Spring Baseball

Since I spent the winter asking Trace what was his favorite sport and he kept replying; "baseball" over and over, I decided to see if I could find a team for him to play on for the season and see if he still liked baseball best. Funny thing is, I enrolled him in both "machine pitch" and "coach pitch" baseball and we discovered very early on that he was WAY too advanced to play in the coach pitch league. I thought that machine pitch would be too hard for him, but he did great! Gone is the little boy that ran to the dugout instead of running to home plate! He had a great coach with this little team of beginners (red shirt team) and he really ended up doing great both at bat and in the outfield. He was usually placed as first baseman or short-stop and always got a base run at least when up to bat. After a longer-than-expected season due to rained out games for several weeks in a row, he decided that baseball is "his" sport and he is excited to try again next year.

Can't complain about the view!

One time, when he was up to bat, I was yelling at him to "put your elbow up!" He yelled back; "Look, I just got done with golf lessons where they told me to keep my elbow down, now you want me to keep it up? Sheesh, make up your mind!" Funny kid that one.

Easter

This year Grandma and Grandpa had all of us over for an epic Easter egg hunt in their backyard the day before Easter Sunday. Trace was suddenly not too old to participate in Kiddie things like "Easter egg" hunts when he heard the plastic eggs were full of candy, chocolate and even money! Grandma hid some easy ones for the little kids and it was really cute to watch Trace help the little ones and search for the harder ones.
We also gave Trace a basket with a new watch, some chocolate and a new set of chapter books to help him further his reading skills. I can't get over how cute that little sweetie is!

Must have a plan of attack.......

The Finer Things

We were driving along a road looking for a wedding reception we'd been invited to and we found ourselves in a very nice part of Salt Lake City. I was pointing out the nice, huge houses and to my surprise, from the back seat, Trace exclaimed; "Imagine the dining rooms in those houses! Beautiful!" I thought it was a strange comment for a 9 year old.

Abraham Lincoln

In the Third Grade at East Sandy Elementary, all students are required to read a non-fiction book about a historical figure, write a report and then they use those reports to participate in a grade-wide "wax museum" wherein the kids dress up as their person (or the era of their person) and have a poster board up for display and when a "button" is pushed on their desk, they recite a few facts about their subject.

Earlier in the year, Trace told me that he would get to choose who he wanted to do his report on, so long as he chose before a certain date or one would be assigned to him. He told me that he was having a hard time deciding between Napoleon Bonaparte from France or Abraham Lincoln. Since I know little to nothing about the French, I encouraged him to choose Abraham Lincoln. Phew! He took my advice and chose the 16th President of our United States as his subject. 

He had to read a book about Lincoln that was appropriate for his age and fill out questions about his life and achievements. Thankfully, I had saved/stolen the books that my Mom got for me growing up that teach young children about different attributes through the stories of famous people in history and sure enough, there was one about Lincoln in the set! 

We read the book together and learned some interesting things about his life like; his mother died when he was only 9 years old. His father remarried and his stepmother was kind to him and taught him to enjoy reading. His step-sister, stepmother and biological sister were all named "Sarah". He lost his home twice due to title issues. (Interesting for me, not the third graders) He used to store important papers in his stove-pipe hat. He worked on a raft delivering supplies down the Mississippi River and was there introduced to slavery. He was born to very poor parents in central Kentucky and only attended one year of formal schooling. He never did attend formal law school, but was a successful attorney for over 25 years in the state of Illinois. 

Trace painted a wooden log cabin for his display and Kevin found an enlarged version of a copper penny with Abe's face on it to put on the poster. Trace drew a picture of Abe Lincoln all on his own and when I suggested he include the infamous hat, Trace said "No, I want his true features to come out, not be hidden by a hat". Okay kid, whatever. 

The day of the museum came and I, Kevin, Grandma, Grandpa, Nana and Papa were all in attendance to see Trace in his costume and to hear his report. Trace could hardly wait to wear his costume and tall hat that we got for him and he was "only slightly" nervous when asked about if he was ready with what to say. The school had the 2nd and 1st graders come through the exhibit first, then parents were invited to mill around and press the "button" of the different characters.
I was so impressed with the different choices and costumes I saw! There were kids there as; Benjamin Franklin, Roberto Clemente (Baseball), Henry Ford, Genghis Khan, Julia Child (Chef), Marie Curie, Jackie Robinson (Baseball), Bryce Harper (Baseball), Helen Keller, Cristiano Ronaldo (Soccer), Bethany Hamilton (Surfer), Albert Einstein, Harry Houdini and even a boy who chose Susan B. Anthony as his report subject. All the kids really thought outside the box and although there were some repeats, (I think Abraham Lincoln was the most popular) it was so cool to see the kids choosing different nationalities, backgrounds and even gender to do a report on. Gives me a little hope for our future generation.

