Roots of Knowledge

We took a family outing to the far-off reaches of Orem!  Our first stop was UVU to see the Roots of Knowledge window at their library.  Gerrit had seen it when he was waiting for his car appointment recently.  I assumed we could follow Gerrit to the library because he had been there recently.  This was not an accurate assumption, but we did get quite the tour of campus.

Like these giant wolverine statues!

The Roots of Knowledge is a huge set of windows that go through history.

They really do the entire world of history and look at major advancements in knowledge in each time frame.

Ender's Game showed up in this panel and Gerrit happened to also be wearing his Ender's Game shirt.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (subject of Miles's history project) was even on this panel!

We'd heard there were a ton of Easter eggs in the windows, but this TARDIS was the only one we found.

Our next stop was to go feed the ducks at Nielsen's Grove park.  Imagine our dismay when we arrived and the pond was drained.  I had no idea they did that, especially that late into May!

Luckily, the ducks were hanging out in the grass nearby, so we still got to see ducks and say hi to the baby ducks.

The other big attraction at Nielsen's Grove is the merry-go-round swing.  It doesn't actually rotate, but it means the swings are on very, very long chains and you go very far.

If you go in the same direction, you can actually make your feet touch!

You can also twist those swings up pretty dramatically.

Concert Season

The month of May is always busy, and one of the things that always comes up are school concerts.

Miles's orchestra concert came first.  The beginning orchestra played a Queen medley and Pirates of the Caribbean.  Miles was sitting right behind the director and we were at the exactly wrong angle to see him, but we have my one attempt at a picture and a video of his Pirates performance.

He's in the second row sort of right-center.

Molly's mini musical concert was the next night.  It was a choir concert with more choreography, and each kid had a spoken line as well.  I kind of had to pick whether I wanted a spot where I could see her easily the whole time or a spot where I could see her really well for her solo.  I picked solo, and it luckily ended up being decent for her the rest of the time, too.

Here's the video of her solo! She's the one in the Mike Wazowski costume.

I also took video of her favorite song. She's on the bottom right.

We also got a bunch of impromptu recorder concerts when Molly brought home the fourth grade recorder.  Miles and Gerrit both are not big recorder fans.  It inspired Miles to make this meme.

 I guess he dislikes the kazoo more, at least.

Happy Mother's Day!

The kids did a lot of very sweet things for Mother's Day this year!

Elliott made this card in class.  He also made a growing plant card, but he liked that one so much that he wanted to keep it for himself.  I am not, in fact, 70 years old, but I AM a teacher, and I do call him a goof (with love!) some times, I do need a nap, and I do hug Elliott all the time.

He also brought me this plant.

Molly made this really darling "My Family Rocks" art.

Miles presented me with this card on Saturday night because he was too excited to wait for Sunday.

His first card had a secret flap that you had to open that would lead to a better card hiding upstairs with one of his Squishables.  Once I found that card, it actually led to another clue.

The epic card was this one!

He wrote an incredibly sweet poem and gave me some coupons, too.

For Mother's Day, we invited my parents and brother over.  I made a pork taco salad and then also a strawberry rhubarb pie with lemon mixed-berry ice cream.

Molly and Elliott made up an elaborate choreographed dance and play about Mother's Day.  These pictures are actually from after that dance when Molly decided I needed a bunch of silly and jumping pictures.

That Can Be Arranged

I've wanted to take one of the flower arranging classes through UVU's community education program for a long time now.  I've missed the registration a few times and also not had the schedule space a few times.  Everything finally lined up!

We learned about different types of flowers, and then we learned that arrangements need line (usually a long flower that goes up or to the side), a "star" flower, fill flowers and some contrast flowers. You start out by  making a collar out of the greenery.

The first method we used was lacing, where you place the flowers by arranging the stems. I liked how this turned out, but not as much as the next one.

The second method was to make a grid out of clear floral tape on top of the vase.  In fairness, I partly like this one better because the teacher helped me figure out some placement! You have this from ALL the angles.

It was really fun to learn something totally new, and the teacher was interesting and definitely helped me make something prettier than I would ever have made on my own.

I also learned that you can start taking out the things that are going bad one at a time. This SOUNDS really self-explanatory, but would not have occurred to me.  I took out the stock (the long purple flowers) and the kale first, since they died quickly.  I had a very cute rose arrangement for a while, and then when the roses died, I had a third very cute arrangement.

I thought I wasn't a huge fan of rose bouquets, but the yellow ones we used for the class reminded me how much I love the different varieties you don't see as often!  I was also captivated by this single that I bought Molly for her dance recital.