Lucky Shot

 

Rationalizing Birding

I mentioned in January that Nichole was taking digital photography again. She entered several (about
11) pictures in a photography show at the high school. She got honorable mention for a Photoshopped photo of her brother as fairies.

 

That picture and one she took of a burrowing owl were on display in the art hall for a while before the show.

 

Here are some of my other favorites from the photography show:

 

One morning, Jeremy and I took Nichole out to Manila Creek Pond. You know... so she could get some photos of Common loons and Caspian terns. We just happened to enjoy watching the birds, too. The terns are so fun to watch as they dive in to get fish in the pond. We were there early enough to hear the loons calling, too. I loved it.

There were also Canada geese and mergansers and mallards and cormorants and a killdeer I kept hearing and finally spotted.

 

The things we do to support our children.

But Before Friday the 13th...

I told you it's been chaos.

I failed to blog about Peculiar People Day which was on January 10. When I told everyone that holiday was coming up but I only had orange soda on the menu plan so far, Jr. jumped in suggesting we have green jello with carrot shavings. Nichole suggested we have honey garlic chicken for our main dish. She pointed out that we always happen to have that dish when she has an event so she either has to eat it later or only has time to eat a small amount. Well, it just so happened she did have something going on that night but I was able to make dinner early enough she was able to get enough to eat before she and I left.

She was getting recognition and a certificate for having some art up in the school district offices. Apparently it was a piece she did in art class her sophomore year that her teacher submitted to the district art show.

We had quite the weather on the way up (luckily we made it in time) and on the way back. It was a very rainy night and reminded me of Oregon Winters. 

Nichole is taking digital photography again so she's supposed to be taking pictures. She used my phone to get some pictures as we traveled home in that weather.

Prehistoric Creatures Day

Everybody say, "Dinosaurs."

Last Wednesday we headed to Dinosaur Island at Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point. "Escape to Dinosaur Island." 

We've been planning this for months since we knew they were going to have dinosaurs all over the gardens (it turns out they were animatronic dinosaurs). We were especially excited to bring our dinosaur loving youngest child. 

That face says it all.

 

It was awesome. We loved it. It was fun to guess the dinosaurs we could see in the distance before we reached the informational signs. Some we got right, some we didn't.

Pachycephalosaurus I recognized since that was my brother's favorite dinosaur growing up. He was so into dinosaurs when we were kids. Being around my own children right now reminds me of that. They've all kind of gotten into it with Jet.

I guessed Edmontosaurus for these dinosaurs up ahead. As we got closer and saw the informational sign and the "nest" with hatchlings, both Nichole and Jr. said, "Of course, because Maiasaura means 'good mother'." Told you they've gotten into it.

 

Jet recognized several dinosaurs. Not surprised. We brought along some of his toy dinosaurs as well. Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, and T. rex.

I love this picture that Jr. Jr. got. It totally reminds me of the first Jurassic Park movie. "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

Look, it's my favorite dinosaur, stegosaurus.

We even got to see a stegosaurus plate fossil and Jr. Jr. got into a nice discussion with the lady holding the plate and talking to us. She was impressed that our family already knew so much.

As June 15 was Nature Photography Day, we photographed not just dinosaurs (check out this picture of Lucky hiding behind flowers to get pictures of a Utahraptor- nature photography, tee hee).

We also photographed flowers and birds, especially a Cooper's hawk.

 

And Lucky got pictures of the nearby windmills for Global Wind Day.

There was lots of smiling for Smile Power Day. I love dinosaurs! They make me smile. So does my family.

Dinosaur Island was awesome!

Later that day, Jeremy and I watched The Meg to celebrate National Megalodon Day. My mom recommended the movie to us and when she found out we were going to watch it to celebrate the holiday, she watched it, too, in her own home. So fun. Definitely need to suspend your disbelief with that movie and understand that it's so predictable but it was not nearly as gory as Jaws so that's something.

I love how it worked out to watch a movie about a prehistoric shark on the same day we went to see prehistoric creatures at Thanksgiving Point.

Cuteness and Accomplishments

I do "Baby Cuteness" posts often on this blog. It's time to share some cuteness and accomplishments from the other children.

In no particular order:

Jr. Jr. got silver medal in the Read-a-thon for his class at school (It was Olympics themed). He came home and was so happy to show me his medal and to say how happy he was for the student who got the gold medal because that boy put a lot of work into reading so much during the event and he deserved it (Jr. Jr. put a lot of minutes in himself).

Jr. was a student of the month for November at the junior high. His English teacher praised him for helping out so much in class (helping other students, straightening desks and chairs up without being asked) besides doing so much more than the required work.

The youth in our ward put on a talent show. They wanted to show both performing arts and visual arts. Nichole brought some of her drawings. She made a coloring page for people to have. 

She also juggled and she and Jr. put on a puppet show with her crocheted puppets. Those two together put on some entertaining puppet shows.

 

The Young Women collected recipes then asked the girls to make one of their dishes to share when they got copies of all the recipes that were collected. Nichole sculpted a cheeseball. Well, she started with one cheeseball that turned into three fairies. She expressed that cream cheese is a lot easier to sculpt than clay.

When we were in quarantine, Lucky missed out on some projects at school so he colored a hinged skeleton at home and hung it on a door. It looked really good.

 

Jr. wanted to support a friend in the school play so he went to watch it and had such a great time. His friend played the Grinch in "Seussical Jr."

I mentioned that Nichole is taking a digital photography class this semester. One of the things she needed to do was get pictures of water splashing/flying through the air, that sort of thing. I was her helper. At one point I tried to throw the water straight up but I ended up throwing it more back than straight up. Oops. I guess that is more "cuteness" on my part but hey, Nichole was taking the pictures.