Field Trip Friday #63--Western Art

I had planned on taking the children to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point today for Field Trip Friday, but they wanted to play with friends and be home, so we opted for a shorter FTF.  We headed over to the BYU MOA to see what was showing.  They had a great exhibit of Western art that we all enjoyed--lots of cowboys and Indians and beautiful landscapes.  The exhibit actually focused on the "branding" of the American West, and as part of the show they had two silent movies playing on a loop.  Neither was very long.  We came in part-way through one that somehow had Native Americans linked to a baseball game.  I'm not exactly sure how the two parts of the movie were linked, but it was interesting.  It seemed as though an Indian was killed at the end because of the outcome of the game, but we probably missed a critical component.  The other movie was The Great Train Robbery, a very early silent film that the kids loved.  Several people die very dramatically, there was a horse chase scene, and the bag guys get theirs in the end.  Great stuff!  

 

Oral Language Festival

Tonight was the Oral Language Festival at school.  Blythe participated last year, but we were in Hawaii when forms to participate were due this year, and I didn't get it turned in.  After we got back, Blythe came home from school one day and told me Lily Lusvardi wanted her to do a poem with her. 

Yeah!  They performed Shel Silverstein's poem "The Meehoo With An Exactlywatt," a very silly poem that begins like a knock knock joke.  They did a great job, though Lily got a bit confused and they missed a few lines.  Blythe last line is, "Go away!" and she jumped in when she sensed that things were derailing.  They were absolutely darling.  Unfortunately, Brandt wanted to be the one to document the performance, and the only picture took was the one below mostly of the ceiling.  Alas. 

This is a picture that Mrs. Fueger posted on Facebook.

It's fun to see some of the other kids, too.

And here's the poem

"The Meehoo With An Exactlywatt"

Knock knock!

Who's there?
Me!
Me who?
That's right!
What's right?
Meehoo!
That's what I want to know!
What's what you want to know?
Me, who?
Yes, exactly!
Exactly what?
Yes, I have an Exactlywatt on a chain!
Exactly what on a chain?
Yes!
Yes what?
No, Exactlywatt!
That's what I want to know!
I told you - Exactlywatt!
Exactly what?
Yes!
Yes what?
Yes, it's with me!
What's with you?
Exactlywatt - that's what's with me.
Me who?
Yes!
Go away!
Knock knock…

Birthday Celebrating

It was Grayson's birthday earlier in the month, but we gathered this evening with the Nortons to celebrate.  Dawn put together a fun dinosaur themed party with lots of fun games, songs, and other activities.  We were there with cousins and friends and had a really fun time.  Blythe loves to be big sister at Norton family events, and McKenna and Grayson love to have her and Brandt around.  We ate, played, sang, and enjoyed a cupcake.  Three cheers for turning four!

Trey, Brandt, McKenna, Blythe, Grayson, Gavin, and Cierra

One of the activities was to make a people pyramid.

Bottom row: Myles, Chewie, Gavin, Goose

Middle: Brandt, Trey, Gavin

Top:  Grayson, McKenna

and Blythe to finish off below

Sunday Preparations

Blythe wanted me to paint her fingernails this morning.  "To match my red church shoes," she said.  So I painted her nails.  Then, to help speed up the drying process, she went outside to swing, so the wind created by her swinging would make it go faster.  Obviously, she saw no need to get dressed to accomplish the nail drying.

An Array

Blythe has been learning about arrays.  Those are arrangements of rows and columns.  Today, when she buttoned up her jacket, she came to me and said, "Look Mom! My buttons make an array!"  I took a picture, sent it to Mrs. Fueger, and she used the picture as an example of a real life array.  That Blythe.  She's a smarty pants!

Field Trip Friday #62--Peter and the Starcatcher

Somewhere along the way, in recording activities, I have missed a Field Trip Friday.  I can't remember what we did last month before we went to Hawaii (the Friday right before I did packing and preparing because we had a whole week of field tripping, but before then, it's gone).  

