Happy 42nd Birthday Trav!

Trav spent his 42nd birthday on a weekend trip to Scottsdale with my brother's.  He always enjoys going on the golf trip each year.  This one was over his birthday weekend.  He left early Saturday morning and got home late Monday night.  We celebrated his birthday on Tuesday before school.

We're grateful for all that Travis does for our family!  We love you!

Mormon Prom

The Mormon Prom was on Saturday, February 9th at the Inter-Stake Center in Oakland.  Parker went with Michayla Rossi.  They went with 7 other couples.

They had a dinner at the March's house for all 16 of them.  I volunteered to bring dessert (which I stressed over for a couple of week)!  Finally, the morning of I decided to do a mousse, but I couldn't find glass cups to put it in, so I changed to chocolate dipped strawberries ...

and strawberry shortcake on a stick. (I had to buy a couple of new trays too! I told Travis it was much cheaper than the regular prom.)

Parker showered and got dressed in his black suit with his new tie to match Michayla's dress.  We should have taken it out of the package before he went to put it on because it had a bump in it from where it was folded.  I have to admit that I did iron it on his body and didn't burn him.  However, I did burn myself!

Tyler came over to take a few pictures and then the missionaries came over for a photo op too.

Parker, Elder Omori, Tyler, and Elder Namali

Here are the flowers for Michayla.  They were so pretty!

Parker trying to get the flowers un-attached from the box.

Putting on the corsage. (Flowers point up!)

Michayla putting the boutonniere on Parker.  She didn't stab him!

Don't they look great?

Being silly.

Parker and Tyler being weird!

The Sunday School Class!

Tyler, Morgan, Parker and Michayla

Some of the 16.  There was a band thing that day, so quite a few of the dates were late!

Here is the whole group!

Getting ready for dinner. 

 Finding seats at the table.  Parker and Michayla sat down first ... I guess they were hungry.

 Smile everyone!

 I took orders for dinner and played waitress for the evening.  If I had known I was going to do that, I would have dressed up a little!

 Cheers!

After dinner and dessert Parker,  Michayla, Tyler and Alaina got loaded up in the car and headed out to the "Winter Wonderland" dance.  They had a great time!  After the dance got over they went to Fentons for ice cream.  Parker made it home about 1:00 am.  

Our Last Science Fair!

We reached another milestone in the Burr Family. Last week was our final Science Fair! I know I probably shouldn't be excited, but I am! Calissa started her science fair project when we got home from Utah after New Years.  She decided to find out what percentage of an orange is liquid.

 She started by picking 10 oranges off our orange tree in the back yard.

Then we weighed each one and recorded it.

 Then, she cut them in half

 and labeled them for later. 

 Then we juiced them to get the process started.

 (Then we made some homemade orange juice which needed quite a bit of sugar!)

Then we put them away for several weeks while they dried out.  (They also grew mold which was another story!)

After 3+ weeks (and when we couldn't stand the mold anymore) we weighed them again and figured out the average percent that was liquid.  Calissa's hypothesis was 80% and her finding was about 76.2%.  Not bad! Probably would have been around 80% if we had dehydrated them instead of just leaving them out.

Here is her board that she did all by herself.

And here she is at school showing off her awesome project.  Great job Calissa!

Elephant Seals with Conner

The 7th graders at Conner's middle school go to see the Elephant Seals each year.  His science teacher said that they've been going for over 30 years!  Parker didn't want to go when he was in 7th grade, but I convinced Conner that it would be fun to go.  

We had to meet at the school at 6:10 am the morning we left.  One of the 3 kids (including Conner) that I was supposed to take didn't show up.  However, a kid that was supposed to go the day before showed up that morning, so he came with me.  We left about 6:20 and started our drive down the coast to Ano Nuevo. We had a beautiful view of the water as the sun was rising.  It was a really pretty drive once we got through San Francisco.

Once we were almost there we stopped at Pigeon Point Light House and walked around, explored the beach a little, watched the Harbor Seals, and read about the history of the Light House.

Here's my group.  Lance, Shingo, and Conner

A view from the look out at the lighthouse.

Harbor Seals sunning themselves on the rocks. One kept trying to get up on the rocks too, but kept getting knocked back into the water by the waves.

Conner and I in front of the ocean.

After a short stop we jumped back in the car and drove another 10 minutes to Ano Nuevo State Park.  There we met his teacher and the rest of our group for the tour.

The house you see on the island is inhabited by sea lions.  They have taken it over and they even find them upstairs in the bathtub!  They have a webcam in the gift shop area that shows what's going on, on the island.

We hiked out in a small group of about 20 people about a mile out and met a ranger and our docent for the tour.  Along the way we saw a couple of deer.

She gave us a lot of great information about the Elephant Seals.  They had over 3,500 elephant seals out there at last count!  The male elephant seals can weight over 5,000 lbs!

A closer look at the island and house.

We ended up hiking a little over 3 miles (it said it was moderately strenuous) and got to spend a couple of hours with our docent walking around the sand dunes out by the elephant seals.

We saw the bulls fighting other bulls for their women, we saw babies trying to stay close to their mama's, and we saw a little "adult education" too.

 All those spots or lumps behind us on the sand are the elephant seals!

It was a GORGEOUS day on the coast!

That lump in the water is a male elephant seal that is minding his own business trying to conserve his energy.  Our docent said that he isn't big enough yet to fight with the males to try and mate.  The elephant seals stay on land for several months to mate and have babies and don't eat the whole time they are here.  By the time they leave, they are quite skinny.

On our hike back.

After we finished our hike and got back to the gift shop, we did a little shopping and then ate our lunch.  Once we were finished we hopped back in the car and headed down the coast a few miles till we found a deserted beach to play on.

Shingo brought a Frisbee disk to play with.  I didn't want to get back to school right as it was getting out because of the traffic, so I agreed to stop and let them play for a while.  I sat on a rock and enjoyed the sights, the sound of the waves crashing, the warm sun, and my book!  I love the ocean!

The boys found sticks to catch the Frisbee.  Success!

Here are the boys digging holes with their sticks. 

 It was a great day!  I had a great group of boys and enjoyed my time with them.  Thanks Conner for agreeing to go!