Hill Airforce Base Air Show

Saturday afternoon we headed out to see the air show at the Hill Airforce Base. Despite the fact that we live pretty close the the base, it took us a very long time of sitting in stop and go traffic before we finally got into the base and found parking. It was very cool to watch the planes doing stunts though, and we enjoyed walking through a couple of the large cargo planes too.

Austin insisted that we go see the cockpit on the plane, so unfortunately we did. We stood in a hot line for at least 45 minutes so we could spend a couple minutes in a cockpit that Austin ultimately wasn't really that interested in.

Luckily, we got out of the cockpit in time to watch the Thunderbirds. We very much enjoyed that show!

 

Father's Day

We ended up celebrating Father's Day twice this year: the week before Father's Day and on Father's Day. The week before Father's Day we celebrated with my family, since they weren't all available the next week.

Austin filled out the spaces in a letter he wrote to his dad.

Austin also insisted with take a picture with the tissue paper on his and his dad's head.

Since Nate enjoys taking baths, Austin had fun helping to make bath bombs for his dad too.

Butterfly Kit

The curriculum we used for pre-school this last year suggested using a butterfly kit to better teach/learn the process of metamorphosis. So, when it was warm enough, we ordered one. We got a container of five caterpillars that started out tiny but quickly grew much larger. We took a picture each day to record their progress.

After they had all wrapped themselves up in cocoons, we placed the lid inside the larger "butterfly garden" that came with our kit. (One of the caterpillars fell as it tried to form its cocoon, so it was not hanging from the lid like the other four.) Then we waited for them to emerge as butterflies.

Austin enjoyed watching the whole process and recorded it all as we went. I actually thought it was fun too. As a kid, I tried to keep caterpillars to watch them change to butterflies several times, but my caterpillars always died before they even made cocoons.

We enjoyed observing the butterflies for a few days before releasing them.

More Pre-School Adventures

Austin has continued to enjoy pre-school lessons, activities, and field trips this year. Here are some of the fun things we have done:

We learned about winter, including what different animals and birds do during winter. Then we made a pine cone bird feeder.

This was not part of our group lessons, but we learned about Egyptian pyramids and mummies. Austin colored some paper jewels that we placed between layers of wrapping around his hand.

We learned about doctors, and then played doctor. The kids took turns being the doctor and the patient.

We learned about different habitats and biomes. When we learned about the desert, we made some snakes out of beads and pipe cleaner. Then of course we gave the snakes some googly eyes.

We also went on a few field trips. We visited the dinosaur park after talking about dinosaurs. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera on this occasion, so I didn't get very many good pictures.

We also visited the Salt Lake City Temple. We walked around the grounds, explored the visitor's center, and enjoyed the spring flowers!

And finally, we visited the zoo, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed! It was perfect since this year we have spent a lot of time learning about animals.

Visiting the Museum of Ancient Life

On Friday last week, we had the opportunity to go visit Thanksgiving Point's Museum of Ancient Life with Nate's brother's family. They live in Colorado, and we rarely get to see them. Melissa also came with her kids. We enjoyed being with family and exploring the museum together. Austin seemed to have fun at with all the interactive areas for kids to play and explore. For example, they have one area for kids to play and dig in the sand and water and create dams and canyons.

Initially, Austin was very hesitant to play there though because he was worried about getting his hands dirty. We finally convinced him to join in the fun here after showing him there were sinks where he could wash off his hands after playing.

Another sandy area was designed to let kids dig for fossils.

And another area was full of dinosaur heads and limbs that could be attached to a body so you could design your own dinosaur. Or, you could just use them to pretend to be a dinosaur yourself and chase others around.

However, in typical fashion, Austin seemed far more interested in going up and down the ramps than looking at the exhibits or doing most other things. Still, he is interested some in dinosaurs and did look more closely at a few things. He especially liked the woolly mammoth exhibit.

Nate and Austin next to a giant sloth

Mostly we just had fun being with family. After going through the museum, we went next door to get ice cream. We were surprised at how inexpensive the ice cream was there. Our serving sizes ended up being much larger than we expected, and Nate and I ended up wishing we had split a sundae instead of getting individual ones.

Memorial Day: Grove Creek Canyon

For Memorial Day, we went hiking with my brother and his wife Katie up Grove Creek Canyon while my parents watched Austin and took him on a walk along the Provo River Trail. I have been wanted to go up this trail for awhile, and I was very happy we got to do it! I was especially pleased that we made it all the way to the end where it connects with The Great Western/Timpanogos Perimeter Trail - and then some.

The first part of the trail goes up a couple long switchbacks, and from there it heads up the canyon along the face of Mt. Mahogany. The winding path with steep drop offs in some spots to the sides looked pretty cool.

A view point for the first waterfall is about 1.6 miles up the trail, and soon after that we could see the second fall. The trail doesn't go right up to either one, but it comes close to the second.

View of the first waterfall

View of the second waterfall

This is as close as the trail gets to the second waterfall

Shortly after the falls, we came to a small bridge in a lovely area where we stopped for lunch. Then we continued on through some relaxing forested areas interspersed with small meadows before reaching a natural spring called Grove Creek Spring.

Grove Creek Spring

Nate decided that was a very pleasant spot to stop and rest a bit, but the rest of us went on in hopes of reaching the end of the trail where it intersects with the Perimeter Trail. It turned out to be quite close to the spring. We could see a road running just above where we were, so Allan ran up to check it out. We were surprised when he didn't stop there but kept running a ways off, looped around and found the junction between the road and our trail, and then ran back to us. At least that confirmed we were indeed on the trail we thought we were on. Sometimes it is nice to have a super athletic brother who is an amazing runner...
 

Along The Great Western/Timpanogos Perimeter Trail

I was also super impressed by how well Katie hiked considering that she is expecting. We are looking forward to Austin finally having a cousin on my side of the family sometime around the end of September or beginning of October. All in all we went about 6.5 miles and Katie did great the whole time.