Thanksgiving Day Hike

We went to St. George to have Thanksgiving with Stan's family.
It was so much fun :)

My contributions were the gravy, homemade cranberry sauce, six pies and eight dozen rolls. We ate on Friday, so Thursday our little family (little compared to the 45 people at dinner) went hiking.

Stan forgot his hat, so he put one of my canvas shopping bags (that I always forget and leave in the car when I shop) on his head. I told him I am so in love that he could look ridiculous and I still think he's charming :)

I love the colors of the desert, especially the pale greens contrasted with the black volcanic rock. Aren't the cottonwoods with the sun shining through their leaves pretty, too?

What is it about seeing a rock that inspires conquest?

Speaking of challenging rocks, Stan rappelled down this arch back in high school.

It was so nice to be out in the cool air and warm sun.

It was especially great to spend time with Summer...

...and have fun with her :)

Update

Rachel and Heather turned two cake mixes into cupcakes for Mutual the other day. This is what Rachel did with the leftover batter.

Inexplicably, the "after "photo uploaded sideways.

One recent Sunday, Rachel and I were unintentionally color coordinated and decided it would be fun to have a picture. We had a hard time being serious.

For Veterans' Day, we went on an outing. Rachel let me do her hair a la Pinterest.

Everyone was happy to be out of school and together.

I pointed a squirrel out to the kids and Michael tried to keep Naomi from running up and scaring it away.

Heather took some lovely pictures.

We had a delicious lunch. I ordered two sandwiches and an order of onion rings for seven people and we still took extra food home!

Naomi showed me this picture that Rachel made her.

Lastly, we have some very sad news.

On our way to St. George for Thanksgiving, we planned on dropping Bertram Wooster at some friends' to be pet sat while we were out of town. Unfortunately, he flew away while we were all chatting in the front yard. The local shelters haven't seen him yet. We miss him and are sad and lonely.

Bye, bye Bertie :(

Forgotten Bookmark

I am teaching a couple of bookbinding classes at our local museum and have been gathering materials. For one of the classes, we will remake a vintage book into a journal and I have been scouring thrift stores and library book sales for books to use. When I opened one of them and found a butterfly, I knew right away I wanted to submit it to Forgotten Bookmarks.

Last night...

...there was a ring around the moon.

Naomi's Alien

He's watching you!

Seven Billion and Counting and Counting and...

Amid news reports this past week and a half that the world population has reached 7 billion, I had a couple of budding demographers in the back seat of the car while I went to the drive through atm at the bank this morning.

This is what I heard -

Michael - There are more than 9 people in the world you know.

Naomi - I kno-o-o-w! There is more like a hundred and one!

Michael - No, more like a hundred and fifty five!!!

Naomi - I'm going to count. I'm going to count ALL the people I see. One, two, three, four...

Michael - Some of those are just car seats. Don't count the empty car seats!

Naomi - ...five, six...

Michael - I am going to write it down and whoever gets the most wins.

Naomi - I got up to seven!



Michael ended up counting to 56 by the end of our trip, but he admits he still doesn't know how many people there are in the WHOLE world.

Field Trip

Last month, Michael, Naomi and I went on a field trip with our homeschool group. We were happy that some of our friends were there, too. Sierra, Carmella and Catalina were much better at smiling at the camera than my two!

Each kid got a couple of turns tossing apples into the grinder to make apple cider.

There was a potbelly pig wandering around, looking at the ground for good things to eat. All of a sudden, it looked up and it was surrounded by elementary school kids. The pig started backing up SLOWLY, but finally resigned itself to being petted.

The program included being taught about what it was like to homestead in the West. Naomi sat in the front row and raised her hand to answer five or six questions. I was impressed with her bravery :)

Both of the kids favorite part of the trip was the "tin" (aluminum pie plate) smith craft.

I felt like a daredevil holding the nail for Naomi while she hammered away.

We ended the day with some cider and a caramel apple. Delicious!