Practice

Our school district made the choice to have students back in school when the school year starts. They will be wearing masks at school so we're slowly introducing mask wearing to get used to it since most of us don't get too close to other people right now so we haven't had the need to wear them and wow, that was a long sentence.

We went to Rock Canyon Park and had everyone (except Jet) wear face masks while we were there.
Of course you can't go to that park without running up and sliding or rolling down the hill (at least the boys).

Someone suggested we go up and around to get back to the van. I'll have you know I pushed that stroller all the way up that steep trail. Jr. helped toward the end with one particularly tricky part. Thanks, Jr.

I'm king of the mountain.

We definitely got our exercise that day and the kids had a good attitude about needing to wear face coverings.

Summer Reading

We finished the Summer Reading Program for Orem Public Library. There were a lot of last minute activities and books read. It was fun. Here are just a few of the activities we did toward the end:

Take home activities: Paper tomato for La Tomatino Festival in Spain. The game, Achi, from Ghana. Paper penguin from Antarctica.

Homemade mandala. This is Nichole's.

Family flag.

The Washington Memorial made from LEGOs and in Minecraft.

Everybody say, "Summer Reading Finale!"

They had a drive-through finale this year. It was an interactive trip through the continents once more.

I was very impressed with the social distancing that was followed. All the librarians wore masks and did different things to entertain us, from kangaroo (plushie) crossings in Oceania to squirting us with squirt bottles in the "rain" forest of South America when we honked.

We went past several works of art from Europe and through a jungle curtain of Asia.

At the end our team got a goodie bag with doodads and we each got a mini bag of M&Ms. Our team also won one of the drawing prizes- a Playmobil seal with pups. Cute.

I love the Orem Library and it was great to see some of the librarians in passing even if I didn't get to spend time chatting with them (that's something I love about the Orem Library- the helpful and friendly librarians).

Oh well. Some day.

National Junk Food Day 2020

July 21 was National Junk Food Day. Nichole had been wanting to try a recipe we saw on YouTube, BBQ Chicken Ring, so she did that day. Yumm.

Lucky: It looks like a sun.

Later that night, Jr., Nichole, Jeremy, and I watched some Doctor Who and ate pretzel sticks, marshmallows, and chocolate chips. Yumm.

Speaking of junk food, we celebrated actual National Hot Dog Day on July 22 with some of us eating hot dogs.

On a non junk food note, I wished my mom and sisters a Happy Gorgeous Grandma Day on July 23 though they are not all grandmas. It was a group text so they all got the message.

Monday Moonday

July 20 was Moon Day. We had Family Home Evening where Jr. Jr. gave us a really nice lesson about following the Spirit amid distractions. We set up an obstacle course where a blindfolded person had to follow the sound of a bell to get to the end but other people were trying to steer them the wrong way by telling them falsehoods.

For treat we had Moon Pies to celebrate the holiday.

For our activity, we had a DANCE PARTY! And got credit for a Summer reading program. Jr. put on Plants vs. Zombies music and that was great music to dance to.

 Lucky got into the dancing most of all. And he really did. It was a good Family Home Evening.

Kids Make Dinner: Take 4

One of these days we're going to get it. Mom's going to have a relaxing break. Kids are going to make a balanced meal with everyone getting to make what they plan with no last minute substitutions or just not making something. One day it will happen. 

In the meantime, here's what happened another time the kids made dinner. Three of the four children planned on dishes that required the oven. Jr. made Ancestor Pancakes, Jr. Jr. didn't get to making baguettes/French bread (which is quickly becoming a family favorite when we do have them). Jr. helped Lucky prepare steamed broccoli with lemon juice. Nichole made peanut butter cookies from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner. We didn't have Hershey's kisses but we did have chocolate melties so she used those. Totally works.

I'll admit FaceTiming with Grandma and Grandpa and uncles did distract from food making a bit, but some of the kids did learn from last time and got an earlier start with the food preparation.

A Failed (and not so failed) Adventure

When Jeremy and I were teenagers, we both had the experience of seeing Hale-Bopp comet that passed Earth. It was a bright comet easily seen with the naked eye.
Recently we heard of another comet, NEOWISE, that could be seen with the naked eye. A friend of ours got pictures one morning up Nebo Loop so we thought it would be awesome to go as a family to look for the comet.

We all got up really early because the sun comes up earlier in the Summer and drove up Nebo Loop. We got up to the spot we planned to look but unfortunately we couldn't find the comet. The sky was getting lighter and lighter. We drove to another spot and still couldn't find it. 

Sadly, sometimes plans don't always work out. The children were so tired, they fought, but I tried to encourage them. "You don't always get the blessings you expect but you can recognize blessings in your trials." We were up there for a beautiful sunrise. We were able to hear beautiful birdsong. We had time with family. We reminisced about that time three years ago we got up super early to drive to Idaho to go see the solar eclipse. 

Nah, it still didn't work. The tiredness won out and certain people stayed cranky. Oh well. We did see a hot air balloon as we were driving through Orem and could still see it when we got home, though, so that was another neat thing.

At a later time, Jeremy found that NEOWISE comet could be seen better at night. That same friend who saw it up Nebo Loop said she drove up West Mountain and got pictures up there. So my awesome husband planned out another trip for us and we drove up a non-scary gravel road (the road itself was not scary, not like other roads I've been on for birding trips. One of our children was uncomfortable with the drop off on the side of the gravel road, though) and we kept going up and up and up to the GPS coordinates our friend gave. It was a nice pulloff area probably used for camping. There was no drop-off where we were so I was not scared of the kids getting out of the van. In fact, Lucky and I even walked a little ways while Jeremy was setting up the tripod until Lucky pointed out spiders to me. Nice big spiders that reminded me of our trip to Antelope Island in August last year.

It was so nice up there. We had dinner before we left and the kids weren't nearly as tired. We let them take devices so when they weren't outside looking at the skies, they were in the van playing games and not complaining. Everybody got along, it was a beautiful sunset and view, we were able to hear birds (Jeremy heard a common poorwill and I heard what I think was a rock wren), and guess what. We saw our comet. As the sky got darker and darker and away from the lights of the city, we were able to see it better and better. It helped that there was no moon that night. All of us were able to see it (except maybe the baby who wasn't really looking but was still there for the experience) with the naked eye and even better with binoculars and we got pictures!

 click on the pictures to see them larger

Unfortunately, the camera Jeremy was using was still set up for the time lapse of the balloon build from the library so the pictures weren't the best quality but we still got pictures and we had the experience and our memories.

I'm on top of the world. 

Me taking pictures of the spiders.

Jeremy taking this picture of the sunset. Heh Heh.

Jeremy took some time away from the light pollution to take pictures of the arm of the Milky Way.

Nichole took some pictures of the city lights across the lake behind us.

She also got a picture of a cricket we saw on the ground near where the tripod was set up.

Driving down wasn't as scary since you couldn't see the drop-off in the dark and the gravel road of course was still good. Jet had some trouble because he was tired, didn't want to be stuck in the car seat, and just wanted Mommy (he's been particular and clingy lately). Nichole, Jeremy, and I sang Primary songs to him as we were driving and he eventually settled down and fell asleep.

It was a good family experience. I'm glad the kids did well (until we got home then some of them didn't want to go to bed and complained about being hungry and thirsty and the normal bedtime stall tactics). It was worth it, though.

Success!