Today we had a fantastic Field Trip activity.  We went to see the play Peter and the Starcatcher, based on the book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.  Brandt and I read it last year and loved it, then followed it up with the next three.  It was the fourth book that we read on our Idaho trip.  We were all excited to see it, and we quite liked the production.  Hale Center Theater is theater in the round with a relatively small space, so you can always see what's going on, even if you aren't really close.  Brandt and Blythe were both sad at intermission, thinking it was over, and then so pleased when we got another half.  Blythe liked it so much she begged me to begin reading her the book tonight at bedtime.  Yeah for good literature, and plays based on those good stories!

Blythe insisted that I be in one of the pictures.

Captain Hook, Molly, and Peter

Pinewood Derby

Oh! The pinewood derby!  The pinewood derby!

Evening of racing and fun!  

The cars go down fast; the boys have a blast, 

We're always so sad when it's done.

That bit of impromptu poetry was brought to you by Katherine, proud mom of scrub sprout Brandt, the Bear.  Yesterday before school, Brandt asked, "Is tomorrow the 19th?"

"Yes, indeed," I replied.

"It's the pinewood derby," he reminded me.  And truly, it was a reminder.  I hadn't given it much thought, which showed because his car was cut out but that was it.  I went for spray paint so we could get it painted after school, and today, Kent took it to work to give it the finishing touches.  Brandt came home from school excited for pack meeting, and that excitement only grew the closer we got to the race.

Brandt's car didn't do super well.  In fact, he came in last in all his races.  The wheels weren't turning very well--they seemed to be rubbing against the car--and Brandt finished second to last in the overall standings of the timed races.  It didn't seem to make a bit of difference to him, however.  He was just excited to be racing.  He made an adjustment after the timed races were over and then his car did better, but truly, he was just happy to be there.  I'm not sure the pictures below really convey it, but he did have a good time.

It's a T-Bird, with a really huge fin.

Blythe wore her pajamas to the derby.

Maybe this is the look of a boy who isn't entirely satisfied with his car's performance.

That front wheel looks wonky.

"But who cares?" says Brandt.

Cousins

How wonderful is it to have cousins who live close by and that we get to see regularly?  Super wonderful!  Brick and Cora have been over the past couple of days, and we have really had a good time with them.  Brandt and Blythe have been so good to help.  Brandt has entertained Brick and made sure he always had a gun or a knife or a lightsaber in one hand, and a snack of some sort in the other.  Blythe has helped feed Cora and crawled around on the floor with her.  They both have been keen to push the stroller as we have walked around the neighborhood a bit, too.  Brick always asks, "Where Brandt and Blythe?" when he comes over to our house and the kids are at school, and these past couple of days have been full of lots of cousin fun.  We sure do love these little people.

Cora really likes peas.

It's a good think I really like Cora, because she got her peas all over!

Cora is loving this wild ride Brandt is giving her.

Even through the binkie you can see her smile.

And Brick is loving this scooter ride.

He was thrilled Kent let him stand in front and zoomed him around.

Field Trip Friday #61--The Jungle Book

We went to see the new live action version of The Jungle Book today for Field Trip Friday.  It was exciting and a bit scary.  The kids clutched me several times during the movie, but we all really enjoyed it.  Then we got to come home and play with cousins.  Even more fun!

Second Grade Top Reader

Guess who was one of the second grade top readers this year?  That's right! Our resident second grader, Miss Blythe Isabella Barrus.  As a result of checking out and reading lots of books, she got to pick a book of her very own.  Lucky!  We're very pleased with Blythe's reading progress this year.  She's good.

Second graders extraordinaire!

L-R: girl in purple, Mia Bella, boy behind her, girl next to her and Blythe, boy behind Blythe, 

Brian, Sal, another boy, and Amanda

Funny Children

Spring is in full bloom.  Everything is beautiful.  The bulbs are up, the flowering trees are glorious, and the lawn if greening up.  Since getting back from our trip, I have felt a need to work in the yard, and today I did some weeding and tree trimming.  I wanted to get rid of some dead branches, and seeing me on a ladder, up the tree, using a saw made Blythe very envious.  She asked if she could help.  I want to encourage helpful inclinations, so I agreed.  She did a bit of sawing before she declared it was "really hard," and went away.  

