First day of school

They posted the class rosters while we were on vacation.  Luckily, we arrived home on Saturday night early enough to go and check out the class lists.  Andrew is in Mrs. Esparza's class and Claire is in Mrs. Rice's class.  They were both really excited that a lot of their friends are in their classes.

 

 

We were able to go and take a picture at Claire's door, but Andrew's classroom is behind a gate so we didn't get a picture there.

 

Claire picked her outfit for the first day.  I was surprised that she picked pants and not a dress, but she quite likes skinny jeans.  She also let me curl her hair.  I love it curled, but she doesn't like to sit for that long while I do it.

 

The first day of school and picture day are the only times I can get him to wear a collared shirt these days. We were hoping that his 4th grade teacher would be more understanding about the amount of homework that is given.  So far, so good.

 

Of course, Grant wanted to be in the picture.  Next year he will probably start preschool and he can get a sign too. 

 

There were tons of parents at the school the first day, so it was a bit chaotic.  I stayed with Claire in her line and Danny went with Andrew.  Claire's teacher came through the line and met everyone. 

 

Mrs. Rice let us come into the classroom to see where everyone would be sitting.  She found her name and was so excited that she already had a pencil box and supplies.  There were some other kids who were crying a bit as their parents left, but Claire did great.  She is so excited to learn new things, especially how to read better.

 

Here is Andrew in line with his friend Zachary. 

 

I took the day off so that I could catch up on everything like laundry before heading back to work, so was able to pick the kids up from school.  My friend Sara watches Andrew and Claire after school and these are some of the kids they hang out with on the play ground before heading home.  We are so happy that Sara can still watch the kids since she just had her fourth over the summer.  They love being able to play on the play ground and in the field after school.

 

 

We headed to McDonald's for an after school treat.  Overall, it was a great first day.  They like their teachers and their classes, so let's hope this continues.

 

Summer adventure day 15 - Home again

We were able to spend the morning and afternoon with our cousins in Visalia.  Mandy had a friend who was on vacation but let us use her pool.  The kids were more than happy to play and swim.  Luckily, Grant was feeling much better this morning.

 

 

Claire actually told me to take a picture of her as she jumped off the diving board.

 

The raft was a hot commodity.

 

 

They had a really shallow part with an umbrella in the water - nice!

 

Grant loved the water shooter.

 

We went back to Ryan's house and had pizza for lunch while Andrew, Landon and Isabel played pickle.  They played this game the last time we were there.  It doesn't seem to matter that it is crazy hot outside.

 

Soon it was time to head home.  We had been gone for two weeks and the kids were starting school on Monday.  We didn't want to get home late Sunday night right before school started.  So we left in the late afternoon to go home.  We were going to be back in Visalia in two weeks for Isabel's baptism, so that helped things.  I should have taken a picture of everyone when we got home, but we were so excited to finally be back.  We were greeted by lonely Hannah.  She was even happy to see Grant.

 

Overall, we had a wonderful trip, we traveled about 2400 miles through 6 states and were able to see lots of family and friends.   We saw 15 temples and learned a little about each one.  We did a lot of fun things and created some life long memories.  Overall, I would say the trip went better than planned.  The kids were really good in the car and were troopers for all of the activities we had planned.  It is hard to believe that summer is over so fast and that it is time for school to start.  We'll have to see how we can top this one!

Summer adventure day 14 - Utah to Visalia

We woke up on Friday morning and reluctantly loaded up to head home.  Grant was sad to leave Jasmine and for some reason I got a picture of this but not a picture of us saying goodbyes to our cousins.  We had decided to go the southern route home in order to go see Ryan on the way home and because Danny had not driven that way before. 

 

 

But first we had to go to the only temple that we hadn't visited yet in Salt Lake Valley - the Draper Temple.  This temple sits fairly high on the mountain on the other side of the valley from Rose's house.   It sits in a very nice neighborhood with some huge houses around it.  It was finished in 2009. 

 

 

On the way down I-15, we passes the Payson Temple.  It is still under construction though. 

 

There were quite a few hills heading down to St. George.  Don't mind the chip in the windshield - that has been there for a while.  Beautiful skies of clouds. 

