Givan Get Aways and other Goings on

It’s been an eventful time at our house since last we wrote.  As you all know (or I assume the family grapevine has been working), I took a job with the Early Education Center and left my work home of 16 years, the Cosmosphere.  It was a much needed change.  I had a really nice going away dinner with gifts including 100 nice “fat” pens in purple with my name on them, 10 lbs of M and M’s and of course pigs.  It was sad to leave some people and others a relief.

  My pigs have joined me at my new job.  We (the pigs and I) have our very own office space with a real picture window.  In another week, children and staff return and then things will get very lively I’m told.  I worked at the Early Ed. Center before Kate was born as a para and in fact helped move into the “new” building.  It is still that building.

We have stray kittens at the house.  Mom cat, Anna Banana, gave birth to 4 butterballs and a gray kitten.  They have provided hours of entertainment.  We still can’t really touch them but are working on it so we can take them to the animal shelter.  Unless, anyone family member would like one.  Anna Banana was inducted into the Hutchinson Street Cat Society.  The organization will pay to spay stray feral cats.  She was spayed last week and had her ear clipped.  If someone brings her into the shelter, they will recognize the marking and can return her to her neighborhood. 

It’s been a record breaking summer for trips.  We went to Wilson Lake for dog swimming and a picnic for Tim’s birthday.  Well, actually we birthday picnicked at Ellsworth before heading to Wilson.  Some of the dogs liked swimming better than others and some didn’t even get to try.  Yes, my Ellie Mae remained at home.

One tired Barnabas

We also met Theresa and Chris in Greensburg to celebrate late mom and dad days.  It was fun.  We had a nice lunch, walked around the town, explored the big well and yes, played in the park.

This was the only thing left of the library after the tornado.  It still has the cards in it.

Up next in our lives, is fair preparation and the fair itself.  Stay tuned.

Spring to Summer - Wichita Shooks

We had a baby bird who adopted the boys for awhile.  We think he was learning how to fly and took a little longer than his siblings.  He was pretty trusting.  They both held him on a glove several times

We too enjoyed Minnesota.  We had smores with Square marshmallow.  Ummmm.  You should try it soon.  

We also played croquet on the flat area.  

Theo received the rest of his birthday present - his quiet book

As we left Minnesota, Tim and Erik and Samuel and I went to the start of the Mississippi river.  They all walked in it.  I took the pictures:)

Erik has been playing with the ultimate summer league.  This was their final game  He is in the center with turquoise shirt, light shorts and cap

 We also had Lora and Levi over with Pamey and Randy for a visit.  We listened to an audio tour of Wichita buildings and wrote on one of the chalk walls in old town.

Tim and Samuel were down in Austin, cat sitting while they were in Shanghai.  They visited Mustang island while there.

I think that is all of the exciting news.  Other activities are keeping the grass mowed and the gardens watered.

Greetings to all,  Love Tim, Vicki, Erik and Samuel

Update from Austin

Hello from Austin!

It's been awhile since we posted, so we'll try and catch you up.

The milkweed we planted over spring break provided a lot of entertainment as the caterpillars devoured every leaf on the plants and grew from a few centimeters to over two inches. Only one caterpillar decided to make its chrysalis where we could see it. It never even occurred to me that they would choose a place outside of our yard to transform :). I may get a butterfly cage for next season so we can see more of the transformation take place.

James and Carola (our sister-in-law) ran the Longhorn Run in April. The windows to the right of James' head are the windows to his office. Not for long, however, as he will be saying good bye this coming Tuesday and moving into a new office when we return from Shanghai. The school of social work is taking over the historic building and admissions is joining other related departments in another building.

May brought the end of school and of course spring trips and performances. The beginners performed at the Round Rock Public Library for toddler time, which was all sorts of fun. We provided sound effects for books like Sheep in a Jeep and How to Bathe Your Little Dinosaur. We played songs that they could sing along with like Twinkle and Are you Sleeping. To finish we invited the kids to come up and pluck the instruments, which they did hesitantly at first and then wanted to pluck them all! After performing, we went to a local amusement park and had fun riding go carts and playing mini golf and lazer tag. 

In June, we drove to Houston to apply for our Chinese visas and stayed long enough to eat a few really good meals and try a few local breweries. We also went to the Butterfly Center, which is awesome!

This is how the butterflies are sent from butterfly farms to the Butterfly Center. After they finish their transformation, they are released into the viewing area.

Here is one of the butterflies in the center. I'm not sure what type it is, though. Does anyone know?

Now that it's summer, I have tried pickling a few new things :). I've enjoyed pickling jalapenos and carrots, so this time I tried cucumbers and beets. We used the pickles on our grilled bean burgers a few days ago and they were pretty good!

For Father's Day and a family vacation we all convened in Minnesota. There is nothing quite like being on the lake. We enjoyed paddle boarding, kayaking, riding on the jet ski, sharing meals, and relaxing together!

Sunset

Sunrise

It's rare to have everyone together these days, so it was nice to grab a family photo before we split ways.

After Minnesota, I stayed in Chicago for a few days. I was able to see Mary's work on The Cher Show, where the costumes are incredible, and look who happened to be in the audience the night I saw the show! She was sitting in my row, five seats away!

I had a blast hanging out with Andy, Katie, Theo, Mary, Aunt Pam, and Aurora!

James and I are flying to Shanghai to visit Josh (the best man from our wedding) on Wednesday, so we'll post again soon with a few pictures from China!

Love to all,

Hannah and James

Chris and Theresa Update

I think with the arrival of Sunday, I am exactly one week late getting to this--sorry! One reason is our internet: besides our generally miserable service, we've spent the past week or week and a half at barely usable speeds. I was going to check to see if our connection was being throttled for having exceeded our allotted data, but I couldn't even get that page to load.

Theresa is semi-happily interning at the museum. The "curator" at the museum is understandably feeling threatened by the fact that we're asking her to share her work with Theresa and two other interns; she's long had a monopoly on the "system" she's used to catalog things, but that system has been totally inadequate. It's only recently been digitized, artifacts have been lost, and their storage is also of questionable quality. The interns are supposed to help catch up on a backlog of uncataloged objects, but the curator hasn't always been helpful in helping them. The two boys Theresa is with are also unused to office work and look to her as the adult in the room so she splits her time between mothering them to do their work and doing her own. On a happy note, she and the erstwhile director are planning a women in aviation exhibit (work she's been enjoying) and we've been trying to keep the interns out of the office for a day or two a week to give them a break. So she's gotten to physically explore the aircraft and help with various projects. Recently, she's learned how to drive a scissorlift like the one pictured.

I've been busy at work myself, not with formal education work (like tours and lessons) but refreshing and improving the museum's display on the former Liberal Army Airfield. This involves preparing the gallery for painting (fortunately I had a very dedicated volunteer working off community service hours to power through a lot of pre-priming prep work). I've sifted through old images and information to decide what the display will actually be, and I've got a volunteer captioning those images while a very talented local artist is going to paint me a full-scale B-24 for a background. The artist is also one of my favorite volunteers, a very sweet lady who reminds me a little of Nancy Shears.

^ Before

^ After

On a related note, the museum board agreed to finance the purchase of a turbocharger I found with a vendor in England. It's from a B-24 or B-17 and was made by Allis Chalmers for GE. It'll be the largest B-24 component the museum has on display when it arrives. To get it here I'm also learning a little about import laws and the process of importing items.

Finally a reminder that we occaisionally post pictures to our own blog at www.TeamGivan.com/family. We've been distracted from that recently (between some very frustrating car repairs, the internet speeds, and our immersion in work) but should have some more pictures for it very soon!