Well, she didn't really go away.  In fact, she recruited Brandt to come over and help her gather up large branches I was cutting and help her make a fort.  They propped the cut limbs up against the mail box, and then crawled into their lean-to, creating a very imaginative game wherein they were orphan children living all alone in the hut.  I remember playing I was an orphan child when I was their age.  Is that so appealing because you don't have parents to bug you?  But who makes you dinner?  Anyway, they were delighted with their creation and entertained for quite some time.  

Cory Gets Married

We got home from Hawaii on Wednesday evening in time to climb into bed.  We woke Thursday and Kent went off to work and I began preparations for an afternoon departure to Idaho, unpacking Hawaii bags and repacking others.  Yesterday, Cory Barrus and Erika Morgan were married in the Rexburg Temple, and we made the trek north to celebrate.  As I packed and prepared, the Brandt played with Jarom and Sam and Blythe played with Ellen.  They have desperately missed their friends!

Cory and Erika are about as darling as a couple can be.  They were absolutely beaming all through the sealing, and then all through lunch and the evening reception.  It was a pleasure to be with them, and to visit with lots of other family.  Blythe was quite taken with Erika.  She is finishing up her elementary education degree shortly and will be teaching second grade in Idaho Falls in the fall.  Blythe informed us that she wants to repeat second grade so that she can be in Erika's class.  When we asked how that would work when we live in Provo and Erika will be in Idaho, she said, "I will move there and live with Cory and Erika."  She didn't seem to think the fact that they are only just married and don't want to live with anyone else mattered much; Ttey would take her.  I better warn Cory and Erika of her plans.

*post edit note: Erika has been moved up to teaching third grade next year, so Blythe won't have to repeat a grade.

Thursday evening we went over to the house that James and Alisa were renting to have dinner and talk.  Lots of Alisa's side of the family was there, and there were children our children's ages.  They spent all evening dashing in and out of the house, eating Cheetos as they ran by.  The adults, including Lee who showed up, talked and caught up.

Thursday evening, as we were getting ready for bed, Blythe had a meltdown.  She was upset that we were in Idaho when, in her words, "I just want to be home!"  We have been away a long time, and one night in her own bed was not enough.  We explained that one way we show someone we love them is to be at their important life events, like their wedding.  We love Cory and his parents and we want to celebrate with them.  She wasn't thrilled.

Yesterday's wedding wasn't until noon, and so we let the kids swim after breakfast and before we had to get ready to go.  We had a glorious day, sunny, clear, not windy.  The locals said it was the first real spring day in Idaho.  How cooperative of the weather.  The sealing was very nice, and it was followed up by a delicious lunch at the hotel right next to ours (very convenient!).  After we ate, Brandt and Blythe ran off with Ruby and Jack, happy to have someone their ages they really knew.  Sunny and I and the kids took a long walk along the Snake River, giving the kids time to be together and Sunny and I time to talk, too.  We sure do like them.  The evening reception was nice and fairly low key.  We passed a dairy that advertised fantastic shakes, and the kids pestered us to stop for a shake on our way back to the hotel.  We opted for ice cream cones instead, but the ice cream was delicious (high butter-fat content).

The Barrus Family contingent of the wedding guests

Steve & Sunny, Brandon & Michelle, Lee, Kent, Brandt & Blythe, 

Sharon & David, Micah, Jonathan, and Seth

Obviously James and Alisa and all their kids were there, too, they just weren't in this picture.

I can't tell which of these I like better, so I'm putting them both here.

Blythe is braiding Michelle's hair.

She kept flipping the strand she wasn't using over Michelle's shoulder.

Erika and Cory

 

 Ruby, Blythe, Jack, and Brandt

   

Today we drove home, and I continued to read Peter and the Sword of Mercy which we started on the trip up.  It is very exciting, so much so that the children begged me to keep reading all the way to Idaho Falls (four hours), in between Rexburg and Idaho Falls (half an hour one way), all the way home (another four hours), as well as before bed Thursday and Friday nights, and tonight before everyone fell into bed.  We've had fun adventures and good travelers, and we're all happy to be home for good.