 

After lunch we went to the St. George Temple.  There were wedding pictures going on, so we had to stand off to the side to take a picture. This temple was actually the first operating temple in Utah and the longest operating temple.  It was completed in 1877.  It was started and completed after the Salt Lake Temple was started. 

 

 

After we took pictures we went to get gas and as we were on the overpass getting back on the freeway, I saw this view of the white temple against the red sandstone.  Luckily we were stopped at a light so that I could get a picture.  This temple is actually made of the same red sandstone as the cliffs, it is just plastered white.  I love that there are no buildings blocking the view.

We soon hit the Arizona border - our sixth state on our trip.

 

The road runs through a gorge which was really pretty.  The pictures don't do the colors or the size of the mountains justice.  This would be the last interesting part of the road for a long, long time.

 

 

After a brief trip through Arizona, we were back to the desert of Nevada.

 

Since we were passing through Las Vegas we decided to stop by the temple there.  In hindsight it was farther than we thought out of the way.  It sits up against the base of a mountain, but you have to take a lot of city streets to get there.  The streets weren't through the best part of town.  Plus it was 106 when we finally got there.

 

 

As with the Bountiful temple, the trees cover the building from where the sign sits.

 

So we moved to the side to take another picture.  This temple was completed in 1989.

 

 

Moroni up top.

 

A view down the street over downtown.  You can see all of the casinos from up there.

 

We sat in a bunch of traffic trying to get through Las Vegas, but we didn't attempt to do anymore sightseeing because we still had 5.5 hours more of driving to get to Ryan's house.  Finally back to California.

 

There were a lot more hills to go over as we headed through the desert.  Grant fell asleep late in the afternoon and when he woke up about 2 hours later he did not feel good.  Apparently you can get car sick while sleeping.  The road from Barstow to Bakersfield seemed to take forever.  Part of it is only 2 lanes and with trucks it was slow in parts.  Plus there were more mountains to go over.  Grant threw up so many times I lost count.  I finally had Claire go in the back and I sat next to him.  Luckily we had our handy bottle of Febreeze that we had purchased when he got sick in Idaho.  Needless to say it made 5 hours seem like 10.  We finally arrived at Ryan's house at 10:00 pm  We were so thankful to not be driving anymore.

 

 

Summer adventure day 13 - This is the Place

The kids started off the day with some ipad time while the adults got ready. 

 

 

Just add in more kids as they get up!

 

My cousin Erynn came over to visit and Claire and Elaina were in heaven looking at baby Nikki.  They wanted to hold and touch her.

 

 

Here is a picture with Natalie and I with our kids and my cousins Laura and Erynn with their kids. 

 

 

Claire and Elaina on the porch. 

 

We decided to head to This is Place Heritage Park.  It is at the base of Emigration Canyon in Salt Lake City.  It is here that on July 24, 1847  Brigham Young said, "This is the Place, drive on" which was the end point in the pioneer journey from Nauvoo.  From up here you can see much of the valley, although it was a bit hazy the day we were there because of some fires. A statue of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith.  Although Joseph Smith was killed before this journey, they had spoken about moving west to avoid persecution in the east.

 

 

The monument is 60 feet high and has statues of not only Brigham Young and the pioneers but also the fur trappers, Spanish explorers and other missionaries.

 

 

This statue is called Journey's End.  This sculpture depicts a handcart pioneer family kneeling in prayer at the end of their journey.

 

After seeing the statues, we headed into the Pioneer Village.  It is made of buildings and homes that were relocated or replicated from various parts of Utah to depict what life would have been like in an early pioneer town.  This is a replica of the Eagle gate that is in downtown Salt Lake City which was made in 1859.  We soon found out that there was a lot of stuff for the kids to do in the village. 

 

 

I love this!

 

The first stop was a train ride around the park.  It was challenging to get on with two strollers, but they gave you a brief introduction to the park and some information about some of the buildings.  This was Brigham Young's farm house.  Apparently he never lived here, but used it for visiting guests and dignitaries.  It was originally built in Salt Lake.

