The girls had a half day nature camp all week long. I brought PB and Nutella sandwiches to have a little picnic when I picked them up.
What’s with the head tilt?
This guy wanted a sandwich too!
Alex was quite terrified.
And the turkey was quite persistent. He’s a big guy. He just watched and inched closer and closer. We finished and he was so disappointed.
Well, we took all seven younguns on a 4 mile hike to Adam’s Canyon on Thursday morning. It says on the website that it’s about 2-3 hours. It took us from 8ish to about 1:30. ugh
But we did see some amazing plant life and some awesome waterfalls. It smelled good and piney and fresh.
There were lots of little scrub oaks with these guys on them. I think they’re gall wasps?
hey y’all!
Stair steps: Liz@11, Reygan@almost9, Ben@7, Tori@6, Katie@5, Ty@4, Alex@2.
And then there were these hard little orangey pink galls on the oak leaves: gallflies.
ants. You’d think the kids never saw them before.
pretty yellow wildflower
black chinned hummingbird…see him? right in the middle on the end of the dead branch?
cactus
view of the mountains down southeast and a pretty look at town on the first leg of the hike
Fun in the creek
crossing the creek…see how Alex won that battle?
my son, the rock climber
a pretty little waterfall
yellow columbines
wild raspberries!
The jackpot: 40 foot waterfall at the end of the trail!
snack time! (on trail mix, not the raspberries…)
of course, I had to go into the waterfall, not all the way, but almost
that water was COLD
Alex thought this was the greatest thing in the world! (so did I…)
It was rough heading back. There was lots of whining and we were so. very. tired. Thank God we had four adults, but it was barely enough. Aaron carried Alex almost the whole way back. Katie is crazy and she wanted to hop on rocks and she stepped off the trail a couple times, almost toppling off the mountain. Special thanks to my sister-in-law, Krista, for saving her life.
I do love hiking and all that, but it is stressful with little kids. I think I’ll stick to the nature center and parks and our backyard until they’re a bit older. I’m still sore!
We visited the Hill Aerospace Museum.
Always chokes me up to see that POW/MIA flag…
BIG airplane
Even the wheels are big! The kids measure up.
Holding up the nose
Fun being able to climb all over helicopters!
Uncle was nice to lift up the kids so they could see inside an airplane.
Lights! Buttons!
Showing the different areas of the Ogden armory
reminiscent of M.A.S.H.
Katie being goofy
Me and my Bubba
Katie and cousin silhouette
Our kids’ museum has a literacy theme. We love the Treehouse Museum.
We started with the castle room this time and worked our way down.
Not the Chosen One…
Dressup Castle
Queen and her jester
Royal Cousins
Cool light table
Marimba! pretty cool music
Awesome view microscope. Alex loved these and could do it all by himself!
Baby doctors Tori and Katie
More dress up…
Crafts stations…don’tcha know that boy went for the scissors!
Climbing the treehouse
Kate loves cows
Firefighters…
an Air Force horse statue. These are all over town decorated with regional attractions. I love it.
Monday
10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. (September – May)
10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (June – August and MLK Jr. Day, President’s Day, Labor Day & Christmas Break)
Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday
10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Friday
10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Sunday Closed
Closed January 1, Memorial Day, July 4, July 24, Thanksgiving & Christmas Day
Children age 1-12: $7
Adults and Children 13+: $5
Babies under age 1: Free
SUMMER SEASON ( May 1 – September 30) | |
| Adults | $14.95 |
| Seniors (65 and older): | $12.95 |
| Children (3 to 12): | $10.95 |
| Children 2 and younger: | Free |
REGULAR ( October 1 – April 30) | |
| Adults | $11.95 |
| Seniors (65 and older): | $9.95 |
| Children (3 to 12): | $8.95 |
| Children 2 and younger: | Free |
| Summer Hours
March 1 – October 31 | |
| Gate: | 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. |
| Grounds: | 9 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. |
| Winter Hours
November 1 – February 28 | |
| Gate: | 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. |
| Grounds: | 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. |
For Katie’s birthday and just ‘cuz…
It was run by our local 4-H and they were awesome. For $25 per family, we could see a handful of cows, sheep, goats, pigs, geese, ducklings, chicks, 1 mini horse, bunnies, and turkeys. The kids loved it.
For her birthday today, she received a cow bank from my parents, cow Webkinz, a Sandra Boynton cow CD and book, and a little cow vacuum to suck up table crumbs. And she already has quite a cow collection. So seeing these cute little guys made her day.
