Snow!

The last couple weeks it has been snowing.  We have not had any snow this winter until now which is kind of strange. Oh well, we took advantage of the snow this week by playing in it.  First on Saturday we went snowshoeing up Blacksmith Fork.

The boys didn't want to come because they were being lazy, I guess, so it was just the girls and Russell and me.  We trekked a total of 3 miles in our snowshoes and it was the perfect day for it.  The sun was out and it was beautiful in the canyon.  On the way back to the car we saw a large herd of elk on the side of the mountain.

The kids have also been having fun in the snow by sledding behind the four-wheeler and building forts.  Logan and the neighbor kids built a large fort in the neighbor's yard so they could play an epic game of capture the flag.  Unfortunately, they used all of their time building the fort and were not able to play the game because it got dark.  The fort is still standing though so I'm sure they will play another day.

Emily and I went on a trail run on the Highline and Logan River trail with some of the kids from her track team.  This was a fun run but also rough on our ankles as we ran through the frozen snow dodging tracks and indents all along the way.  I would do it again though because it felt magical running through a frozen forest.

Russell was awarded his 10 years of service recognition this week as well.  It is hard to believe we have lived here for 10 years!

Yes it is crazy that we have been in the Cache Valley area for 10 years. The longest job I have ever had. It has been a great 10 years full of ups and downs. I have enjoyed every part of the 10 years at LCFD. For the every 5 years the city does a little get together to read a special letter from the Captain. They also gave me a free day off and an Amazon gift card. Captain Hogland wrote my letter and it was well written. He told me I was a great family man and is still not sure how many kids I really have. I can't believe 10 years have gone by so quick. I am looking forward to the years to come.

Dino-mite!

 For President's Day yesterday we drove down to Thanksgiving Point in Lehi and went to the Museum of Ancient Life.  This was an awesome museum full of dinosaurs!  We got to travel back in time 65 million years and learn about what life was like for the dinosaurs that lived then. 

While at the museum we got to see over 60 full dinosaur skeletons.  These dinosaurs were huge!

As you can see we only come up to the knee or ankle of the Brontosaurus! The full body took up the entire room.

We were able to see a Brontosaurus, Supersaurus. Stegosaurus, Triceratops, T-Rex, and a lot more.  All of the kids thought it was fascinating.  I was also amazed at everything we saw, read about, and learned as we walked through the museum.  We learned about all of the different geological time eras beginning with the Paleozoic Era.  In this era we learned about the first fishes, crustaceans, trilobites, and other first living things.  We learned how these small life forms evolved into bigger fish and then amphibians and other animals that started to walk on land.  

From there we got into the Mesozoic era including the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods.  We spent most of our time in this era because this is where all of the dinosaurs were.  We were able to see all sorts of dinosaurs and learn about how they lived and what they ate.  There were also a ton of hands on learning things like an erosion pool the kids could play in and interactive games.  There were many actual dinosaur fossils and bones but most of the large skeletons were replicas.  The items under glass and away from touching hands were the actual fossils.  The things people could touch were casts which make sense because real fossils would be pretty fragile.  They casts were still awesome to see. In the Cretaceous period room we saw a giant sea turtle skeleton and a giant ancient fish skeleton.  They were so cool!  

From here we moved to the Cenozoic Era and the evolution of animals and the evolution of humans.  We got to see a full skeleton of a wholly mammoth and a life size replica of a Megalodon Shark!  Everything was so huge!  I am glad we live now and not in the time of these larger than life animals.  

In all this was a great time spent with the family.  The kids loved seeing the dinosaurs and learning more about them.  Brooklyn calls the dinosaurs monsters.  Thanksgiving Point has a bunch of other museums on their property that we would like to go back and see especially the Butterfly Biosphere.  I am thinking a membership to this place would be fun to have in the future.  

