Spring Break at Six Flags

Monday, we decided to head to Six Flags to use our Season Passes for the first time. Tuesday was going to be an errand and packing day since we were heading to Utah early Wednesday morning. Monday dawned overcast and it started to rain on our way there. It rained the first hour or so that we were there, but never came down heavy. Then, the sun came out and we enjoyed the sunshine!After standing in line for about 15 minutes we got our season passes and then went on the Snake Roller coaster. Calissa was a little scared at first, but decided that she liked it!
We looked around at some of the animals and then headed over to the walrus experience. There were two walruses out. This one was pregnant and due to deliver any day now. There are only about 17 in captivity. They are HUGE!

We saw the sea lions and sting rays ...

and the penguins. They sure swim fast. Who knew?

We went to the Sea Lion show ... I guess I didn't get any pictures. All the shows had wet benches from the rain, but we just brushed them off and sat down. Our bums dried eventually! After lunch we went to the Killer Whale show. What a beautiful animal!

This ride was about Calissa's speed.

(Notice the turtle down below ... that's about how fast it moved!)

Before we went home we went to the dolphin show.

They are so smart!

In all the shows the people in the front got SOAKED! We laughed, happy that it wasn't us! (Maybe on a day when it's really hot we'll sit down below!)

Before we headed home for dinner Parker and I went on Medusa and Conner and Calissa (with Parker's cell phone) went on the Snake Coaster 3 times before we came back. We had a fun day and I was the only one who got sunburned!

Easter 2011

The Easter Bunny found us again this year!

Before the kids looked for their eggs or at their Easter Baskets we talked about the real meaning of Easter and watched a Mormon Message on YouTube about Easter.Calissa got the movie "Tangled."
Conner got an iTunes gift card.

Parker did too.

Silly kids!

After the egg hunt (which involved climbing on the furniture),

Parker decided to try some Easter grass on his head. Nice look, huh?

Calissa decided to try the look as well.

After our egg hunt, Travis made breakfast and then had to leave for a few meetings.

They each got new church clothes on Saturday so we decided to do a photo shoot before we left for church.

Conner and Parker were so excited to have suit jackets.

Calissa called them Little Bishops.

This is my favorite. I think I'll need to get this one in an 8x10!

Ward Easter Party

Saturday morning we had a fun Ward Easter Party at the Oakgrove Building.

We brought our things for DI, had a yummy breakfast, listened to a spiritual thought about Easter, Johanna sang "His Hands" while I played the piano ...
got our picture taken with the Easter Bunny,

and had an Easter Egg Hunt.

Calissa is in the pink.

Success!

Calissa is a little strange

So Calissa weighs about 45 pounds (dripping wet) with all of her clothes on. Lately, she's decided to sleep with her "Grandma Burr" blanket zipped inside her pj's.

It really can't be all that comfortable!

Silly Calissa!

Snow Camp (Written by Parker)

All the young men and I went snow camping last Saturday. It was at Bear Valley resort. The ride there was really long (3 hours) but, me and my friend Tyler entertained ourselves by playing Monopoly on his i-Touch for the whole time. I won by the way. When we got there we set up camp and started making dinner. It actually wasn't very cold unlike the last snow camp-out when it snowed the whole time. We had no snow fall down on our whole trip. There was a grand total of 4 boys and 4 adults who went unlike last year of over 13 boys. For dinner we had roasted sausages which were very good. Then, we went to sleep. We woke up in the morning and sat around talking for a while before we had breakfast. Here we are talking to each other at our fire pit (asphalt). Net, we went on a show shoeing hike through all the snow. We saw lots of tracks including rabbits, deer, and bears! We didn't see any bears though which was good. When we got back to camp, we messed around in the snow. As you can see, there was a TON of snow piled up everywhere. Then, my leaders and fellow young men had the brilliant idea of digging a hole in the snow and putting me in there.

This was the hole that they put me in.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I was in short sleeves to. Give me a break, it was really hot and everyone else was doing the same thing that i was doing. I fit in the hole and didn't freeze which was good.

One of our leaders was digging in the snow when he found a tunnel that led to the top of the snow bank. So, I went up and tried to dig down and meet the other tunnel to make a slide. I was digging in one spot then I took a step back and almost fell completely down the tunnel. "I found it" I said. So we dug it out and I was the first one brave enough to ride down it. It was tons of fun! As the time went on, everyone including the leaders rode down it. We kept making modifications to it and by the time we had to leave I could go down and get some serious air! No injuries though which was good. I didn't want to ruin it by getting a broken leg. All in all, it was a great experience and I had lots of fun with my fellow young men and our leaders.

Open House

Last Wednesday night was Open House at the kids' school. It's the first time in a long time that we haven't had a baseball game scheduled that night! We got there early and went to Calissa's class first. Here is a picture of her at her desk with Trav. They had a typed up list of about 20 things to show their families. Here are a few:

Here is a painting she did.

A self portrait. A flower.

My favorite was her ballerina. She hasn't brought that one home yet. I'll have to post a picture later. They also had writing they had done, some fun math things, and some science. She has a great teacher!

Next, we went to Conner's classroom. He had some writing about the digestive system, his state report poster on Utah and a packet about the Explorers. His classroom was super clean! I mentioned it to Conner and he mentioned it to his teacher. She told him not to tell that all her stuff was in the back of her truck! (She told me later.) This is his last year at MG and will be moving on to the middle school! Yikes!!

Weird!

Did any of you local folks see this on Saturday about noon? It was the weirdest thing. Conner was playing baseball and one of the kids looked up and pointed at the sky and so we all looked up. There was a huge circle around the sun with a rainbow. (My picture really doesn't do it justice).It was dark right around the sun and then the rainbow around the outside edge. Travis and Parker were golfing and I was going to call them and have them look, but when I got my phone out Parker had already texted me. Travis took a video of it with his phone, but when he tried to play it back it said it was in an unsupported format? Huh? I told him it was the aliens who scrambled it. (I looked it up online from the baseball game and it is caused by sunlight being diffracted as it passes through Cirrostratus clouds at altitudes of over 20,000 feet.)

Lawrence Hall of Science Field Trip

Friday I was able to go with Calissa's class to the Lawrence Hall of Science on her last field trip of the year. I had never been to the LHS before, so I was excited to go. I only had 4 girls to chaperone, so it was super easy! We got there 45 minutes before we could go inside to see the exhibits, so the kids climbed on the DNA and a giant whale. Here is Calissa on the DNA. Once inside we had an hour to look at exhibits before our class. Lila and Calissa are testing out roller coasters.

It was a beautiful day in Berkeley! You could see both bridges. It was just a little windy and cold. (Click on the picture for a bigger view)

My group.

Lila, Calissa, Jackie and Christine

Calissa and Lila outside.

Sarah and Calissa relaxing.

A self portrait ... not too bad.

They had this wind tunnel as we were heading downstairs for our class. There were lots of materials to make flying objects. Calissa just had a piece of tissue paper and got it to go all the way up to the ceiling (which was really tall).

After looking at the exhibits, our class got to go down to the basement and have a class on slime. They talked about solids, liquids and gasses and got to each make slime to take home. They also made some other slime that stayed there. It was a fun class and Calissa loves her blue/green slime!

After our class it was back outside for lunch and then back to school. Here is Calissa with her best friends, Kyrsten and Kaitlyn.