More Wise Words

Setting: Ogden, watching sparrows bathe in a puddle.
Michael: "Its the little things that make life fun!"
Evelyn: "Yeah, until those little things poop on you!"

This is the Place Monument

Checking out the hats in the gift shop

 At the end of this summer, we decided to go to This is the Place Monument. After all, we've lived in Utah all our lives and I've never been (kind of like how I've never been to Timpanogus Cave or snow skiing.) Plus Michael was missing his newsie cap that he lost at Disneyland. He wanted another, and the first he got as a boy from This is the Place Monument.We never found a newsie cap (evidently the official name is Gatsby Cap.) but we did have a really fun day! I had no idea how big that park was, and they really geared it to kids.

 Evelyn got to plow a field, wash laundry, and her personal favorite: pan for gold! She decided that she wants to go to California and pan for gold before she dies. We had to basically drag her away.

 They also had lots of places where they showed what life was like back then: a barber shop, a blacksmith shop, a pottery shop, a leather shop--and the only place they didn't really do the work was the barber shop! Something about liabilities or something....but here is Michael getting a shave. He was reminded of the Philippines, except in the Philippines he got a much closer shave. :D

 They had crafts for the kids to do. Evelyn made a pioneer doll, stamped some leather and made an Indian necklace.

Still looking for hats...

Some of my Favorite things of all time!

Sometimes we turn on our music and just start dancing! Evelyn is starting to get big enough that she is learning to do real moves! I love to see her and her Daddy-boy dancing together--both trying to lead the other.

And this? Well, it just makes me happy!

"Aren't I cute?!"

More Summer Memories

So last year we noticed that Evelyn was guessing a lot of the words she was reading and skipping a lot of sight words. We got her eyes checked and found out, her eyesight is fine, it's the focus muscle that needed strengthening! She needed to do daily focusing exercises and wear reading glasses for a month! She picked blue ones, of course!

Evelyn's summer haircut!

This is a hilarious journal entry Evelyn wrote for school! I hope you can read it!

Here are pictures of our beautiful garden we worked so hard on this year!

We got some new cabinets to make a computer desk in our kitchen! We love it--it has consolidated so much of our junk into one small space! This is what it looked like before we added the computers. 

Home's-Cool!

This year I decided to avoid my typical Evelyn's-back-in-school-depression, so I gave in to Evelyn's requests to be home-schooled! We love it! We love all the time together, and trying to find interesting and fun ways to make any information stick. Evelyn's favorite classes right now are Math (Go figure! I never thought I would hear that! Love "Life of Fred!") and P.E. and typing.

   We enrolled Evelyn in a swim class with a lot of other home-schooled children. I love having an official teacher work with her; all her nervousness has just evaporated and she is determined to practice hard because she was a little behind the other kids because its her first year. She swims so hard and long that her shoulders are getting quite toned! Eventually we are still hoping to enroll her in some sort of dance class.

   For History, we have done all sorts of mini units on all sorts of eras of history. We've talked about Ancient Greece, and the Olympics. We discussed Ancient Rome, and Medieval times. Now we are starting our study of the Renaissance.

This is Evelyn dressed up as the goddess of wisdom: Athena

This is Evelyn: the winner of the Adam's Olympics!

   We got to go on a field trip to the Hogle Zoo. It was on a very cold and rainy day in September. I think it was 48 degrees!

Because of that a lot of the big cats were very active! We especially loved the lions. The adult females were batting their ball all over their enclosure, and the cubs were stalking children!--Evelyn was pounced at twice! The cubs are now about the size of Labrador retrievers, so it is quite intimidating.

Evelyn has a blanket wrapped around her under that coat!

Right before she got pounced on!