Eclipse Colander

In 2017, we drove to Idaho to see the total eclipse the day before school started.

Last October, we drove to Fillmore to see the annular eclipse on a Saturday.

There was another total eclipse Monday, April 8. But we would have had to travel to Texas or somewhere else like that along the path of totality (not a one day trip). I didn't want to take the kids out of school and Jeremy didn't want to miss work. Plus I was super busy with stuff. 

We did get part of the eclipse here but Jet destroyed all of our eclipse glasses from October so no way to look directly at the sun. While Jeremy and the kids were all gone, Jet and I did go outside for a little while.

It did get a little darker and my sister reminded me of the colander trick. Have the sun shine through a colander and you can see the crescent shadows. We saw those through the leaves last October. We don't have leaves yet on our trees here.

Anyway, I was able to get a few eclipse pictures because of the colander so that was fun. And we did have that neat experience in 2017 with the total eclipse and the ring of fire in 2023. We're good.

Catch of the Day

Planned Power Outage... Again

We knew the electricity was going to be off again one day so we had some fun. Instead of going out that day, we stayed in and played games and made shadow puppets on the wall.

 

Lucky is pretty good with his shapes. Jet absolutely loved seeing them and interacting with them.

 

Even when the power came back on we kept playing and enjoyed ourselves.

Family time! Woohoo!

Vernal Holly Days

The day after Thanksgiving we celebrated in Vernal.  Jeremy was working at Vernal Holly Days so our whole family made the trip.  It is often very cold while Jeremy is there, but this time the weather was warm- the warmest Jeremy's ever experienced for Vernal Holly Days he told me.
We still dressed warmly in case it got cold.  That meant that when we went indoors to the bounce houses, I got to hold a lot of gear besides shoes- hats, scarves, gloves, etc.

There were a lot of activities at the event. 

 
Plenty during the day and plenty after the sun went down.

They had their parade of lights.  One float was from Dinosaur National Monument which we went to in August.

We also got to watch fire dancers.

And ride on a camel.

And close the balloon line for Jeremy.  Jr. Jr. loved getting to wear the "line closed" vest.

There was definite silliness going on

including dancing

and shadow puppets lip syncing to the holiday music that was playing.

 
On the way home, Jeremy and I switched off driving a couple times.  By the time we got to Heber, Jeremy had been driving but I was still not capable of driving at all so Jeremy stopped at Walmart to wake himself up by walking around and getting something to help him stay awake the last leg of the journey.
The kids and I slept in the van.  When Jeremy got back to the van, he showed me what else he bought- a couple movies that were still on Black Friday sale.  $4 each.  And he didn't have to deal with crowds.  Ha Ha.  That's how we do things.

We made it home really late and really tired.

Luckily the next day was Saturday so we were able to sleep in.  Phew.
It was a long day.

Fall Has Fallen

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Sigh.  Kids.  I turn around for... well... I forgot that I was typing out a blog post and someone or someones got a hold of my post.  So... let's start again... a long time after I started this post.
Time to catch up.

Tuesday, September 20, was National Punch Day.  I blogged about that.  What I didn't blog about was that it was also Pack Meeting for the Cub Scouts and Jr.'s den was putting on a carnival.  Fun for the whole family.

Wednesday, September 21, we did Family Home Evening.  We went for a drive around the lake.  It was nice and we got to see some raptors (the bird variety, not dinosaurs)- mostly red-tailed hawks.

Thursday, September 22, was the first day of Fall and it was crazy.  Rained off and on the whole day.  There was even a tornado in Northern Utah.  Crazy, right?

That night I got to go to another Girls' Night with my friends.  I made an apple pie for it.  Fun fall food, right?  Earlier in the day while I was making the pie, we listened to music from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings since September 22 is also Hobbit Day.

Saturday, September 24, I got to go to Super Saturday for Relief Society.  It was great to socialize and I made some key fobs.

