Philmont

So there I was, planning a trip out to Denver to stay with my sister while Justin went to a conference.  Suddenly she is moving that month (just 2 months earlier than they thought) and we can't stay with her.  What do I do in Denver with four small kids by myself, well all I can think is. . .
I WANNA GO BACK TO PHILMONT!

Yes indeed.  We left Justin in Denver and headed South to visit Grandma and Grandpa at their vacation home.  The kids had a blast.  Sam told me as we left we should come every year, maybe even twice a year.  That's a long drive out here I told him, to which he replied: "Yeah, but it's totally worth it!"  As a bonus for me, they never once played with electronics from when we dropped off Justin until we picked him up again.  And they did great.  They played soccer out in front of the duplex, made up their own game of steal the flag with rocks (we only had to add one rule for them: no throwing the rocks), ate cereal for every meal, and just played together.  I didn't hear hardly any whining and Sam didn't even do much reading while we were out there.  I loved it!!

So here are a few pictures of our trip there:

Tuesday night was Family night at PTC.  The kids learned how to lasso, got their faces painted (there was no line, that's why), and played bean bag toss games. Later there was a staff ice cream social.  "Best way to start a Philmont trip."  

 Wednesday we were able to join in activities at the PTC shooting range.  Sam and Hannah got to shoot with a bow and arrow, BB guns, and slingshots.  Sam hit the bullseye in archery and with a BB gun.  He was so excited!!

 Michelle came along and played photographer since she was a little too small to shoot anything.  She got plenty dirty, as they all did that day.

 Grandma had planned ahead and had a craft project they got to do.  I tried to distract Ben and she helped each one of them build a creature.  And yes, we were all wearing long sleeves that morning, it was cool, no rain but cool.

 We got to see some wildlife, besides my kids.  The hummingbirds were all around the duplex.  It helps that there are three or four feeders on that porch.  They are always fun to watch.  We saw deer right next to the chapel.

 Craft time at Handicraft.  Ben slept through the leather stamping but woke up in time to join painting.  There was no letting him skip this and even when we declared him done he was furious that we were washing the paint off his hands and taking him away.  He did a pretty good job and his shirt is still wearable (he refused to wear an apron).

Then because the staff is so nice and everyone loves the chaplain, the kids got to go on pony rides and feed the goats and hold the chickens.

When I asked the kids what their favorite part was, they loved it all.  I heard comments all week of this the greatest day, best day ever, etc.  Who can argue with that.  And as an added bonus, the kids went to chapel services twice (essentially a Sacrament service two nights in a row).  And sat really well, minus Ben who lasted through half a service, but it was his bedtime.  Sam even completed his "homework" that Grandpa assigned of memorizing the 4th verse to "I am a Child of God."

We loved the trip!  I'm glad my kids had such a great time.  I have such wonderful memories of Philmont from trips there as a family.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for letting us come and invade the annex, we love you and hope you get to keep going to Philmont for a long, long time!

And as I sit here and remember all those times, from this past week to past years, all I can think is . . .
I WANNA GO BACK TO PHILMONT!!!

Solar Eclipse

We made a super quick trip (under 24 hrs total in S. Utah) to go and be at the center line of the annular solar eclipse.  Okay, we didn't go to Kanaraville, but we weren't far away.  No crowds to lose children in, convenient bathrooms and yummy goodies all easily accessible.  It was a quick trip but it was really fun!

Here is Jared sporting his foil hat to protect him from . . . something.  I forget now.  Michelle just told me something about Jared and the aliens so it probably had something to do with that but I don't remember.  The kids liked his hat and played with it if he wasn't wearing it.

Justin made a pin hole viewer.  Pretty cool.  The image is different than if you were looking right at the sun through the solar viewers (and I don't remember exactly why, something about how you view images and focusing them, etc, etc).  Justin and his friend Bill contemplated making the garage into a giant pin hole projector but the garage didn't get dark enough and they opted to not put a hole through his parents garage door, smart boys.

Here are the kids sporting their viewers and showing how much fun they were having just playing with each other.  Especially since they got to play in the back of Grandpa's truck. 

The biggest bummer for Justin was forgetting his camera so these pictures all came from my cell phone.  This one was really cool, in the red spot you can see the eclipse.

