Easter in Escalante!

We finally made it over to visit Grandma Alvey (or "Grandma Abby" as Abby calls her) in Escalante during Easter break. We were joined by my brothers and their families, David even brought the dog. Here are the kids out in the orchard playing frisbee - I have many fond memories of the orchard - running through the sprinklers, climbing trees and wearing the front packs to hold all the apples and pears we picked.

The kids loved having "Rufus there - they have been begging for their own dog ever since.

Escalante is my favorite place to "Easter". It was a tradition while we were growing up to decorate easter eggs at Grandma and Grandpa's and then pack our picnic and head to Calf Creek Falls, where we would hike and the easter bunny would come. I didn't hike this year - I didn't think that I could convince my doctor that a 5 mile hike was mandatory activity, since I am on a modified bed rest and anything optional is strongly discouraged, so Michael and Elsa took on the task of herding all 3 of the kids up the trail. Here are the happy hikers - just starting the trip! Dad, Mom and Courtnie also helped with the kids! THANKS!

Here is Michael and Abby at the beginning of the hike

Here they are later - Abby had a great nap - Michael probably had a sore back.

Here are the Falls - you can't quite see the top but they are impressive falls - that's even coming from someone who lived in Oregon for quite a few years.

As expected - the easter bunny was spotted as we were finishing our picnic. Here are some of the best pictures. Abby had quite a time, last year I hid dried fruit in the eggs, so with the candy in the eggs it was a whole new experience for her.

The easter bunny left a few bigger toys as well - Miles found a football (orange, his new favorite color, of course), Ethan found a bakagon (spelling?) cards and Abby found new sidewalk chalk.

This is one of my favorite pictures - Abby didn't get a fraction of the easter eggs her brothers did, even though the easter bunny hid quite a few at her level. She had to open each egg as she found it to make sure that there was candy in all of them.

Science Fair's

We did the science fair again - Here is Miles's project - He wanted to find if a soccer ball will travel farther when kicked in warm weather or cold weather. He measured the bounce of the soccer ball at room temperature, after it had been in the fridge and freezer and after we warmed it in the oven. He got some great results, and ended up doing even more tests (he tested the air pressure also at each temperature). He found that as the ball was warmed up the air molecules got excited and actually increased the pressure in the ball, when the ball was cooled it slowed the molecules and the pressure dropped a lot. Anyway - here are the pictures!

Miles dropped the ball from against the ceiling of the carport and we measured the bounce against the ladder.





We really warmed the ball in the oven!!! It didn't seem to melt, but I could smell the rubber for a couple of hours!

He did the board himself - this school was big into the science fair project being the kids work, which Miles loved. They also had the kids talk about their projects to the judges, something that our last school didn't do.

Ethan also had to do the science fair - and he came up with his project himself. He wanted to test which color is warmer to wear when the sun is shining. To do this he got 5 of his colored t-shirts and put them outside. We then measured the temperature on top of the shirts every hour for 6 hours and found that yes, his guess was right - the black was the warmest.

Here he is reading the temperature on the shirts! We had a hard time keeping the thermometer out of the sun, but we finally figured it out!

Ethan actually won the school science fair for the kindergarten level and then went on to the regionals where he took 2nd in the kindergarten and 1st grade level. He was very excited!

Here he is with his trophy and medal. He must have done a better job explaining his project to the judges than he did with some of my friends who came by as we were setting up. They asked him to tell them about his project: his reply: "Just read the board!"