Pearl Harbor

Corey got tickets for us to visit the USS Arizona Memorial at 8:30 this morning. We woke up and got ready and were running late and there was traffic on the freeway that made us more late and it was a bit frazzling and Mel called but I couldn't do a video call with her cause then I couldn't see the map and Corey dropped us off so we could check in while he parked and we barely made it to Pearl Harbor (with 1 minute to spare for Joseph to run our bags back to the car since no luggage was allowed and he ran and he quickly caught up to us) and we walked right on to the ferry as it was ready to depart. Phew! We need to stop cutting things so close and needing "It's a miracle we made it" stories (like Natalie's visa, see last pic).

Face masks on everyone except Peter. I'm impressed Daniel can see over his...

Wonderful service men

Hyrum's silhouette as we come to the Memorial.

Lily looking at the map showing how the Arizona looked originally, and how it looks now in the water below us.

Abi and Joseph looking at a display that wasn't there when Corey and I came in 2016 - it shows when divers placed the final urn of one of the Arizona's survivors with the ship after he passed away in December last year.

We saw a turtle and lots of fish in the water below. To me that seemed like a sign of hope for the world. After all the mess we make along the way life goes on - ours and that of this planet.

Sweet Peter was making noise. He is adorable. 

I appreciated Wesley holding him.

Inside the temple of names with the tree of life sculpture letting light shine in. 

Corey sharing a teaching moment with the kids. 

Wes and Peter in the quiet space. 

There is a very sacred feeling at the memorial, similar to the temple, where we think of sacrifice, of life, death, and where we gain an Eternal Perspective of the life we want to live, and the legacy we will leave. Corey showing the kids the oil that is still leaking into the harbor.

The Seal - "Heraldry!" Stephen Spykerman (see the Pilgrim Hypothesis)

More insights from Corey - 

"MAY GOD MAKE HIS FACE TO SHINE UPON THEM AND GRANT THEM PEACE"

After 30 minutes, Daniel was done, so lucky for him it was time to go.

We got to go on another boat ride, the little boys liked that. Then we walked along the walk of remembrance, I really liked that this time again.

Corey and the little boys got ahead of us, but we caught up to them at the museum.

It was great to be there with the kids. (You have a lot of kids, Corey!)

Then we went to Wendy's for some survival food, fries for everyone. Inside the party bus - Wes and Hyrum are kinda hiding.

We counted incorrectly by accident and forgot to get a burger for Joseph. He was very nice about it and we're making it up to him with food later. We went by Costco and stocked up big time, we called Mel back, oh, and I saw a MONARCH BUTTERFLY at the Wendy's drive through! I tried to get a photo, I was really thinking it would come land on me or that I'd be able to grab it, but no, it flew away. But I'm so happy I saw one. I didn't know Hawaii had Monarchs! So that is great, gives me hope for their species after a monarch-less summer at home and especially after all the California fires, so that was a happy moment. We should have food to last us until Monday. I need to make lots of fruit smoothies. 

So it's just been lots of pool time today - at the Lagoon pool and the Nai'a pool. We go from a reservation at one pool, then take a 30 min break, and head to the next pool. Daniel was very patiently holding up his arm for his wristband, reaching up so high, cute boy.

At the Lagoon pool tonight, Peter overcame his fear of the bubbling fountain. Here he is pointing at it, saying "Scare..."

And Lily helping him learn he has power over the water - 

And just like that, he overcame his fear. He can now go up to it and touch it and step on it.

But when he's back on the beach, he'll still look over at it from a distance and says "Scare..." We buried Peter in the sand today. He liked that.

Owen and Daniel did their usual jumping. Daniel is so cute and friendly too, he'll go up to kids and strike up conversations. He swam over to a little girl "Hi! I like your hair!"

Hyrum/Sophi and Abi/Natalie had a chicken fight in the Lagoon Pool that was paused and then resumed when we went to our 5pm pool reservation back at Naia.

Fight fight fight!

Chicken fight all night. 

Lily holding Peter.

After our night of fun, walking back to the room... Daniel, can you see over that mask?

Time for bed, and then another day of swimming tomorrow.

Reading, Writing and Fuzzies

Owen is loving kindergarten. He comes home and writes his name and writes the alphabet and writes his number "22" - it's like a whole world of learning, writing, and drawing, has finally clicked and opened up to him and he's loving it. Today before school, he took a calendar off the wall and was pointing to Sept 22 and said "That's me!" Yep! You're #22! That's right! He's also been using his leap frog magnet backpack to draw words and practice letters. He's had this toy backpack for over a year but now he's discovered what it is for! This is his drawing of a dragon, and a little self portrait there in front of him holding a sword. So cute

He's pointing to the dragon's claws - "He had pokies."

Today I took a few photos as I walked him to the bus. He is using one of Joseph's old backpacks, which (since it is for a high school kid) almost goes down past Owen's knees.

It kinda looked like a turtle shell! It was super cute to see him skip up the street.

Today we also harvested our milkweed seeds. I've been excited about milkweed since 2012. We finally have lots of milkweed in our yard, but I am so sad that we didn't have any monarchs this year. I hope they are ok! I'm sure the fires in California have caused much damage to people, animal, plants, and insects. It's sad to think the monarch numbers are down so low. I have kinda stopped looking for eggs, maybe I'll look again a few times, cause there's still a chance! There's still hope. Ok, I'll go look and will pray and I'll keep planting milkweed and hope that they help the cycle somehow. I had like 8 pods - 3 from our yard and I grabbed 5 from some plants on the way to the bus. I took the seeds and then let the kids play with the fuzz.

