Science Fair Winner

We have a winner folks!  Emily came home from school a few months ago so excited about the upcoming Science Fair at her school.  She wanted to do a science project so we went to work.  We talked about all of the different projects she could do and she finally decided on doing one with flowers, her favorite things.  The title of her project was: "How Flowers Grow with Different Liquids."

For her experiment, we bought three dianthus plants and watered one with orange juice, one with grape soda, and one with Kool-Aid.  We wanted to see which plant would grow and which plant would not.  Her hypothesis was the orange juice plant would grow but the other two would die.  After "watering" the plants for one month with one cup of liquid every other day, we compared the results.  Emily's hypothesis was correct.  The orange juice plant grew and did well because of the vitamins and proteins in the OJ.  The Kool-Aid plant started to die because of the sugar content.  The grape soda plant died and turned purple and red because of the color dies, sugar content and carbonation.

We helped Emily practice what to say to the judges and she even put together her own board.  She was so excited for the school Science Fair.  I took her to school on the day of the Science Fair and then waited out in the hall for her because parents were not allowed in while the judges were interviewing the kids and judging.  After a few minutes, Emily came out so happy.  I asked her how it went and she said fine.  Then I asked her what she said to the judges and she said she couldn't remember.  That was all she said about it but she was still excited so I assumed it went well.

The next day was the award ceremony:

Emily won first place in the Kindergarten division!  We are so proud of our little smarty!  Emily was so excited to win first place.  She showed everyone her trophy and told everyone she saw about her project.   Because she won first place, Emily qualified to take her project to the District Science Fair held at Dixie State University.

The District Science Fair was April 30.  This was the real deal.  There were tons of Science projects from all of the schools around St. George.  Once again we waited in the hall while Emily was interviewed and judged on her project.  That afternoon was the award ceremony.  Unfortunately Emily did not place in the top three but we think she got fourth place at least!  She was really sad about not winning but we told her she was still amazing for making it to District.  To celebrate we took her out for frozen yogurt at her favorite place, Menchies.  That made everything better.  

The next day at school an award ceremony was held and Emily was given a certificate for being in the District Science Fair.  Emily was really happy about that.  

Emily has already been thinking of ideas for next year's science fair.  We will see how it goes.

Congratulations Emily you did a great job on your project!  We are so proud of you.

Cotton Days

Washington City always holds a Cotton Days Festival every year to honor the original settlers of Washington City.  Since we are living in Washington currently, the kids and I decided to check it out.  We went during the school field trip days so we got to hear presentations from different members of the community.  We learned about molasses makers, cotton weavers, how to make ice cream, and we even planted a cotton seed to take home.  One fun thing was seeing the tractors on display.

These tractor tires were so big the kids could fit inside of them!  They loved seeing all of the different kinds of tractors and learning how they were used.  

We also saw some fun wagons and a stage coach used way back when.  I could not imagine moving all of our stuff in a covered wagon!  I guess that is why they didn't have many material possessions.

After the demonstrations, we helped Lacie with the luncheons each day.  She was in charge of feeding all of the volunteers and city workers helping with the Cotton Days.  It was fun helping her and hey getting some of the leftovers wasn't bad either.  Happy Cotton Days!

Southern Utah Half Marathon

I ran my second half marathon this Saturday and let me tell you, I felt much better about this race than I did about my first half marathon.  I don't know if it was because I was better trained or what but this was a great race.  

The race started at the Highland Park in Washington and finished at the Bloomington Park.  The course was relatively downhill or flat the whole way which is always a good thing!  First we ran down the Telegraph hill where we were able to pick up some speed.  We then connected to the trail system and ran through Washington, Washington Fields, St. George, and on to Bloomington.  The weather was cold at the first and then it started raining.  Luckily the rain stopped as I got to about mile 4-5 and was just overcast the rest of the way.  That made it nice because it wasn't so hot.  It ended up being the perfect weather for a race.

Here I am still going strong along the course.  The first picture is at about mile 8 and the second is at mile 10.5.  I was kind of disappointed at the mile 8 aid station because it was right at the bottom of a hill and I knew if I stopped to get a drink, I would never make it up the hill so I just powered through the hill and kept going.  I also grabbed a few of the GU's they were handing out at the aid stations because that stuff is not cheap!  Hee hee!

And here I am powering to the finish line!

I made it!!!  My actual chip time ended up being 1 hour 53 minutes so the gun time was a minute off from my time.  I was so excited that I was able to drop 9 minutes off of the time of my last half marathon.  I averaged an 8:39 minute mile in this race.  

Here I am with my running buddies after the race.  We all did a great job.  Good job, Shawna and Sue!  Now on to a full marathon?  Maybe...

Family Fun Bike Ride & Kite Festival

This was such a fun Saturday.  The city of St. George put on a Family Fun Bike Ride for kids and families.  The kids had been looking forward to this for a long time and they were really excited to ride their bikes in this fun race.

