Car Wash

I haven't blogged because last week was Screen Free Week.  I'll blog about what we did later.  For now, I want to say what we did for our Family Home Evening activity this evening.  This was fun.
We ate treats while going through a car wash and listening to the song, "Car Wash," by Rose Royce.
It was simple but it was a blast.

 Most of the kids hadn't been through a car wash before.

Dancing with Birds

April 29 is International Dance Day.  We spent the day birding with some dancing thrown in.
We went to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.  There were birds... and there was dancing.

 Jr. didn't want to dance but demonstrated what it is like when you've danced too much.

We went to Golden Spike National Historic Site.  There were birds... and there was dancing... and rabbits.

Jr. has been learning a lot about Utah history this year so this was pretty neat to visit a place that has an important part in Utah's history.

We went North searching for short-eared owls.  There were birds... and Jeremy and I were doing a happy dance on the inside when we found short-eared owls.

Good birding and good dancing day.

Pretzels and Plays

April 26 is National Pretzel Day.  Lucky and I (Jeremy helped) made homemade pretzels to eat while watching The Jungle Book as a family. 

We watched it for Family Home Evening tonight since we weren't able to have FHE on Monday.  The reason?  Jeremy, Jr. Jr., Lucky, and I went to watch Nichole and Jr. in their performance of the play, The Jungle Book.  They both did such a good job.  It was fun to watch.  Tuesday, they performed again and Jeremy went to watch it again.  I stayed home with Jr. Jr. and Lucky.  Monday night, Lucky came down with something unpleasant and he was resting and recovering Tuesday evening.
Jr. played a crocodile- part of the jungle chorus.  Nichole played part of Kaa the snake.  We couldn't get a picture of her in her full costume since she's attached to 5 other people, but it was awesome.

This was Jr.'s first time doing the school play.  He did such a good job- he was very enthusiastic in his singing and dancing.  Nichole continued to do an awesome job with her second school play.  Last year she was in Aladdin.

Jelly Beans!

April 22.  National Jelly Bean Day.  Read a book while eating jelly beans?  Why, yes we will.  Thank you very much.

Dance Party!

The library's reading ideas calendar had this for today:  "Play music and dance to the beat.  Stop the music and have your child freeze."  The kids and I did this tonight and we had a blast.  We put on several songs and they were pretty good most of the time about freezing when the music stopped.  Sometimes they were laughing and making so many sounds that they couldn't hear when the music stopped, but it was still fun.

I love at home dance parties.
By the way, we did read some books later as well.

Spring Breaking at a National Park

April 7 of our Spring Break was National No Housework Day.  We left home behind and spent the day at Zion National Park.  The kids were real troopers getting up so early in the morning and getting home so late at night.  Since Jr. is in 4th grade this year, he was able to get a special pass which lets him and his family get into national parks for free.  Woohoo.
We did some hiking, some birding, some shuttle riding.  It was great.
We saw lots of cacti and Jr. Jr. had so much fun pointing out every time he saw a cactus.  "There's some cacti."  "There's more cacti."  "There's more cacti."

A highlight for Jeremy and me- seeing a pair of California Condors.  Wow.  That would be the rarest bird we've ever seen.  At one point the total population of California Condors in the world was 22 individuals.  With conservation efforts, that population has grown to over 400.  They are still endangered, but we were able to see two at Zion.

It really was a great trip.  The kids had fun (though you can't always tell from the pictures).

The adults had fun as well.  Good family time.

Garlic Day 2017

April 19 is Garlic Day.  
Garlic bread?  Spaghetti with "cheese and garlic" spaghetti sauce?  Why not?

Eating with your fingers instead of a fork?  Why not?