We get snow in winter (real snow), spring (from out cottonwood trees), and in fall!

Blowing the snowflakes and fairies.

Snow ball fight!

Today was a rare treat after Owen left for school, cause both Peter and Daniel took a nap! I was kid free for like an hour! Owen left for school at 12:20 (bus comes at 12:34) then I came back and put Peter to bed. And around 2:00 Daniel put himself down for a nap on the couch. 

He got up early this morning, so I am glad he took a nap, or he would have gotten really cranky around dinner time. I'd like him to wake up early every morning so that I can have this hour of quiet, but Daniel usually sleeps in until 10. So we'll see if we can get our whole family on a good schedule. We've read scriptures earlier at night, which has been making us head to bed as soon as it's dark. We've had kids in bed by 10 two nights in a row! That's pretty amazing. They are all doing great. Tonight Owen shared his desk with Peter, which was so cute to see. 

I love these three little boys. 

Owen teaching Peter the ABCs

How wonderful that we did have a repeat of Monday's "good day!" My heart is full and thankful for the little joys and quiet moments of this blessed life. 

Butterfly Biosphere

Today our last butterfly emerged, as predicted. The weather today was mid 60s for a high, mid 40s for a low, but the forecast for next week is highs in the 50s, lows in the 30s! So I didn't want to release the butterfly outside. I asked on facebook if anyone in SLC was headed to southern Utah, but didn't get any takers. So plan B - the Butterfly Biosphere at Thanksgiving Point. I hadn't been to the conservatory before today, so it was a fun new experience. I didn't call ahead to ask if they took butterflies, we just went hoping for the best, and if they wouldn't, I figured I'd hold my kids captive for a ride south and we'd spend the day in the car. I told them that was the plan. Lucky for them, the biosphere took our little lady no problem. Other than she flew away for a minute from us in the lobby. A person at the desk caught her and took her in, we followed. Then Lily held it again as we waited for it to fly away into it's new controlled temperature greenhouse home.

It didn't want to leave, so it hung onto Lily for a while. Then Lily tried to let Natalie have a turn, I thought this was a precious photo - reminded me of the one of Mel and the little girls at the beach (pic 2)

In the pic above and the beach pic, I love seeing all their attention focused in on some little amazing creature and being present with the little wonders of this world. Abi got a big white butterfly to land on her - 

She's like a Disney Princess - at one with the animal kingdom...

 

Lily had a few of those moments too. She was in awe an dfelt she had entered into a magical place! She was happy when she got one of the big blue butterflies. They were really big!

So I kinda feel bad that I've chosen for this butterfly a life of captivity, but I also think that there should be butterflies in the biosphere - it's important for children to have a place where they can be up close with these little wonders. We were all amazed by the wall of chrysalis's, wow!!! So many different kinds!! And most of the chrysalis were pretty ugly and gross looking. No offense butterflies, but monarchs are my favorite. We were excited when we saw monarchs in the biosphere. Is that our girl? Did she find a male companion?

Well that's good that she has some monarch company. So yeah, she's not really wild and free now that she's living in the biosphere, but hey, it's better than freezing to death. And it seems to be a very lovely place to live and to have everything a butterfly could want, from what I could tell from my non butterfly perspective. It kinda reminds me of the Garden of Eden. Perfect, but not ideal, maybe cause it's too easy... we need to go out in the world and experience the storms of life in order for us to truly understand joy. So, there's the gospel parallel for ya. Owen might say that the bugs were a bit to close for comfort... Here I tried to take a picture of the kids and there is a little butterfly flying by in front of Sophi's shirt - and Owen did not like that.

Ok, take 2 - and Abi remembered Peter should be included.

Natalie was sad cause none of the butterflies were landing on her. But I needed to get Owen and Daniel out of there, so we left and I told the girls I'd be waiting for them in the discovery zone.
But then we went to the "Costa Rica Climber" playplace instead. Owen and Daniel went down the slide while I fed Peter. They also had a wind thing showing how the butterflies get blown up high by the wind - Owen letting go a yellow fabric in the wind chute.

Soon the girls found us. 

Soph helped Daniel build a castle for his caterpillar, which he proudly showed me - 

Lily turned Peter into a Lady bug. .

Peter, do you like being a ladybug?!?

What a cute little guy. Up the stairs on the way to the slide, there was a treehouse area where the kids could learn more about insects and imagine their own "entomology field research". 

They did some research on a orchid bee.  

It actually looked more to me like they had abducted some alien and were doing research on him.

But they looked cute in their little white trench coats. Then I was about done, so we attempted to leave, but got side tracked in the Discovery Zone. Climbing on a caterpillar...

Lily is in a chrysalis!

And soon she turned into a butterfly, layed her egg on a milkweed plant leaf, and started the cycle over again. 

"Take a picture of us!"

 One final pics - some bugs in a jar., haha cute. 

And then after that we finally did walk over to the dinosaur museum, cause Owen insisted we go (despite my trying to buy him out with ice cream). We were able to get through it quickly enough. I fed Peter while they played at the water table, luckily we've seen it all. But checked it off for Owen, then we headed home. It was a great outing, 4 hours with 7 kids, go me.