 

We got off the train and went to our first activity.  This boat represents the ship Brooklyn which went from New York to San Francisco.  They left in February of 1846.  It look them almost six months to arrive in San Francisco.

 

Right next to the ship was an area where the kids could do gold panning.  They were all excited and intent on finding gold.  We told them to not get upset if they couldn't find anything.  But soon we noticed that one of the workers was throwing gold in the stream when the kids weren't looking.

 

They were so excited to find their gold and show it to us.

 

The best part was that they got to bring it home.  Probably much like it was in 1849, later there were fights about missing and stolen gold.

 

 

In the park the kids got to pick three activities they wanted to do.  They punch your bracelet after each activity, but since we also had 3 activities per adult we were able to do extras.  At this Indian Village they made Indian necklaces.

We went to the print shop and the kids saw how they used individual letters to create sentences and then paragraphs.  They also showed how they spread the ink on the letters and used the press to create the newspaper. 

 

We did some leather working where they were given small pieces of leather and they could pick out a metal rod with a design on the end.  When they pounded the hammer the design transferred to the leather.  Surprisingly, no one got hurt doing this.

 

 

Even Grant did it.

 

Next we headed to the bank.  In the case were several examples of early money in the US and Utah.

 

 

Andrew  wanted to hold Mateo up so that he could see inside the booth.

 

Next door was the shaving parlor.  We didn't know what to expect inside and went in to take a look.

 

It turns out that you can volunteer to get in the chair and get a shave.  I was surprised when Andrew volunteered.  He said it tickled when they put on the cream.

 

Then the barber "shaves" it off and offers the clients some after shave.  Apparently shaving parlors could also do tooth extractions and many other things.

 

 

Even more surprising was Grant volunteering to get shaved.  He sat there very still and loved it.

 

The school house was across the street.  This one dates to 1865.

 

 

There were rows of benches where the seat is attached to the desk behind it.  There was also slate for writing. 

 

Grant and Mateo wanted to get in on the learning too.

There was also a farm and small petting zoo.  The kids were fascinated by this cow you could milk.  It actually had water in it, but the kids could get the idea of how to milk a cow.

 

Then there were pony rides for everyone.  Grant wasn't sure at first but he actually liked it.  I had to walk along side the horse with my flip flops which doesn't seem like a good idea now that I think about it.

Claire and Elaina would have done this over and over.

 



 

 

We headed over the blacksmith shop next.

 

 

They were actually heating up and bending metal in the shop.  The kids listened and watched as the men told them what they were doing.  Andrew stayed in here for a while with Danny while I went on with the little kids. 

 

They had several cabins that you could walk through.  It is amazing to see how small they were inside.   

 

They had never seen an outhouse and had a hard time understanding why it would be outside.  Ah, the marvels on indoor plumbing!

 

We did a craft with paper inside the halfway house.

 

Look how red their faces were, it was really hot outside and they had been running around.

 

The pioneers were singing out front.

 

A pioneer showed them how to scrape wool in preparation for spinning it into yard.  They wanted to use the spinning wheel, but luckily that wasn't allowed.  That could have been a disaster.

 

Next up was pioneer games.  Here you take the metal ring from a barrel and use a stick to push it along as you run beside it.  It took a bit for them to get the hang of things, but once they did, they were running up and down the street.

 

There were other pioneer games they played like trying to walk on stilts.  This was quite hard.

 

 

This is a reproduction of Smoot Hall where Brigham Young University started.

 

Supposedly this is actually the spot where Brigham Young said "this is the place".

It looks over the valley and you can see the other monument.

 

The last stop was the hospital, it was basically a large room with many beds inside.  I like the beds though.

 

One last statue on the way out reminds us of how many pioneer children there were and how hard their lives were as well.

I think that the park gave the kids a really good idea of what it was like to be a pioneer and how they managed to survive without modern conveniences.  We were quite dirty walking around the dirt roads the whole day.  Believe it or not, we didn't even see everything!  We headed back to Rose's house for a BBQ and to start packing for the long drive home.  At least we weren't walking!  When we got back Grant fell asleep on the carpet at the edge of the air mattress.  He was so tired after all that fun.