The great thing about it was that the ride was free and the kids got free T-shirts and bicycle helmets too.  I was glad about that because Emily and Colby had outgrown their helmets and Logan needed one.    

We rode with the Smith's.  The kids love playing with their cousins, Braxton, Brielle, Ryder, and Kelton.

Here we are at the starting line.  On your mark, get set, go!  And we were off.  We started at the Tonaquint Park and rode along the trail to the Spinney Park and back.

The ride was 3 miles long and the kids were real troopers for riding that far.  Russell rode with Emily while I pulled Logan in the trailer and stayed with Colby.

Even though his little legs were pedaling so fast on his little bike, Colby rode the whole 3 miles.  He did so well.  He got tired but after taking a few breaks to rest, he was able to finish the race.  I was so proud of him.  Emily also rode the best she could too and finished the race too.

After the race, we enjoyed the great after race food of Go-Gurts, Popsicle's, and brownies.  We also played at the park for a while before we decided to head to the annual Kite Festival.

Emily had been reading a lot lately so that she could earn her free kite at the Festival so we had to go pick it up and of course fly it.

We had a blast flying our kites and running around.  Emily chose a pink panda bear kite as her free kite and she was so proud of it.

We also rode on the fun cow train:

While at the Festival we ran into Aunt Janet and Brinley.  Janet took the kids on a ride in the train.  They absolutely loved it!  Logan was all smiles and all of them squealed as they when down the hills.

As we walked through the vendor booths we got to meet the motorcycle policemen and ride on their motorcycle.  We also got to meet Captain America!!  The boys were so excited about that.

What a fun family day!

Jacee's Pageant

Jacee participated in the Washington City Princess Pageant this weekend.  She did so well and she was so pretty!  Emily thought this pageant was the best thing ever!

Here she is in the evening gown portion of the pageant.  She did a great job.

That's right, for her talent, Jacee played the drums!  A girl after my own heart.  I helped her prepare her talent a little bit so it was fun to finally see it performed.  Jacee played "Eye of the Tiger" and totally rocked it!  In fact when she was done everyone in the audience was cheering and someone even called for an encore!  She really did do a great job.

All of the girls gave great performances and did a great job.  We were all kind of surprised by the winner but we won't go into that...  Any way Jacee did very well and even though she did not place, the pageant directors said they were rooting for her and wanted her to tryout again next year.  We also told her to try again now that she kind of knew what to expect and had a little more experience. 

After the pageant we all celebrated by going out to eat.  It was also Becca's birthday so we actually had two reasons to celebrate.  Great job, Jacee!! And happy birthday, Becca.  Thanks for the fun night.

Happy Easter!

Easter was really fun this year but we were still trying to make the adjustment to living in a different house.  In fact every night Colby has asked me or my mom, "Do we still live with Grandma?"  This funny boy has been so confused but I know he will get used to it soon.  The fun part about it though was sharing our Easter traditions with Grandma and Grandpa Morwood.  Our first tradition: Coloring Eggs:

We loved having Grandma help us color our eggs.  They turned out so colorful.  Logan liked to dunk the eggs in every color to make really colorful eggs.  Colby was very meticulous on only having the best colors for his eggs.  Emily, of course, only wanted the pink or purple colors for her eggs.

Here are our final eggs.  Beautiful!  Yes we had three casualties mostly due to Logan's over zealous attempts.

The next morning we attended the Washington City Easter Egg hunt where the kids got tons of candy!

We also got to meet the Easter Bunny!  The kids were scared of him at first but finally warmed up enough to get a picture.  I was glad we went with my parents because there was no way I would have been able to get all three kids to their designated areas by myself.  

That afternoon was the annual Morwood Easter Picnic.  It was so good to see everyone again.  Emily even played her first game of Morwood Baseball and hit her first baseball by herself!  It was such a fun game and we played all day long!

These two little knock heads had a blast playing together too.  Cole and Logan are inseparable when they get together.  Here they are riding Logan's motorcycle.  Logan is very particular about who rides his motorcycle and usually it is no one but himself.  There was quite a fight over the motorcycle for a while until they realized they could both fit on it and then it was all fun.  At one point we caught them going Mach 90 down the hill with the biggest grins on their faces saying "Weeeee!"  We all laughed until we realized they were headed straight for a building!  Luckily Jacob was able to run fast enough and catch them before they hit.  Boy were they mad about someone stopping their fun!  They played around for the rest of the day.  Colby also tried his hand at baseball but mostly spent the day playing with his cousins on the playground.

Sunday morning the kids got a visit from the Easter Bunny.  They were worried he wouldn't find them now that we sold our house and were living with Grandma and Grandpa.

The boys loved their parachute men and airplanes and Emily was excited to use her huge pencil on her school homework.  They also loved the Robin Eggs and Peeps.

That afternoon the rest of the family came over for dinner and our annual Easter Egg Hunt.  We always do way too much candy but the kids love it so it is fun.

Look at all that loot!  We will be eating candy for days.  I can't believe how big these kids are getting!  I love making these kinds of memories.  Happy Easter!