Unfortunately, they were all huddled together in fear and we didn’t get to pet them, but they sure were cute!
Fun pics! The kids made animals sounds for the first one and buzzed like bees for the flower pic. Funny!
Alex loved petting the sheep…until the sheep turned around to face him and check him out and he stumbled back so fast it was hilarious!
Then we found The Tent. Baby chicks and ducklings and bunnies! That you could hold and pet! Hurry!
Liz loved on a muddy duckling for about a second. It was wet! ew! But we wanted to take one home and name it Henry, like in The Little Duck.
Baby chicks were much cleaner and softer. Cuteness!
Tori really loved the chicks.
Alex LOVED the bunny.
There were sweet gray bunnies with their mama.
We love baby animals!
We took a trip to our local botanical garden: Red Butte Garden.
It was cold and windy and we didn’t have coats, but the flowers were lovely. It was almost 80 yesterday! We even saw snowflakes. brrr
We rode the train and bus to be all green and the kids were ecstatic to finally ride that train downtown!
We should have brought jackets. It was still awful cold downtown.
We were quite fascinated by this Dwarf Cedar of Lebanon
Tori, Katie, and Alex tried out all the swings in each little garden exhibit.
This was in the herb and medicinal garden, which was probably my favorite area.
The children’s garden was fun and cute with snakes and lizards all over the place!
This lovely little grotto offered a much-needed respite.
We walked as far as this waterfall and then headed back to eat some lunch and head home. Oh, how cold they look!
We really loved this paperbark maple. It was just budding out and the trunk with that bark is so lovely.
So many different kinds of daffodils, narcissus, jonquils, etc.
a beautiful flowering crabapple
We definitely want to go again, when it’s warmer and the roses bloom and to see some of their new exhibits that open this summer!
Such a fun festival at Ogden Nature Center!
a llama cart ride!
Constellation ball throw…that kid has a arm!
Learning about mason bees
et tu, Brute?
Making Earth gel clings with colored glue
King of the mountain!
A solar powered fountain
Ogden Nature Center had a terrific Earth Day festival!
How cool is this? We got to ride in a llama cart!
Tori was a little excited…
Making Earth gel clings with colored glue
Looking at sun spots through a fancy telescope.
Tori impressed this guy with her sun knowledge!
She also completed a math puzzle with a pattern they’d never seen before! So proud!
my lil monkeys rock climbing
some much needed icies
storytime break
The girls have new matching desks for school! They love this setup!
We read about canines in science this week and made sock puppet dogs. They still love those junior notebooks!
We watched a documentary about reintegrating wolves from Yellowstone to the surrounding wilderness and how that impacts ranchers. Now they want to research wolves for a living. I love their passion for their studies!
We finished off our science study of Swimming Creatures with a field trip to The Living Planet Aquarium!
Alex was just a baby last year when we went and he didn’t care much about it. This time, he was ecstatic!
We spend a LOOOONG time watching the jellyfish get fed. They literally swooped and scooped up the food from this turkey baster!
This is a BIG lobster. Any one have any butter?
Alex got really tickled at this tank with needle fish and lion fish.
The lion fish spread his fins out a couple times and was quite magnificent.
A really colorful tropical tank
There’s a little goby hiding in the bottom of this tank.
We got to pet rays! Alex liked to watch everyone else pet rays. He really didn’t like it when I put his hand in the water. The keepers said they clip the tail barbs like we clip our fingernails.
Alex had a needed break in this fun little area with little bitty aquariums among the climbing areas.
They also had a quiet room with fun puzzles and books!
After his break, he wanted to join his sisters again to see the rays.
We got to watch them getting fed too! They went rather crazy. The rays, not the kids.
Ribbit, ribbit!
And the star attraction, just arrived in January!
They have a little bubble you can climb into and see them from the inside, up close.
Alex really loved this. We also entered the contest to name these cute little boogers.
We glanced through the gift shop, and Alex loved this turtle hat!
On our way out, the girls had a fun photo booth session!
I made scavenger hunt pages for the girls.
I had fun clipboards and gave them each a pen and we checked off the animals we had learned about in science this year.
Visit The Living Planet Aquarium:
Open daily from 10am to 6pm, Closed Thanksgiving Day and Christmas
Adults $17.95
Military $14.95
Teens 13-17 $14.95
Child 3-12 $12.95
