Last week the kids had some time off school for their Fall Break. I heard that the reason the school district has time off is for the annual Balloon Fiesta here. That way families can go enjoy the balloons and not take their kids out of school for it. We didn’t go those days but it was nice to have a school break.
Thursday we went to the Natural History and Science museum. We enjoyed looking around. The kids really liked looking at the rocks and minerals. Andrew noticed the letters by the names, the chemical formulas and asked me about it. The kids have been asking to buy things from the museum store, so this time we did. They all had some money and each picked out something they wanted to buy. Ruth got a little jar of turquoise. Andrew chose a unbroken geode and broke it with Neal’s help and thought that was cool to see what was inside. Spencer chose some small prehistoric animal toys. Caleb chose a stuffed snake. He said his yellow snake needed a friend. So now he has “Snaky One” that is yellow and “Snaky Two” that is green. I chose to buy a nice laminated periodic table. We have had some good conversations with it already. Andrew was really interested in all the element symbols. It is fun to have good teaching moments with the kids. Monday evening at dinner time we had a good conversation with Ruth about her science class talking about the composition of living things.
Thursday afternoon I took the kids out for a special ice cream treat for their hard work on piano and music practice. I try to do little rewards for them to encourage them to keep working at it. We all enjoyed the Italian frozen ice and custard we bought.
Friday morning we went to the Bear Canyon open space that is about a mile from our house. Today I am leading a hike with the cub scouts and I wanted to go on the actual hike beforehand. So Friday we took the route I will do with the boys this afternoon. The kids had fun with it and half way through the hike we get to some Bear statues. Of course, the kids climbed all over them.
Friday afternoon the boys went to play at at friends home. They had fun there. I took Ruth to the doctor to have a wart on her hand looked at. She has had it for six months and we have tried multiple treatments for it, but it just continues to get bigger! The doctor gave a prescription cream for it and it seems to be working. The wart is looking different. The doctor said it should fall off within a month. I hope so. I feel bad for her that it has been such a problem.
Saturday morning we got up early! We left the house about 4:10 AM. We wanted to beat the crowds or at least the traffic. We did pretty good, we didn’t hit a back up until we were about a mile from the parking lot for the Balloon Fiesta. We were in the park by about 4:45 and walked around a bit and found a spot to spread out blanket out. The kids all laid down and rested. Nothing happened for about an hour. Then a little before six we watched a laser show, it was cool to see the lights flashing around in the dark. At 6:00 the “dawn patrol” balloons started to inflate. It was still dark so it was fun to watch them glow. The went up in the sky and we could see them glowing every time they pulled the flame.
Other balloons started to get ready to go up. The crowd also was getting thicker. We picked up our things and started watching balloons inflate and launch. Andrew was at the right place at the right time and was asked to help spread out and hold a section of the large cow balloon as they were preparing to inflate it. He was given a special pin for his help. The kids got trading cards for some of the balloons too. We stayed by the cow until it was fully inflated and launched. It was huge! It was the biggest of the balloons there.
The kids with the cow in the background
The cow head when it was inflated
There were many character balloons but also a lot of just regular round ones, all different colors. We had fun watching them all float around in the sky. I took a lot of pictures, some turned out better than others. We stayed watching the balloons and moving around the field some for a couple of hours.
This picture give you a feel for the crowd that was there
The cow, when it finally launched.
About 9:00 the balloons were mostly coming down and many were landing on the field again. Others were landing in different parts of the city. We watched a few balloons come down. We worked our way over to the chain saw carving competition that was going on. It was neat to watch the men work to create some cool carvings with their power tools.
The boys by some of the carvings we saw. The sun was starting to get bright and hot.
We went into the NASA information tent. We looked around at their displays. Neal and Andrew listened to a man from NASA talk about space travel. I was with the other kids doing a free craft. We enjoyed doing a few things there until they closed the display at 11:00. Then things were pretty much done for the morning. We decided to leave the park and call it a day. We were all tired. It was a fun morning. In the afternoon we rested and also did house cleaning. Saturday evening Ruth and I went to the movie “Inside Out.” We enjoyed it. Saturday was a busy day for us.
Sunday was good to have a day of rest going to church and doing quiet things at home. We had our home teachers come for a visit. Then we fed the missionaries in the evening. That was nice to have them in our home, that was the first time here. Since Neal and I are in the Primary we don’t see any kind of sign up for feeding them. Actually the missionaries called me and asked if they could come eat with us since they hadn’t been to our home yet. I thought was different for them to call. We enjoyed having them here.
Monday the kids went back to school. This week has been going well. Andrew had his last day of playing Pickle ball after school on Tuesday. He had lots of fun learning a new game and playing it every week. Caleb had a note from school saying he was chosen from his class to get an award for his honesty and integrity. He gets to go to a special lunch on Friday with the principle. Last night we went to Ruth’s first band concert. I thought they did a great job.
Ruth is sitting in the front row right in the middle. This was right before the concert started. I took a picture of her when when we came home. She looked pretty in her new outfit.
Spencer checked out a book on how to make paper air planes and has been experimenting with them. The boys also created a mega block robot, Caleb size. It has to be propped up, but it is cute.
I am thankful for my family. We are doing well, just staying busy with life.
A few pictures of things, this is a start to a spider plant that Spencer got from school last year, it is finally starting to grow and looks happier since I moved it outside.
This is a little plant that I did with Caleb in a preschool class at my home in the spring of 2014. It has survived two moves and it is blooming right now and I enjoy seeing it by my kitchen sink.
Some of my flowers are still going, they have been pretty. I got out my fall decorations and I like the way this shelf looks. Some of the trees out side are starting to turn yellow. It gets cool at night, around 50 degrees, but it still is getting about 80 in the day time.
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