Fall Break

Fall Break almost didn't happen for our family this year. Our original plan was to take the kids to Mesa Verde in Colorado. We just finished our Native American lessons during Home School and I thought this would be fun. But thanks to Covid the National Park has opened the over looks only. So no hiking, no exploring the cliff dwellings. Bummer!

Next we thought we would go to Panaca, NV and collect pine nuts. Due to the lack of rain this year the pine nuts are pretty scarce. It didn't help that I couldn't find a VRBO or 2 hotel rooms for our family. 

I had finally decided that we would do a stay cation and just go somewhere different each day. Then Kory remembered his Uncle Ronny offering his cabin to us in Alton that Kory had built the cabinets for. So Kory called to see if it was available for the weekend. It was! Yay!

So Wednesday night we made the decision to leave Friday morning. We drove to Alton where we unloaded our bags, stocked the fridge and then hit the road again. Our first stop was Mammoth Cave on Cedar Mountain. 

We stopped and grabbed Izzy Bee to come with us for the day. 

Unfortunately, to protect the bats the large cave is closed from Oct- Apr. But we were able to skinny on through the two smaller caves. 

Brings back some fun memories when we use to come to these caves often. 

After Mammoth we went to the Ice Cave. There wasn't a speck of ice but oh boy was it cool and dark inside. 

Brayden found a log he climbed up into a small cavern. 

What's fun about the ice cave is that you have to "repel" down to get inside.  The rope is used to help you get back up too. 

The Ice Cave is pretty small. We usually don't spend a lot of time here but it's always fun to see how much ice is inside.

After the ice cave we hiked Cascade Falls. 

It's a super easy and short hike but oh so beautiful!

I love seeing the color change in leaves. 

The waterfall was much to be desired. You can really see how the lack of rain has effected it this year. Not much of a waterfall at all.  

After Cascade we were ready for a little relaxing. So we headed back to Uncle Ronny's cabin.

The cabin has no wi-fi, cable, etc.  There was a tv and vcr downstairs with several John Wayne movies. Kids felt like playing with new toys and games instead.  It was so nice being together. 

Saturday we spent our time near Bryce Canyon. First stop was Losee Canyon where we hiked up to the arches. 

People spend thousands of dollars to fly across the ocean to see what we have in our own back yard. I'm so glad we took the time to make it our vacation this year. When we were living in the area we came to Bryce Canyon several times. Brayden and Kylie were so little they don't remember seeing it. Our Covid numbers have spiked and seem to be out of control. I wasn't terribly worried about coming into contact with a lot of people but it was on my mind. We hardly saw anyone else. There was one family quite a bit in front of us and another family behind us. When we came to a fork in the road we went left, they went right. We never saw anyone else again. It was like having the place all to our selves. 

All the different rock formations are just amazing!

Brayden found what he was hoping would be an Native American hogan. Probably not! But it makes me feel good to know he learned something these past few weeks at home school. He climbed inside to see what it was like. With a little work he said he could make it comfortable. 

We live in such a beautiful world. 

Sometimes we get so caught up that we miss the little miracles in our lives, we miss seeing Heavenly Father's finger prints, helping and guiding us. He helped us this day and I'm thankful that I could recognize that. 

Leaving Losee Canyon we had one more stop to make, Willis Canyon. Some friends of ours who use to live in the area told us it was a "must see". Leaving Losee Canyon I put Willis Canyon in google maps and we began following it's directions. After conversations with friends I thought the turn off was after Cannonville and maybe even Henrieville. We are in the middle of Cannonville and I see our GPS is telling us to turn up ahead to go to a park. Immediately my maps then tells me we have lost service and it stops working. Do we turn? My destination wasn't a park, it was Willis Canyon. Thinking I must have touched or done something we decide to continue on down the hwy. 15 miles later, we have passed Henrieville it is obvious we are not where we are suppose to be. Out of no where we get reception so Kory pulls over and I call our friends because GPS still won't work. She tells me the turn off is in Cannonville not afterwards. Oops! 