Talan Smith as Bryce Harper

Camden as Benjamin Franklin

Matthew Palmer as Roberto Clemente

Riley Morgan as Henry Ford

Burton Klc as Genghis Khan

Chloe Morgan as Julia Child

Sammie as Madam Curie

Aiden as Jackie Robinson and Sophie Smart as Helen Keller

Griffin as Albert Einstein

Reid Williams as Harry Houdini

  

Cross to Bear

When discussing some spiritual things and explaining to Trace a little bit more about our church, he asked about why we don't wear or have crosses hanging in our house. We explained that we don't like to remember Christ's death, we prefer to remember his life and his resurrection. He was asking about the difference between us and the Catholic church, but he only knew it by the description of nuns. It took me a minute, but I finally figured out that's what he was asking about after discovering when he was asking questions about "gnomes", he was actually talking about "nuns". I loved it! So cute to watch his vocabulary expand!

Spring Break Moab

For Spring Break this year, we decided to go to Moab, Utah to explore our beautiful state a little bit with Trace and use our trailer for the first time of the year. We stayed right on the main street near the High School in a camp ground that had such tight spots our first day we watched another trailer turn the corner and completely destroy the fence and ripped the back of the trailer almost completely off! Our first day there, we spent most of fixing OUR trailer and the bathroom faucet that froze and split over the winter and when we hooked up to the water supply at the campground, it started spraying water all over the bathroom area, both inside and out. Who knew trailer parts were so hard to find in Grand County during spring break?

Trace and I took advantage of the campground swimming pool while Kevin was fixing the trailer and when he was finished, he joined us for a little fun. 

When the water line was repaired enough to stop the water from leaking all over, we chose to hike a "easy" hike and I almost died. We chose one called "Corona Arch" because it was rated as "good for kids". Ha! There were parts of the hike that we had to hold onto a cable that was drilled into the side of the rock and an actual ladder installed so that humans could make it up a steep climb to another rock formation. There was a section where everyone had stacked rocks on top of one another and red painted footprints on parts of the rock ground to show you the way to go. I had reached the point of exhaustion and was ready to quit and just then, we turned the corner and finally saw the arch! Once I had sight of it I collapsed and couldn't go another step. Trace said; "Come on Mom, you got to make it to the finish line!" I smiled as Kevin said he'd take him up to the end. I think it was a miracle I made it that far and certainly didn't want to do it again. I'm so out of shape!

Lunch at Trace's favorite spot, Subway!

Workers blasted and carved right through the rock for the railroad

The next day we had booked an ATV/Razor tour through the canyon lands. I was a bit worried about how Kevin and I would do with our backs, but it turned out to be just fine for both of us! I don't know if the seats are just made to take the shocks away from you or the trail was pretty mellow or both, but we ended up having a great time and suffering no more pain than usual. 

We took the tour to a natural cave that is actually a split between two rocks. We were able to walk all the way through it and it was neat to see and feel how much cooler the cave was than on the outside. We took our tour with some folks from overseas and they were amazed to hear that sometimes that area got up to 115° or so during the summer. We definitely made the trip in the right time of the year! Our temperatures were only in the high 80's and low 90's.

Ancient markings on the rock walls

Ancient paintings on the rock walls too!

Our next scheduled adventure in Moab was a Dutch oven buffet and a boat ride down the Colorado River. The tour was to take you up river a few miles at dusk and point out different shapes and markings on the canyon walls and then, on the way back, they used a spotlight to show certain parts and markings and tell you the story of the original settlers of the area. We discovered that the meal was average, the trip up river was moderately entertaining and the ride back with the spotlight in the dark was dreadfully boring. All three of us had trouble staying awake and we wouldn't have had the speakers on the boat not been blaring in our ears for the entire ride back to the lodge. The most entertaining part for me was when we were leaving the dock the tour guide told us that due to the coast guard rules, all kids had to wear life jackets and that they had containers in the front of the boat full of enough life jackets for all the seats on the boat. He said; "So if we start to sink, we'll want you to come grab a life jacket, put it over your head and stand up and carry it above you as you walk to shore, this water at it's deepest is only 18 inches and those are brand new life jackets, we don't want to get them wet". Haha!

This is supposed to look like "ET".....I don't really see it. 

We saw an interesting site on our way into town and decided to check it out on our last day there. When driving on the freeway into town, you could see shadows and silhouettes of some huge dinosaurs. It turned out to be a dinosaur outdoor museum where they built life-sized dinosaurs and set them up in a sort of hike out in the desert for you to walk along and see. It was really cool to see how we size up next to these big creatures and because it's a pretty new exhibit, it had some of the dinosaur statues with feathers on them and interesting colors based on the newest and current scientific findings. They also had an inside museum with real dinosaur fossils and several neat exhibits and a 3-D "aquarium" that showed you prehistoric sea creatures via movie screens and walkways through dark hallways. We ended up spending the whole day there and left just in time to see the whole valley get a real downpour of rain. 

On the way back, there was a huge hill on the side of the road that several other kids were climbing up and running/rolling down. Much to my dismay, Trace begged to do it and Kevin pulled over. Yikes, I was just praying he didn't roll his head onto a rock! Kids are weird, he was covered in sand when we got back and I think some sand may still be hiding in crevices of his body we haven't discovered yet. Ew.....

On our way out of town to head home, we stopped by a "rock shop" for souvenirs and Trace was again entranced by the "crystals" and geodes and try as I might, I simply could not talk him into getting a fossil or sandstone. I did get myself a nice sandstone archway trinket to help me remember the fun of the trip. It was a good reminder that we have so much cool stuff near us and a nice get away with just the three of us.