Parley and Sean at school

Sean and Parley came to school for Community Helper's week. Isaac was excited from the second he heard about this plan. Miss Terry told the kids about their visit and explained a little about the job of an avalanche rescue dog and a ski patroller. One of the kids raised his hand to ask, "The guy you're talking about, does he live in outer space?"

It was very cool of Uncle Sean and Parley to visit us on their day off. What a couple of heroes!

Skiing report cards are out...

Here's a movie of everybody skiing.  http://youtu.be/gTH595V3dfM

Jovie can do the green runs by herself and Ikey can do blue. It's just starting to be pretty fun!

Jovie passed off the first two levels in ski lessons, so she'll be on the green team next year. 

Ikey passed of the green level. Everybody made their goal this year!

Happy Valentine's Day

On Valentine's Day, I took the kids skiing by myself. We made it onto the lift and off the lift and down one run of High Meadow, then Jovie quit. She was sick this week, and I guess she wasn't totally better by Friday, so that was enough for her. We tried to gas her up with a cookie stop at the lodge, but she wasn't going to go up or down again, but Ikey wasn't ready to stop skiing. 

Me: We can't leave Jovie alone here while we go ski.

Ikey: Can't we leave her with one of the people at this table?

Me: We don't know the people at this table, we can't just leave Jovie with a stranger.

Ikey: Can't Jovie introduce herself?

The scene ends with me carrying three pairs of skis toward the gondola and Ikey dragging on the snow while hanging onto my foot. Jovie was kind of cheerfully skipping along.

We'll try skiing again, but we'll make Jovie promise to do more than one run. I hope it works better next time.

Ikey is a shaggy dog and he needed a haircut.  He brought a ship made of legos to show Mr. Stanley. Mr. Stanley makes model airplanes and he asked Ikey to make an airplane next time he comes to visit. Jovie found this cute heart-shaped leaf on the sidewalk in front of the barbershop.

We all went to school on Valentine's Day and the kids handed out cute Valentines that I designed and they cut, folded, signed, and stickered. 

This is the sign Jovie came up with to decorate for Valentine's Day.

I think it's supposed to say LOVE, XOXO, HUGS, or KISS. SLUG is an unexpected Valentine's message. TB gave me a cool yard art item (I really do love those!), the kids gave me balloons, and we gave TB a big dark chocolate bar, plus cheese blintzes for breakfast and meatloaf for dinner. 

Chocolate! at UMNH, plus other Valentine's Day adventures

Ikey finished another drumline, so his prize was a trip to the Chocolate exhibition at Utah Museum of Natural History. The third floor of the museum smells very chocolate-y and the display was really interesting. Be careful, because there's a chocolate gift shop right by the display which will (essentially) force you to buy a lot of fancy chocolate, but they'll staple your gift bag closed so you can't eat it until you're out of the museum. Sneaky.

I signed people up to vote at a Utah Film Center screening of Inequality for All at the Viridian Event Center and West Jordan Library. It is a very cool venue. We're making a family activity of going to all the city and county libraries this winter.  

Bald Eagle Day at Hasenyager Great Salt Lake Nature Center

It was a relatively short drive to Farmington for Bald Eagle Day at the Wildlife Management Area. It was a chilly, rainy day, so we dressed up in snow clothes. Ikey looked for brine shrimp in a fish tank. We found some. 

Unfortunately, over fifty bald eagles have died from West Nile Virus in Northern Utah recently, so DWR decided not to throw out carp to feed them this year, so there weren't big flocks of birds. We didn't see any bald eagles, just a great horned owl and red tail hawk at the nature center. 

 We went on a little snowy hike and found out we were the only all-weather hikers at the event.

Stone family party

We scored an invitation to the Stone family party.  We feel like we're part of the family.  They were running a full-on pizza making factory. 

Jovie sat on Hannah's lap during most of the party. They might be the most interesting people in the world. I'd talk to the two of them all night.

Mitch, Ikey, Marsha and Todd

Heidi, Emma, Mary, Jovie, Hannah

Tom and Elijah set off some floating lanterns like on "Tangled" and it was enchanting. They discussed starting their Christmas tree on fire in the back yard, but I don't think that happened.

Hardware Ranch for Elk Viewing + Hyrum Museum + Maddox

We took off an hour and a half later than we meant to, and we had to stop for donuts, and then back home to pick up our coats, mittens, and hats. So when you go, be more careful packing your car than we were. We were diverted off the freeway near Smith & Edwards so we had to drive 0 miles an hour through Perry until we got to Sardine Canyon. There were ten collisions involving 29 vehicles on I15 that morning (good thing we were late!), so they gave up and just closed the freeway, which made our drive about three hours long instead of one and a half. After Sardine Canyon, we turned up Blacksmith Fork and it was such a pretty drive! We saw lots of wild turkeys, snow flurries, and the Hyrum City Hydro Electric Plant that's been in service since 1931. 

 We arrived at the end of the paved road where the parking lot was full (but not too full) of snowmobiles because the mountains are full (but not too full) of snow. We checked out the sparse displays at the visitor's center and purchased our sleigh ride tickets. We hiked back down to the elk, and found that the sleighs have wheels instead of sleds. 

The cowboys and girls told us a lot of information about Hardware Ranch's elk feeding efforts which they've been doing since 1945 to encourage the elk to avoid the Cache Valley, which was their historical winter feeding ground. 

We stopped at the cool old cabins by the Hyrum Library and visited the museum too. We got an interesting personal tour by a history graduate student and the kids entered a drawing contest. They wrote their names and my phone number on their entries in their very own (slightly illegible) handwriting, so I'm not expecting a call. 

Since we'd only eaten donuts that day, we were starving.  So we took a break at Maddox in Perry which is the finest food establishment in far northern Utah. We had steak and burgers and we were quite full.

We headed home at the end of a nine-hour adventure and we liked it, although it's more worth it if you were to drive three hours round trip instead of four and a half. Of course, the little kids are good travelers and I like their company wherever we find ourselves.

Here's a movie of the trip: http://youtu.be/pRnlR5SnmvQ