Traveling Home From Hawaii

We had an early flight home.  It left at 7:00am, which meant we had to be up by 5:15.  We did get everything ready to go last night--showered, packed, charged--so we got up, got dressed, and had a bit to eat.  Brenda got up and helped make food so we'd have something to eat on the plane.  Our rental car drop off went smoothly (as mentioned in an early Hawaii trip post), although baggage check was a bit of a problem.  We were checking two bags and one weighed over 50 pounds.  While I was dropping off the car, Kent had to rearrange all our stuff, including the twelve boxes of chocolate covered macadamia nuts I bought at Costco to give away to people when we got home.  Then, when we got to security, we realized I had packed a too large bottle of sunscreen that precipitated a bag search.  Fortunately, we still had plenty of time and made our flight.

Traveling from Hawaii back to the mainland was much nicer than going the other way in the nighttime.  We read, the kids played on their Kindles, and we ate pretty much everything we brought to snack on.  Although the flight was long, it didn't seem as long as the flight over.  We had only an hour in between flights, and made it home in time to haul bags upstairs and climb into bed.  As exciting as it is to leave on a trip, it's equally wonderful to come home.

I made an ironic discovery in my purse on our way home.  Brenda has written us a thank you note.  We'd been staying with her for a week and she wrote us a thank you.  What's up with that?  It was very sweet and made me feel like she might actually let us come and stay again.  I want to have the note in future, but I don't want to have the actual note, so I'm including it here.

Dear Kent, Katherine, Brandt, and Blythe,
Thank you for coming to stay with us in Hawaii!  I felt like I was the one on vacation!  Thanks for buying me food, entrance tickets, and treats.  i will remember my walk with Blythe along Waimanalo Beach; my stroll along the marina in the early morning with Brandt when we spotted jellyfish for the first time (thanks to Brandt's sharp eyes); our many shaved ices, laughing together, seeing whales, and sunburns.  I hope you will come again next as you know there is still more to do and see!  I also want to thank you for all the kindness you have shown our kids (and us) over the years in way to dinners, phone calls, and other thoughtful gestures.  It has meant a lot to us.  Have a good trip back!  I hope you have a little sand left in your shoes and bags so you can think of your trip to Hawaii as you shake it out!
See you in a couple of weeks!  Love, Aunt Brenda

 

Hawaii for Spring Break, Day 7

Oh! Groan and moan! Weep and sob! Today was our last day in Hawaii! Our last, last day!  And because it was our last, last day, we packed it full of really lots of fun activities, almost all of which were on the North Shore.  We were so happy that Brenda came with us for another great day, a day that made us want to stay longer or return quickly.  As we've got tickets home tomorrow, we will just have to come back.

We began with a stop at the Dole Pineapple Plantation, an actual working plantation where they grow pineapple, coffee, cocoa for chocolate, and various other things.  There is a 20 minute train ride that takes you out to view the plantation and gives you a history of pineapple cultivation in Hawaii and specifically at Dole.  There wasn't much going on because harvesting was recently completed and it takes a while for a pineapple tree to grow, so we saw a lot of empty fields.  But it was all fascinating, and who doesn't like a train ride?  We all enjoyed a Dole Whip, pineapple flavored soft ice cream, then went and wandered around the world's largest (in 2008 anyway) maze.  Blythe and Brenda went off in one direction, Brandt and Kent went off in another, and I tagged along, the odd guy out--not a boy and not wanted (by Blythe) with the girls.  It was certainly a good time.

These next four pictures were taken by Blythe who was desperate to have a turn with the camera.

 

A cheerful hula girl, and one happy and one not-so-happy plumeria.

  

Dole Whip

Yummy!!!!

