Bonding Time: Museum Trip

January 21 was National Granola Bar Day. After school, Jet and I went down to BYU and sat in the van eating granola bars while waiting for Nichole to meet us after her class.

Then the three of us went into the Bean Museum to celebrate Museum Selfie Day.

While we were there we also celebrated Squirrel Appreciation Day

and National Hugging (National Hug) Day.

We let Jet be in charge to lead us around the museum until it was time to go. It was enjoyable.

I love bonding time! 

Exploring Somewhere New

One day, the kids and I made the trip to Wasatch Mountain State Park over by Midway. We may have driven through it once when coming back from Cascade Springs, but we've never been there.

I read some blog posts about it from Utah's Adventure Family, and wanted to take the kids to explore, so we did. We stopped by the duck pond at the visitor's center to see some birds. We saw a great blue heron flying in and landing by the reeds. After watching some barn swallows flying around, we saw a bald eagle flying close to the water then off into the distance. That was great. Those things are big. And they're not as common in Utah in the Summer. We expect to see them more in the Winter. So that was exciting.

We drove up to Huber Grove next to look around. There are pioneer buildings and informational signs about pioneers who lived in the area. They also have some nature trails so we all went walking through the woods then through the grasses where we got attacked by burrs, but mostly Jr. His pants collected the most so we all helped to get them off of him.

While we were in the grove of apple trees, a group of turkeys came for a walk near us. Two adults and several youngsters. They weren't bothered by us and we didn't do anything to bother them, just watched and took pictures.

Before we left that area, we had a snack in the van while listening to birds and watching squirrels run around. Then we drove to another place in the park where we thought about going hiking but it was too hot and we didn't get too far before we headed back to eat lunch in the van before driving home. The kids were done.

I enjoyed the trip with the kids and definitely want to go back. It's a lot closer than Antelope Island State Park (which we love) and I could definitely do more exploring.

That evening I went to a Relief Society activity. There was a chocolate fountain with things to cover with the chocolate and plenty of pleasant conversation. It was appropriate for National Junk Food Day on July 21.

Hug a Squirrel Day

January 21 was National Granola Bar Day. I told the kids they could have a granola bar for after school snack and if they wanted a second, they could eat a mandarin orange first. Several of the children took that to mean they could eat as many granola bars as they wanted throughout the evening and give lots to Jet while I took a nap.

Sigh. Oh well.

We also celebrated National Hugging Day (or National Hug Day) with hugs and the kids watched Flora and Ulysses for Squirrel Appreciation Day.

Spring Break- Wednesday

This day was so action packed it gets its own blog post.

We started out early in the morning to head to the Henefer Lek to listen to and watch the sage grouse displaying. It was fun to take the whole family this year. Most of the kids have never gone (like I said it is an early morning trip). It worked out. Jet mostly slept through the whole sage grouse part of it. He started stirring as soon as we got to the lek. It's not so good to have a baby crying while you have windows down. We got him back to sleep, though. 

The boys in the back seat were content because they had devices. 

They did pause to listen to and look at the sage grouse from time to time.

 

Nichole, Jeremy, and I were content because we had a camera and binoculars.

There were a bunch of grouse near the road so we were able to get a good look when we were on our way out. 

After the lek, we headed over to East Canyon Reservoir. It was coooooold.

There were plenty of birds and ground squirrels to take pictures of, though. I even got to hear a loon in real life for the first time ever. I've been wanting to and I did. I was so happy.

We picnicked in the van at another spot along the reservoir. Since I forgot to bring out the Twinkies the day before, we celebrated the anniversary of the invention of the Twinkie Observed on Wednesday and had them with our lunch. While we ate, I gave the kids a background about how the Twinkie came to be.

After the reservoir, we stopped at another reservoir, Deer Creek, to look for more loons. There were at least a couple and guess what. We heard another loon calling. Eeeeeeee. I was even more happy. Two loons at two different reservoirs. Yay! 

Jet was ready to be awake by that point so we decided to go somewhere where he could run around. We went to South Fork Park. This is what we got when we arrived. 

This

vs this

Eventually everybody got out so we could get family pictures with Flat Stanley.

This is what happens when you get out so early in the morning. You fit a lot in. Jeremy and I were even able to get a nap in after we got home before we had an Easter Egg hunt in the back yard. Much different from last year when Jet could barely reach the eggs on the living room floor.

He even enjoyed playing with the empty eggs after we got back inside (we had the kids empty their eggs into ziplock bags so we wouldn't have all this candy sitting in eggs for so long).

So it really was an action packed day. We haven't had one of those in a while. I'm so glad it worked out.

 

By the way, April 7 was National No Housework Day. Perfect day for all of this. It was also National Walking Day. Perfect for running around at the park. It was also World Health Day. Getting out in nature is so good for our health.

Winter Signs

One day when Nichole didn't have school at the school building, Jeremy, Jet, Nichole, and I went out to Mt Timpanogos Park to look for a bird. We didn't find that particular bird but we saw other things. There was a squirrel standing upright on a rock for an awful long time. Nichole was able to get pictures of a Downy woodpecker that landed in a tree close by.

We walked one direction through the park then walked back along the Provo River Parkway. When we got to the bridge that crosses to Canyon View Park, Jeremy pointed out the sign next to it.

Jeremy: You can tell they put this sign up in the Winter.

Kristin: Canyon View Park. Brrrr.

Kristin: And they were too cold to put the rest of the Rs on it.

Later, as we continued walking along the trail, we came to another bridge with a sign.

Kristin: Timpanogos Park. Brrr.

Jeremy: I'm telling you, it gets really cold here in the Winter.

After that, it became a "thing" to find other "Winter" signs. There are quite a few of them that can be found along/near the Provo River Parkway, but only in the canyon. I made a point to look for them as I made my trek along the trail.

I had to go back to get pictures from the first part of the trail since I had already walked it before this experience and didn't know to look for the signs.

When Jet and I were waiting for Jeremy to pick us up after our walk from Bridal Veil Falls to Canyon Glen Park (see previous post), we walked around the park. We crossed a couple of bridges that had "Winter" signs. One sign said "Canyon Glen Park Lower. Brrr." The other said "Canyon Glen Park Middle. Brrr." We walked all over the park but I just couldn't find an "Upper" sign. It wasn't until the next section of the Parkway when my suspicions were confirmed. "Canyon Glen Park Upper. Brrr" was above the park as part of the trail itself. I had left the trail where it first connected with the park (it connected in a few different places) so I missed the sign the first time.

Note: Since we went looking for Winter signs, a fire started that went into Provo Canyon and burned a lot of area in there. So please enjoy the pictures on my blog from before the fire.