On the way home, we stopped at Scheels to ride the Ferris Wheel but sadly it was not going when we got there.  So instead of riding, we browsed the store and saw all of the taxidermied animals.  We will have to go back another time for the Ferris Wheel.

Alien Removal

This has been an eventful week for us. We started the week off with a mini surgery! Charlotte had an alien removed from her ear, hence the title of this post.

Okay it wasn’t a real alien but it was a foreign body. Back in October, we noticed a bump in her ear and wondered what it was. We decided to just keep an eye on it for a while because she said it didn’t hurt or bother her at all. As we watched it over the next couple months, we noticed that it continued to grow. Finally we got an appointment with our pediatrician to see what was going on. He told us it was probably just a cyst but referred us to an ENT doctor for a second opinion in case it was something else. The ENT agreed that it was most likely a cyst and we decided to have it removed with a minor in office surgery.

On Tuesday, I took Charlotte in to have the bump removed. After numbing her ear, the procedure was painless. I actually got to watch the whole thing and I thought it was fascinating!  The doctor cut around the bump, pulled back the flap of skin and the cut around the cyst ball thing and cut it out. The doctor called it a dermoid cyst. A dermoid cyst is a growth of normal tissue enclosed in a pocket of cells called a sac. This tissue grows in or under your skin in an unexpected location.

The cyst was literally the size and shape of a pea. The doctor took it out and then stitched her ear skin flap back down. Charlotte was pretty loopy until the Versed wore off but she was awake the whole time. Her ear should heal just fine and not have any major scarring. The doctor said he got all of it out so the cyst shouldn’t grow back. Yeah no more alien!  

Along with this surgery, we also celebrated Valentine’s Day, planned a fun Valentine’s party for Charlotte’s class, made sugar cookies for the neighbors, and had our first major snow storm of the winter. I know winter is almost over but, yes, it was our first snowstorm complete with a snow delay for school. It is supposed to snow the rest of this week too so maybe the kids will get to play in the snow a couple times this year. I prefer to stay inside when it is snowing but maybe I’ll get my snowshoes out for once. We’ll see.

Princess Tea Party

Today was fun.  For Christmas, the little girls got tickets to go to the Family Place's Princess Tea Party.  They have been looking forward to it for a while and finally today was the day of the Tea Party.  Emily, Charlotte, Brooklyn and I made a day of it and had a fun girl's time at the Party.

While at the Tea Party the girls got to meet all of their favorite Disney Princesses.  They were able to talk to and get a picture with each of the princesses.  Brooklyn said her favorite princess was Cinderella.  Charlotte's favorite princess was Jasmine.  We even got interviewed my a camera man from Channel 2.  We'll have to see if it actually gets on the news.

We met up with Charlotte's friend Gracie and her little sister Abby at the Party.  These four girls had a blast running from princess to princess and activity to activity.  They were able to make bracelets, play Pin the Nose on Olaf, color pictures, make magic wands, and floating lanterns.  The girls also got their faces painted and hair tinsel put in their hair.  

After meeting all of the princesses, it was time for the Tea Party.  We got to eat mini cupcakes, grapes, strawberries, cheese and milk. 

The best part of the party was the dance party at the end.  The girls loved dancing with all of the Princesses and other girls.

I loved seeing the smiles on their faces as they were having fun.  Emily and I were just hanging out watching everyone.  We were laughing at the Prince Eric and Kristof actors because they were really getting into the dances and singing.  Charlotte's favorite part was hanging out with her friend, Gracie.  Brooklyn said her favorite part was searching for all of the characters on the scavenger hunt.  In all we had a great time at the Princess Tea Party.

FCCLA and Science Fairs

FCCLA stands for Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. This week was the region competition.  The event I competed in was Repurpose and Redesign.  For my project I used a service project I found on JustServe Little Dresses For Africa. This project takes pillowcases and turns then into dresses for refugee girls in Africa.