So we turn around and go back. Once we make the turn off the main road my GPS starts working again. Weird! We eventually make it to a dirt road. We knew it was a dirt road but was told it's pretty easy on a car. A mile or two in we get flagged down by a park ranger. He lets us know the road is pretty bad, worse than what we just came through, and we wouldn't make it in our car without ripping the bumper off. He suggests we turn around or park when we get to the 2nd cluster of cars and walk 1.5 miles in. Thinking the road we were on wasn't bad at all like the ranger was portraying it was we decide to keep going. We soon pass the 1st cluster of cars. Yep, the road was definitely worse, lots of ruts and gouges in the road. Going carefully and slowly we make it through with Hunter following us in his even lower to the ground car. We had no issues, just took it easy. We continue on until we come upon the 2nd cluster of parked cars. It's bad! We can see it from the car. We pull over and Kory gets out to examine the road. He's hoping to see a path we can take around/through the ruts. These ruts run from one side of the road to the opposite side. And they were deep, like 12-24 inches deep. You can see where tires have spun out. There's random pieces of cars that have been pulled to the side of the road. These ruts aren't in just one spot it was one right after the other. Kory's walking back to the car to tell us he's not seeing a way around (we really don't want a 1.5 mile hike in) when a truck comes around the bend coming towards us. All of a sudden they stop and yell out Kory's name. It was a cousin, Tracy Johnson and her husband Moyle, who live in Tropic.  

Tracy and Moyle had been working on their family cemetery where their adult daughter, April was buried a few weeks ago (died from cancer). They were headed into town to pick up family members to help, knowing they wouldn't be able to make it out in their cars. They were so nice and kind! We hopped in their truck, they turned around and took us the last two miles to the trail head. Then they said they'd be back in 2-2.5 hours to pick us up and take us back to our cars. The little miracles we were given that day. We were are all a little grumpy. It was early afternoon, we hadn't had lunch, we had gotten lost, the 30min drive had now been over an hour, the "easy" road was not easy and we felt we weren't getting anywhere. Some of us were ready to turn around and go back to the cabin. But some of us didn't want to go back, we kept trying. If the GPS hadn't stopped working, if we hadn't gotten "lost", if the road hadn't been as bad as it was we would have missed Kory's cousin. Because all these little things happened we were at the right place at the right time. They wouldn't have recognized Kory driving in our car. They recognized Kory because he was walking right next to the road.  Heavenly Father knew we wouldn't have made it. He knew I desperately wanted to bring my kids here. He made it happen by all nuisance's taking place that day!

What a wonderful time we had! This was our favorite part of our trip. The canyon doesn't normally have water running through it this time of year. The water this day was the irrigation run off from Kory's cousins field.  At the beginning we tried to keep our shoes dry. 

But then there were spots that you couldn't NOT walk or jump over it. And then some decided it was fun to walk through the water. 

Here's Emily trying to walk over and around it. 

After walking through the canyon it would open up. We were surrounded by tree's in the open area. After a short distance we would be back in the canyon walls. 

It is such a beautiful hike walking through the canyon. 

I am so glad we were able to hike Willis Canyon. The memories we made. 

My favorite picture!

 Brayden helping lil' sis climb up the wall. 

So exciting we made it!

Moyle picked us up and drove us back to our cars where we headed back to the cabin. 

We spent the evening playing card games and then visiting with family. 

We went to church Sunday, had lunch with Dustin and Harmony and then visited Klynt and Carrie. 

We had a great weekend get away. I'm so thankful for our Fall break this year. 

We have Covid

 Our family has officially had Covid. Two weeks ago Hunter came home from school on Friday and took a nap. Something he's never done. Friday night he said he wasn't feeling good, felt cold and went to bed early. Saturday he went to hang out with friends but came home much earlier than expected. He said he was just tired. Again he was cold and went to bed early. On Sunday Grandma Heaton was throwing a Sunday lunch in Losee Canyon, near Bryce Canyon. After he ate he went and sat in the van and fell asleep. He said he just didn't feel good. That night he complained to be cold again and went to bed early. I no longer have a thermometer but feeling his forehead he felt pretty warm.  Monday morning he woke up feeling almost normal and went to school. During the day he realized he had lost his smell and taste. Did he tell anyone this? Of course not. And so Hunter continued to go to school. He no longer had a fever, he sniffled a little here and there but no real symptoms of being sick. Hunter said his lack of smell and taste lasted about a week. Loosing your smell/taste is a sign of having Covid-19. By the time he told me about this symptom it was too late to have him tested, not that I would have had him tested anyways. But I would have kept home and quarantined him to be safe. 

