Golden Corral Field Trip

Have you ever eaten at Golden Corral? We did once a few years ago. The current managers are a home schooling family, and they generously offered to host a field trip, complete with pizza-making and pizza-eating for the children. Here Mrs. "B" is starting the tour and giving the children an overview of the restaurant.

The vegetables are washed and prepared in area pictured below. They use "special" water that helps rinse off all the potentially harmful bacteria. We learned that they have fresh fruits and vegetables delivered 3 times a week. Also pictured are some of the ovens and a stove in the cooking area. Additionally, we saw the meat room, the freezers, and the dishwashing area.

After the tour, the children had the opportunity to make their own pepperoni pizzas. A machine presses out the dough in a nice round circle in 8 seconds, and the ovens cook the pizza in only 4 minutes! Everyone got to eat a slice and choose a soda drink.

Thanks to the "B" Family for giving us this fun experience and insight into the workings of a restaurant!

Another Saturday Hike

While Kevin attended a 4-day Bioneers Training Conference in Novato, CA, the rest of the family took a short hike on 24 March along part of the Great Western Trail (Right Hand Fork of Logan Canyon). Our friend Chris joined us, much to Yuki's excitement (April does not attempt hiking alone with all 3 children plus 1 hyper dog--usually hyper dog gets left at home).

Erin refused to stay in the backpack and hiked almost the entire way herself, stopping frequently to explore and examine things up close. She also discovered the fun of throwing rocks in water.

We only went about a mile up the trail, but it took quite a while due to Erin exploring, Erin stopping to throw rocks at every opportunity, and Erin pooping which meant we had an exciting diaper change on the side of the trail (we decided not to include that photo).

Hogle Zoo Trip

Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City sponsored a free zoo day for home schoolers on 22 March. It was Erin's first time there, and she was excited to see so many animals. What more can we say? Here is a sampling of some of the critters we viewed.

The Bear Crew Went Over the Mountain...to Find a Den

April had the exciting opportunity of returning to the Book Cliffs with Dr. Hal Black and the BYU Bear Crew (plus a few others) to go to the final bear den of the season. Friday night we drove out to the beautiful "Pine Springs Hilton" pulling a trailer loaded with 4 ATVs. Early Saturday morning, we left in search of Xina, a 19-year-old black bear. The day was sunny and warm, the roads were only muddy in a few spots, and there was hardly any snow.

Xina was denned next to the Colorado border, and we spent over 2 hours driving to the access road. We parked the trucks, unloaded the ATVs, and drove another 4 miles to the point where we started hiking to the den.

Josh did the radio telemetry, carefully listening and following the signal coming from Xina's collar. He made it appear easy, but there is much skill involved and he is one of the best. After a relatively short hike down the steep mountainside, he found the den underneath a large boulder.

Last year, Xina had 3 cubs with her. Everyone was anxious to see whether or not any had survived. Xina has a poor parenting track record--in the past 15 years since she has been collared, she has given birth to 17 cubs but only 1 cub survived to yearling age (in 1995). We were thrilled to find all 3 yearlings in the den with her this year!

It took 3 attempts to get Xina fully anesthetized. She was a big bear--246 lbs! We collected hair, claw, and breath samples.

We gave the yearlings some pretty orange ear tags, weighed them, and collected the same samples.

Here are April and Janene, who were graduate students together back in the 90's. Janene is now employed at BYU as the Assistant Editor of the Western North American Naturalist.

The ever-photogenic Hal and Dianna Black, posing with Princess Leia

April holding Princess Leia, female yearling

A slide show of the weekend with more photos can be viewed on YouTube.

Eventful Week: March 4-10

Ian FINALLY lost his first tooth Sunday night after days of wiggling. Following a brief photo session to show off the gap, he put it in a baggie and said, “Here, Mom, you keep this for me.” (see Who Needs the Tooth Fairy?).

Kevin and April were amazed to realize that they have been parents for 10 years! We are not sure how Megan became so grown up in what seems such a short time. To celebrate, Megan enjoyed a family party with just parents and siblings on Tuesday, 6 March, and ate her annual birthday quiche--yes, Megan would rather have quiche than cake. We thank the Campbells for providing an oven in which to bake the quiche (our oven igniter died and we had been without baking facilities for over a week; Kevin finally replaced the igniter with Grandpa's help on Saturday).

Thursday, Megan celebrated with a friend party. Here she is with friends Sunny, Eden, Amelia, Emily, and Julia. Her final celebration was with Grandparents on Saturday, but by that time she was tired of us taking photos.

In addition to the birthday festivities of Saturday, we participated in the Cache Valley Home School Science Fair, held this year at the North Logan Library. Megan and Ian worked very hard on their projects, starting weeks in advance and finishing late the night before.

Their projects were very popular and they both did a great job presenting to the crowds. Megan’s project involved running mice through a maze to test their learning, and she also made a short video telling about the natural history of mice (complete with a demonstration of her snake catching and eating a mouse). Ian tested the shooting distance of his Medieval trebuchet using different weights of projectiles and counterweights and graphed the results.

When the excitement of the week had subsided on Saturday night, Megan decided it was time to chop off her gorgeous long hair to donate it to Locks of Love. Megan is thrilled to have short hair despite the lamentations of her parents.

Snow!

We finally received some snow this past week and have had to shovel three different days. Megan, Ian, and Erin have enjoyed playing in the snow and building things.