Cub Scout Day Camp

On Saturday, I was in charge of a station at the cub scout day camp. My station was the Museum of Natural History in Africa. I helped the boys make shark tooth necklaces and then showed them pelts of different animals including a skunk, raccoon, red fox, rabbit, and beaver. The boys were especially fascinated by a real shark's jaw with it's multiple rows of sharp teeth, and a real alligator head with it's mouth full of teeth. The boys were great and it was a lot of fun. In every group there was a least one boy who was a little science wizard. They loved reciting all the animal facts they knew. I will definitely help at day camp again!

Richard A. in WWII

Mark sent me some old pictures of our Dad from WWII. Here is one of them. If you cover up the hair, I think he looks a lot like Eric!

For more pictures, look at the Ancestor Stories Blog. The link is on this page.

Spring Scout Mountain Hike

Glen, and Greg and I took another hike up Scout Mountain on Saturday. It was a beautiful day. We hiked to the pond and had lunch there.

Then on Tuesday morning, Eric and I went back up and hiked a little past the pond. There were even more kinds of flowers when we went.

These pictures are all from the Saturday hike.

Click on the photos to supersize them and get a better look!

There were lots of croaking frogs at the pond. On Tuesday, Eric used his sling to throw rocks into the pond. The frogs croaked a lot; maybe they thought the plops were big fish!

Waterfall

Here is a video of the waterfall in our backyard. We love to sit by it and listen to the relaxingl sound of splashing, flowing water.

Here are two of the flowers on the waterfall. They are both columbine.

Wedding Dress

I think I must be crazy, but I offered to create Sarah's wedding dress.

She searched through online catalogs and found her perfect, elegant wedding dress.

Then I took two days to search for a pattern. I found an almost perfect match, although I will have to do a little customizing along with making it fit her very tiny frame.

Then we searched for fabric. The first store had a limited selection. We talked about a fairly simple fabric that we could trim with lace etc. We planned a trip to another town the next day to look at a much bigger fabric store.

But alas, in the morning I did not feel well at all. I had to cancel our trip. But it turned out that it was good I canceled... Sarah had gotten her schedule mixed up and ended up having to work that day.

Then I thought of another fabric store right here in town. It's a discount fabric store, and you never know what you will find there, but I thought I would check it out. I drove out there, and was delighted to find that they had wonderful selection of beautiful bridal fabrics at really good prices.

So the next day I took Sarah out to see them. She was immediately attracted to one beautiful fabric. But we took our time (two hours) and looked at every possibility. She finally decided she really did want the one she had liked at the first.

I had to estimate a little on how much to get, because of the customizing I am going to do, and the fact that the fabric had a border. But I finally had them cut it and took it home. The lady at the fabric store had a daughter who just got married. She told me what the dress I am making is worth. It turns out, it will be worth about 6 or 7 times the cost of making it!

But I have been a little nervous. This morning I measured the cut fabric. They had told me that the fabric was 60 inches wide, and it was actually only 54 inches, however they did give me about 8 inches extra. I very carefully figured out exactly what I am going to do, and created a fabric layout. There is enough and a little to spare. I am feeling a lot more confident now.

I'll keep you posted on the progress!

Flowering Trees

I took some more pictures of flowers in my yard. The pink ones are from the crab apple tree, the white ones are cherry blossoms. Our lilacs are blooming. Even the dandelions are pretty.



It's been raining all week, so the grass and garden are very happy. It's a good thing we've had rain. Greg has been working on the sprinklers. One of the valves doesn't work, so he's been trying to figure it out - including, of course, several trips to Lowes. Right now there is a big hole with a piece of plywood over it where he's been working on the valves.






I got my vegetable garden planted with tomatoes, onions, peas, peppers, and zuccini. I'll take another picture of it every few weeks so you can see the progress.

The mountains are so pretty right now. There is still snow on top and they are turning green. Click on it to see it supersized.

It makes my happy to look at pretty things, I hope these pictures make you happy too!

Snowy Scout Mountain Hike

Today, Glen and I hiked up Scout Mountain for the first time of the season. The road just opened yesterday.

The first 2 pictures were taken on the way there as we drove up the mountain. It was a beautiful warm day.





We parked and headed up the trail. We were the very first hikers on the trail since the gate was opened yesterday. We did see another group, and by the end of our hike there were 3 other groups on the trail.

There were big snow patches alternating with damp to muddy trail.


We saw some interesting patterns in the ground, like mole trails. I think that might be what they were.

As we hiked up a little ways, there was more and more snow until we were hiking on deep snow. It was fairly firm, and we could walk on it without too much trouble. The air was very warm, even as we walked on the snow. I put some snow on top of my hat to keep my head cool! It was great until it started to melt and ran down my back!

There was a lot of water everywhere, flowing down the hillsides, and even water flowing under the snow. We sometimes broke through the snow to the water underneath.









In the summer there are a few little creeks, but today they were a lot bigger and the water was rushing along with a wonderful sound.








We saw some funny little gray balls on the snow. I wondered what they were until I looked up, they were little fuzzy seeds from the aspen trees.


Under some of the big pine trees it was clear of snow. We found a huge pine tree and stopped for lunch under it's spreading branches. The tree was probably a couple of hundred years old. We ate some sandwiches, granola bars, and apples.

The sky was bright bright blue through the branches of the trees. The air smelled fresh and sweet with the scent of pine, and water, and snow.

After eating lunch we headed up the mountain for a few more feet to the top of the pass. The ground was dry up there. We saw several butterflies, the only insects we saw on the whole trail.

Here is a picture of the view from the top. It was so beautiful up there, (the pictures don't do it justice) and it was so nice to be on a dry trail.

The ground was covered with tiny flowers.




These are glacier lilies. They are about 5 or 6 inches tall. They come up as soon as the snow melts.









These tiny little white flowers are spring beauties. They have little pink veins leading to the center and are quite pretty.




The yellow flower is an anemone. There were thousands of them carpeting the ground.






We headed down the other side.






We could see the Arbon Valley with it's rolling wheat fields and mountains.



The trail was muddy, and got muddier as we got further down.

















It was like ice skating because the mud was so slick.



















The trail finally turned into a stream of water.





We decided to head back.


















We went back over the pass then headed down the snowy trail.





The hot day (it was in the upper 80s) had softened the snow. It was a lot mushier than on the way up. We took big steps, digging our heels into the snow so we wouldn't slip, and using our outstretched arms to balance, we let gravity take us quickly down. It was fun! Most of the time we just sunk in a few inches, but in a few places I broke through and sunk in almost to my knees. There was water flowing under the snow. Very quickly we made it down to less snow covered trail, and finally to the trailhead.

We used the snow in the parking lot to clean the mud off our boots. We got in our car and drove down the mountain feeling very happy and satisfied by our snowy experience on Scout Mountain.