Three weeks later......It's a Wednesday and the kids and I spend our afternoon outside pulling weeds, raking leaves and re planting my flowers that the wind literally blew up and out of the dirt. After being outside for an hour working we ALL start to sneeze, have watery eyes and feel itchy. It's how we typically feel working outside during "allergy season". That night we were all struggling a little bit but by Thursday morning we all felt better. I still had the sniffles and was tired but I hadn't slept the best because my nose was running the whole night. The kids symptoms were pretty much gone. Friday we participated in a park day with other home schooling families. While at the park my allergies and Brayden's started to flare up again. By the time we get home from the park I have a headache. By bed time my allergies are out of control but Brayden feels better. I feel overly tired, is it because I'm getting sick or the allergy pill I took? I go to bed feeling a little cold. During the night I wake up feeling absolutely awful! I am so, so cold, Kory says I'm burning up and my headache is awful. I struggle staying asleep during the night. By morning my head ache is barely there, I have still have a fever, I'm super cold and my whole body aches. It's conference weekend so I stay in our lazy boy chair with the intention of watching conference. I'm not sure I was even awake by the first speaker. I was out! I slept through the entire 1st session. Kory fixed lunched between sessions. I ate and went and took a nap thinking this would allow me to stay awake during the 2nd session Nope! I took my nap and then slept through the session in my lazy boy chair. After the session I was feeling better. Walked around the block with the family. My fever had broken and I was feeling better. Went to bed thinking all was well. About 2am I woke up super cold again a horrible headache and body aches. Sunday morning my headache was almost gone but I still had the other symptoms. I did the same dang thing I did the day before. Slept through almost all of Conference. It was during the 2nd session, near the end when my fever broke. I started feeling better almost immediately. Thankfully the headache, body aches and chills didn't come back. I slept peacefully that night. Monday I felt good but was just tired. Tuesday I still felt good but overly tired. Maddie and I decided to make cookies. After I put the 1st batch in the oven I sat at the table helping her with a project. We totally forgot about the cookies! By the time I remembered they were charcoal black. I couldn't believe I had forgotten about them. Why the heck did I not smell them burning? I was in the kitchen the whole time! And that is when I realized I couldn't smell them! That night before going to bed I put my nightly OnGuard on my chest. Guess what? I couldn't smell it. My smell remained lost for the following 5 days. My other symptoms never came back. Each day my energy was gaining and my tiredness weaning. 

I refused to be tested. I do NOT want to add to the paranoia some are feeling about our pandemic. I don't know why it effects everyone so differently. I don't know why some have lost their lives from this. I don't know why no one else in our family "caught" it. Part of me feels relieved that we have now had this new strain of the flu and we can move on! I am grateful that Hunter and I have fully recovered with no long term side effects.  

Homeschooling.

I love Home Schooling. 

I knew it was something that I was guided and inspired to do this year. But I didn't know how much I would love it. 

Sometimes Maddie jumps in and helps/plays with us in between her college and high school schedule. 

One goal I had this year was to teach my kids US geography. It's not part of any of our curriculum per say, just something I wanted them to learn. Here we are playing Scrambled States of America. It's helping us learn the name of the states and where they are in the U.S. It teaches us the capital of each state along with the nickname. It's one of our favorite games so far.  

 I found this Leap Frog USA at D.I for a whopping $3 it's helping us learn too. 

Our first unit in science has been Human Anatomy. 

Here is our playdough brain. We learned our brain has different sections and each section does different things. For instance, the orange piece represent our Frontal Lobe. That part of our brain helps us problem solve and creates our emotions. The brain stem (blue part) is the part of the brain that tells our body to do things we don't think about like breathing, swallowing and telling our heart to beat. I am learning just as much as my kid's in our home schooling journey. 