I worked on this project all month and learned a lot.  I made two pillowcase dresses and made my poster.  I presented this project at the region competition.  At the competition we checked in and found out where and when we were presenting our projects after that we went to the opening ceremony.  After the opening ceremony we all split up to the places we needed to go.  I went down the hall and waited for my time. I was supposed to go in at 9:25 am but because the judges were behind I waited nervously for another hour to go in. When I went in I set up my board for the two judges to see and then stepped back out of the room as the judges looked over my board. When I was called back in I presented my speech, explaining my project and going through what I did. Afterward, the judges asked me a few questions and then I was done.  I put my things away and met up with my friends who were already done.  We played games and ate lunch as we waiting for the closing ceremony where we would learn how we did.

At the opening ceremony the person in charge read through all the events and who competed in them and what place they got.  The placing is off how many points you got on your event rubric.  You have to get at least 60 points to go to state.  Bronze is getting 60-70 points, silver is getting 70-80 points, and gold is getting 90+ points or something like that. Basically everyone goes to state.  There was a lot of people and different events.  Finally they got to my Repurpose and Redesign event. There were a few people who competed in my event and the projects I saw were really cool.  

They finally said my name I got silver! I get to go to state!  I was super excited. We had a few people from our school get gold and my friends also got silver.  Now I just have to get the rubric back and see what the judges thought of my project and see what I can improve for State.  After they announced everyone, they then drew some names for some cool door prizes.  Surprisingly my name was called and I got a funny baboon stuffed animal and some Jamba Juice fruit snacks.  It was super fun and cool experience and I can't wait to go do it again at State!

We have been working on project boards and projects a lot over the last few weeks.  In addition to Emily's FCCLA Project, Logan and Charlotte also participated in the school Science Fair.

Their projects were really well done too.  They each researched all about their topics by reading books about their subjects.  After researching, they typed up everything they wanted on their board and we put them together.  Logan did his project on the Solar System and told a few fun facts about each of the planets in our solar system.  Charlotte decided to do her project on Plants and Seeds.  She told all about how plants grow, what they are used for and why plants are important.  She even planted a couple of bean seeds in a Ziploc bag and watched them grow over the last few weeks.  During the Science fair she pointed out just how each bean seed was germinating and growing.  

After the Science Fair presentations, we got to check out the STEM Night activities and we learned a lot about other science and engineering things.  It was a fun night.

Good job on your projects kids!!

Happy 12th Birthday, Logan!

 This was a fun birthday and it was a good family party too. This is me at school on the 31st when my class was celebrating my birthday. So when we were done with passing out treats, Mom got a picture of me by my birthday sign and Reagan had to do bunny ears on me and I didn't even notice! 

This is me on my actual birthday after AIM (Achievement In Music) opening my presents the things that I got were cool. I got a a cool Spiro bracelet which is a cool fidget toy. Another thing I got was a infinity cube that could break into two to make a star shape. For snack wise I got Takis, donut flavored Kit Kats and root beer! Clothing like I usually get was two t-shirts: one was a parkour and the other was sharks.

After we opened all of my presents we went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. That was fun and awesome to do. This was my second time going to the temple. After that we went to the Jump Zone which is a trampoline park. Everybody wore me out making me do tricks in the first 30 minutes we got there so I was tired but here are some things we did there. I did a cartwheel back handspring into a back flip. I've never done that before so I was so surprised when I did it! 

Some other things we did there was dodge ball basketball, rock climbing  and just jumped around everywhere. For the most part we stayed in the same area and then we moved on to dodge ball. There was this one part that was close but not too close to the normal floor and I could clear it in one bounce. Everybody else cleared it in two bounces so I was that good! 

When we left we headed off to Chili's for my birthday dinner. While we were there I ordered a hamburger that I ate so fast that everyone was surprised how fast I ate it! (I really regretted that once I was finished with it though because I as so full! But it was good.)

Once we got home we got to eat my cake and had ice cream.

This was a fun birthday and I hope that next year will be just as fun.

Happy Birthday Logan!!