Monday, September 26, we had Family Home Evening at the new Light of the World Garden at Thanksgiving Point's Ashton Gardens.  We'd been waiting years for this garden to be finished. 
Angela Johnson wanted to share her testimony through sculpting these statues depicting the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.  There used to be small versions of the statues so we knew what they'd look like when the full size statues were finished.  We just waited and finally got to see the finished products.
There are 15 scenes including teaching and miracles, His time in the Garden of Gethsemane, carrying the cross, resurrection and appearance to his disciples.  There were plaques at each of the scenes with scripture references on them so you could look up scriptures associated with what you see from the statues.  At the end of the walk-through area, you walk down a path into a small grove where there is a scene of Joseph Smith's first vision.  Beautiful.

While we were there, it also happened to be "dog days in the gardens" where people could bring their dogs to enjoy a walk in the gardens with them.
Some of our kids decided to pretend to be dogs.  Nichole even put Jr. on a leash.

Later that week, Jeremy and I went birding on a date

and the next day I got to go on a field trip with Jr. to This is the Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City.  The kids got to push and pull handcarts, visit a blacksmith's shop, go to school in the 1800's, and take a ride on a train.  It was neat to see and learn about how things were for the pioneers when they first arrived in Utah.

While I was with Jr. on his field trip, Lucky and Daddy had some bonding time.  They went to the library and picked out books and movies, they stopped by the gas station and got icees, and they watched a movie at home together.

October 1 and 2 was General Conference.  Saturday between sessions we went to a friend's birthday party.  They had a big yard the kids could run around and play in.  There was also lots of yummy food.

On Sunday, we had our traditional Conference nachos.

October 4 was Taco Tuesday- National Taco Day and it fell on a Tuesday.  Woohoo.  We ate tacos for dinner and Lucky watched The LEGO Movie twice while the kids were at school.  There was even a mention of "Taco Tuesday" on a TV show Jeremy and I were watching.  Tee Hee.

That week, Jr. Jr., Lucky, and I also got to go out for some well needed playground time with friends.

Also, Jr. Jr. got to play on a trampoline for homework and the boys and I had "shadow wars."

Nichole is learning to sew for a project for school so she helped me make juggling balls for our primary class.

Yet another thing I haven't mentioned on this blog.  Something that happened months ago.  After almost 4 years, I was finally released from being in the Primary presidency.  Jeremy and I were made teachers together, teaching the 4-5 year olds.  I was also given the calling of choir director.  And yes, we made juggling balls for the kids in our class.  The lesson was about talents.

We got to visit my sister Saturday.  The kids enjoyed playing with cousins and I loved getting to spend time with my sister.  There was a family reunion in September we were both at, but Jr. was feeling sick so it was not as relaxing at that time.

Finally to this week.
Monday, October 10, was National Cake Decorating Day.  For Family Home Evening, we decorated cupcakes.  It was fun... and messy.

Tuesday, October 11, was It's My Party Day.  We danced and lip synced to Lesley Gore's "It's My Party" and for dinner we had party food- pizza, pop, chips, more cupcakes, a veggie platter, and apple slices (I didn't want it ALL to be junk food) and watched Studio C.

Earlier that day, Jeremy and I took the youngest boys to Highland Glen Park to feed the ducks and found some other waterfowl we hadn't seen there before- a Western Grebe and some Ring-necked ducks.

Wednesday, Jeremy, Lucky, and I got out for a drive in the Fall colors and some birding.  That was nice and relaxing. 

This morning after dropping the older kids off at school, the two littlest and I went for a walk and collected leaves.  So many different colors.  I LOVE Fall colors.  I love how a tree can have different colors on the same tree, sometimes different colors on the same leaves.  When we were out for our Fall color drive Wednesday, I noticed a tree that had green leaves in the middle and the outer leaves were yellow.  This morning I saw up close leaves that were still green in the middle along the veins but the outer edges had turned yellow.  So beautiful.  Autumn is definitely my favorite season.

At some point during the last few weeks, Jr. carved soap for Scouts.  I took this picture later so I don't remember when it was.

There.  I'm done.  Phew.