We took this opportunity to learn about eclipses and the kids were very excited that we would get to see the "ring of fire."  Sam, who regularly looks through the newspaper saw an article about the eclipse and what you would see from SL area versus S. Utah.  He was very happy we were going to S. Utah.  And we were able to use our solar viewers later on to see the Venus transit.  Again, no photos, but this tme the photographer was working late.  Sam and Hannah ran down the street to get to a place without shadows since the clouds didn't part until about 8 pm.  It was cool to see.  I'm quite happy that my children like these science things.  It's fun!

Sam's Baptism

This has taken me awhile to get up but the picture was on a different camera.  On Easter weekend Sam was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was a good time.  We had a lot of family come and support him.  And what a great weekend for a baptism.  I am very proud of him and how much he has learned.  He is a great role model for his sisters and brother. 

We did try to get a family picture that day, and this is the best we got.  There is everyone!
Congrats Sam and thanks to everyone who came and supported him.  For those who helped with the confirmation, I have to tell you Sam was filling out a journal sheet that asked who was in the circle, his answer: a lot of old people.  Now you know what he truly thinks of you all.  :)

Sam's quilt

This is my first finished quilt, ever.  And it only took five years!  The fabric was picked and pieced long ago (hence the little boy kind of feel to it).  Then I very slowly started quilting it together.  I know you can't really se the quilting.  That was done on purpose because I thought the fabric was so busy I didn't want to quilting making it even more so.  Each block is hand quilted with a picture of a car, truck, tow truck, or front loader.  Here's my hint to anyone attempting their first hand quilting project, pick a simple design and go with that.  I LOVE hand quilting.  I really do but this was definitely my learning project.  It's finished up with the yellow "lanes" down the denim sashing strips and the binding is th backing fabric to make it easy for me.  Sam loves it, of which I am glad, and I am extremely happy to have a quilt that is completely finished. 

There are several tops that are waiting in line to be quilted and finished, hopefully they don't take five years.  :)

Sam's SPY birthday party

Sam decided he wanted to have a spy party this year.  He invited several of his friends to come to a spy training camp at our house.  We started with some decoding practice (side note-there are three boys in this picture that are left handed!!), secret messages with lemon juice and map work.  At each thing they recieved a portion of a marshmallow shooter.

 

This is the "laser" course.  On the far window sill was the biggest section of the marshmallow shooters.  They had to crawl and climb through our crepe paper lasers to retrieve it.  This was a huge hit until they were torn down in battle.
 

They assembled the shooters and had a great time rearranging the pieces and shooting all the marshammlows that I would give them, recyling any that they found.  We also did rockets which I will have to post some time because those were a huge hit with the party and then when we did them with the cub scouts recently, and super easy.

Happy Birthday Sam!
 

Start of March

A couple of different pics for the month of March.  To start off we celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss with green eggs and ham for dinner.  Remarkably this went over fairly well, although Hannah's face doesn't look like she was convinced.  Yes this was dinner, we often do breakfast for dinner at our house, it's less complicated that way.

 

I had to include this picture just because it is so funny and so my kids.  Ben wanting Hannah to not hold on to him and then the girls just being funny.  Love it!
 

And then we had Sam's birthday.  Wow, I have an eight year old!  And he is very excited to be in cub scouts.  I have been doing pack meetings for a couple of years, and Sam is excited to be coming as a scout now.
 

Can you see his excitement here?  He was absolutely thrilled to get a glove and ball.  Now everyday as soon as Dad gets home he gets asked to play catch.  Or soccer, or tag, or chase Daddy, or anything really.

There's a couple of pictures of the start, up next, Sam's birthday party.

Digging Holes

We have a new project this spring, or so the kids would have you think.  It looks like we are planning on doing something with the back part of our yard where we haven't done anything with yet.  Well, that's not entirely true.  We did put down carpet last summer and covered part of it with bark.  The carpet is ground cover and it works really well for our backyard.  Now it looks like we are working on something.  And the answer is . . .

A fabulous hole.  It's getting deep.  According to Sam, they have reached the ocean level and are getting close to the lava level.  (I wish I could remember the exact words he used, he knows his terms.)

So what are we going to do with a hole that is 12-18" deep?  The kids think they are going to sleep in it this summer when we camp outside.  I love it, I am almost willing to let them try.  This hole was originally started as part of worm farm.  Sam was looking for worms to collect so that we could put them in the garden.  Now it has grown (and I think they are already through the layer likely to have worms in yard, Sam did say today they had reached clay--really, you think so?). In the meantime we did think about showing them other places that they could dig and then planting trees in their holes.  So this is how they spent two hours of the day today, not only on the hole but playing outside.  I can't complain with that.