It may have been a little bit of a stretch playing Operation one Friday afternoon for science while Emily was at work. We were learning about bones at the time so why not!

But learn them they did! We had Mr. Bones on our back door for a few weeks. The kids enjoyed matching up the names with the right bones. 

We learned about our spine and why we are able to bend the way we can. 

Here we learned about tendons and why we are able to move our fingers....how it works on the inside. 

We've also learned about our lungs. It's been so fun to "make" things that replicate some of our organs/body parts. To see how and why they work the way they do. 

For History our 1st unit study was on the Ancient Native Americans. We learned about the many different areas of North America the Indians lived in. And what tribes lived where. For one of our STEM activities they were given different supplies and told to make a tool that the Indians may have/could have used. Emily had watched a short documentary on a pully system and tried making a replica. 

For a combined Language Arts, Social Studies and Art class everyone wrote a story about a Native American. They had to type it up and then using petroglyphs re-write their story as the Indians would have. 

At the end of our Ancient Native America unit I asked them each to create a slide show on google docs. Then they made a diorama. Kylie said this was her favorite part in Social Studies so far. 

She was so proud of her clay sculpting. She made the fire flames and rabbit's all by herself. She wanted to show how the Indian's cooked. The didn't have a stove like ours. 

Everyone chose a different tribe to learn about in a different part of the country. 

These are the things that will help them remember what they learned these first few weeks of school. 

So how does our day look? 

We start school about 8:15-8:30 everyday. Sometime they are still in their p.j's and sometimes they are dressed. The kids like doing math first. They all sit at the table with their math workbook in front of them. Emily is in Algebra, Brayden Pre-Algebra and Kylie in 3rd (times tables). They each do 2 pages, both sides. We get through one chapter almost every week, just like public school. Math generally takes us 20-40 minutes. Just depends if it's a new concept or reiterating what they learned during the lesson. They generally do math by themselves with Mom checking their answers when they are done. While they do math, Mom's making breakfast. By about 9:30 at the latest we are doing our Language Arts. Again each has their own notebook with lessons. I dictate spelling words and sentences to them out of their individual books. Their lessons can include writing several sentences about the book they are reading, using words such as witch/which in the right sentence. Lots of Grammar, correct sentence structure and writing essays. Our program also includes a little Geography. They have learned the names and where each ocean is. They are currently working on States and Capitals which totally helps me accomplish my goal. This typically lasts 45 min- 1hr. By 10:15 we either move on to Science or Social Studies. We do each two times a week. I try to be completely done by 11 when Kory gets home from work for lunch. After lunch we play! We play our "educational" games that most of the time they don't even realize that's what they are. We subscribed to Kiwi Crates this year. Once a month each child gets their own activity kit. 

This was Kylies first crate. She made a claw grabber and big pom pom monsters. She uses her grabber to "help" clean her room. 

One of Brayden's kits was a paint spinner. He had to build the box, build the electronic to make it spin and then created his own custom art. 

Through our homeschool program Brayden was given Lego Wedo 3.0 He builds a robot and has learned to code them. He can make then drive forward, lift, turn, reverse and stop. He loves this!

Emily's tech class is photoshop. She's learning how to change the look of different photos and remove unwanted objects from the photo. Kylie is also doing a adobe create program. She is learning how to draw characters, names and change their colors. So far so good!

I love the "extra" time I have with these kiddo's of mine. It's given this young man time to create. He put our new office chair together. 

I love that we are usually done with our text book school by 11 and by 1 their tech classes are done. When they have essays and other projects they are assigned this is the time they use to do those. I love the extra time I have with my kids. We go to the library once a week, the kids are in a group swim once a week and Emily is on a club swim that meets 4 times a week. We participate in a Common Wealth on Thursdays for a few hours that we have met more homeschool families. On Friday mornings several homeschool moms meet at a local park. The kids usually end up playing something like kickball, or flag football. The younger kids play on the equipment. 

I am really enjoying our school schedule this year and the kids seem to also.