 

Mazing

One very large snail

My friend, Marianne Davis, lives in Hawaii, and she is always posting beautiful/fun pictures of things she is doing with her kids.  She frequently goes stand up paddle boarding at a river by Rainbow Bridge in Haliewa.  It has looked like such a good time and I totally wanted to take the kids to do that.  So after the train/whip/maze, we headed to Rainbow Bridge.  We were fortunate to discover that there is a surf shop right next to the bridge that rents SUPs, and at the very reasonable price of $15/hour.  Such a deal!  We rented three, and had the kids each ride on one of the boards with an adult--Brandt with Kent, Blythe with Brenda then me.  

It was, as I imagined it would be, so much fun!  Doing SUP is tricky but possible, even for a novice, the river was calm, and although I had hoped to see turtles but didn't, we did see some fish.  We paddled and basked and I took pictures with the waterproof camera.  It was such a great stop.  Brenda said she absolutely wanted to return with Brent.

I kept the camera in my cleavage. 

Conveniently located with easy access.

Mary Atkinson recommended that we eat at a shrimp truck while up on the North Shore, and we found a large area of food trucks near Rainbow Bridge.  While the kids were not at all interested in shrimp and both ordered a hot dog neither of them ate, Kent, Brenda, and I all got shrimp.  Kent got coconut shrimp with a mango sauce, and Brenda and I both got very garlicky shrimp scampi.  Oh, how delicious it was!  Seriously.  I'm not joking about this.  It was so, so good.  A dozen shrimp were not enough.  Brenda and I smelled like garlic the rest of the day, but it was absolutely worth it.  Writing about it makes me want more.  Really a lot more.

Fortified with shrimp, we made our last shaved ice stop at the famous Matsumoto's.  The line was very long, but it's Matsumoto's, and we had to have shaved ice there in order to have the full Hawaiian experience.  It was cool and refreshing.

There was a longer line here than for our lunch.

raspberry lemonade

Yes, I stood in line in my swimsuit.  

I meant to put something else over it, but leapt out of the car to go secure a place in line.

One of the other things that Marianne has posted that looked super fun was swimming in a pool under a waterfall.  I discovered this was at Waimea Valley, and we made this our last stop of the day.  Waimae Valley is a real botanical garden with 5,000 different types of plants from all over the world.  They have markers so you know what they are, and are organized by region they come from.  There is a paved path you can follow through the gardens that ends at a beautiful waterfall.  

We had a wonderful hike in to the falls, where we all donned life jackets and got in the water.  It was colder than any water we'd been in in Hawaii, but once you got in and swam around a bit, it wasn't too bad.  We swam right up to the falls and all around the pool.  The children got out before we adults and then ran amok chasing the chickens and shrieking.  *side note: There are free-range chickens everywhere.  They just roam around, normally undisturbed the their human counterparts.  Normally.  I'm sure other people who were there were not thrilled with our children's behavior.  It was magical to be there, watching the falls, floating around, soaking in all the beauty around us.  

Brandt is sucking a plumeria blossom into his nose.

 

This is looking down the steps from where Brandt is standing above.

The children are up on the shore chasing chickens and making really a lot of noise.

We drove back along Kamehameha Highway in the direction of Laie, hoping to find Ted's bakery.  Dan Passmore told me they make fantastic chocolate macadamia nut pie.  We wanted to see big waves at Pipeline, too, and maybe watch the sun set at Sunset Beach.  We missed Ted's, there were no waves, and it was overcast, so the rest of the day's possible activities were a wash.  However, the day had been so fantastic, we couldn't really complain.  We stopped at McDonald's and got the children happy meals as they hadn't eaten super well all day, and talked as we drove home.  We did a bit of laundry when we got back, then packed and prepared for our very early departure in the morning.

This trip really was tremendous.  Brenda was so good to us; she drove us around, she fed us, she did our laundry and made beds and tidied up our room, just like a maid, she was attentive and patient to the children, making sure we were doing fun things with them.  She is truly the hostess with the mostess, always mindful of how to make our stay more comfortable and fun.  I wish she didn't have a house in Provo so we could host her occasionally.  We finish up feeling rested, rejuvenated, and really keen to come back.  We did so much, but there is so much we could still do.  Here's hoping we can convince Kent to go again, and Brenda to have us come stay again.

Hawaii, island paradise, and Brenda, kind soul, we shall miss you.  Until we meet again.