across 100 feet without touching the ground? :)

Little girl friends

Waiting for their turns

Explaining the difficulties of eating while talking on the phone? :)

Top Saturday off with the side-splitting talent night (videos coming...soon. :) And it makes for one, long, more-fun-than-you've-ever-had day.

Spring Break Has Begun!

Rachel, in her...interesting...outfit. :)

It really began about a year ago. No, not Spring Break - I mean that what I'm about to tell you about began a year ago. To be completely honest, I don't remember all the particulars. Was it that Emily had been looking at joining a Christian flimmakers group, or that Ben had just completed the soundtrack for a friend's movie? Maybe it was simply that we were being, as always, incredibly over-ambitious in the discussion of creating a full-length film (have you noticed that ignorance can often appear as arrogance?).


Either way, Daddy overheard our conversations at one point, and came up with a challenge: Project Spring Break. At 6 am one morning during our week off school, we were handed an envelope containing a theme-word, a deadline (6pm the same day), and a $26 budget. Our goal? Plan, film, and edit a 5-minute music video.


We. Had. A. Blast.


So much so, in fact, that we decided to hold a 'Family Film Festival' that summer, with remarkably similar guidelines. All participants were given a 12-hour time frame, beginning when I posted the word and ending when they were required to show up at our front door, DVDs in hand. It was...an adventure. Each family had their unique story of catastrophe, and no one made the deadline exactly (in fact, two of us holed up in the bonus room for the final minutes of burning). Actually, I take that back. One family had impeccable timing, but that doesn't make quite as good of a story. Anyway, adventures are rarely anything but fun, and we decided a repeat of the experience was definitely in order.


So here we are, at Spring Break one year later, and the second Family Film Festival has just concluded. We tweaked a couple of the rules this year, just for fun. Instead of a "skin-of-the-teeth" twelve hours, we were given nearly 60 (that is to say, the weekend) for this film! In addition, 'music video' was not the required format, though it maintained the 'format of choice' status for most entries.


Despite these o-so-cushy guidelines, however, we the Coders managed to still not finish our DVD until the last minute (*ahem*, that is to say, after guests had arrived). 'How could you be so negligent?' you may ask. Well, I blame it entirely on circumstances "beyond my control" (does anyone know that movie quote?? :). You see, we diligently planned, costumed, stage-propped, and filmed all day Saturday and all afternoon Sunday - we were, bluntly, done with all but editing (and one scene, but that hardly counts, you know).


Then, the unthinkable happened.


And all the filming was worth...


Worth nothing, strictly speaking.


You see, at 12:30 last night - or this morning, or, something - I had just finished uploading all our footage and was doing a quick play-through to make sure it had transferred correctly, when I noticed the most curious lack of sound on the footage! O dear, our in-camera mic had decided to take a holiday - or move away, or, something - and all we had to show for the last two days of work was a silent movie, minus the black-and-white and o-so-dramatic music. So, I roused the house (after going to bed for a couple hours, of course), borrowed a friend's video camera, and the movie you now see before you was filmed, uploaded, transferred between computers, edited, and burned between 9:45am and 5:30...ish...pm today. Enjoy! - or cringe, or, something - :)

I hope to have the other entries posted on Shutterfly by the weekend. Happy Spring Break!