Rebecca – Page 77 – Andelin Adventures

The La Brea Tar Pits

It’s been interesting these last few years that we have had kids in school, to see the kinds of field trips they have gone on. I have seen them go on field trips to the zoo, or Ethan once went to Thanksgiving point, they also sometimes have a “walking field trip” to a nearby park. A while ago Jeremy had a field trip to the “CAL Ranch Store”. Tyra has a field trip coming up to go to a planetarium at BYU, and Ethan will be going to Utah lake, and to a natural history museum before this school year is over. Thinking of all these places made Kyle and I reminisce to when we were in elementary school and what kinds of field trips we went on. We both remember field trips that included some tide pools, and we both remember going to the “La Brea Tar Pits”. We went and found some tide pools last time we were in California, so this time we made time for the tar pits!

We started our visit waiting for the tour to start while the kids tried to lift the metal poles out of some tar:

The tour began, and we went to follow the guide.

I thought he seemed like a guy who REALLY likes what he does, and he seemed to know a lot about the different fossils in the museum. However we soon noticed that most of the kids were getting bored, and the guide just wasn’t moving fast enough to keep their interest, so we had to go on ahead and do our own self guided tour. In this picture I love the look of surprise on Jeremy’s face!

Tyra wanted to size her arm span up with the mammoth’s tusks:

That meant that Dinah wanted to size her arm span up with the large bird’s wing span:

Some of the kids were really interested in watching a real paleontologist working on real fossils in the “Fishbowl lab”.

Jeremy being silly yet again:

After we finished looking at everything inside the museum we decided to go out and explore the atrium. It was very pretty with all the plants and the small water fall. I think the kids got a kick out of seeing a whole bunch of turtles.

When we first walking into the museum, and Kyle was buying tickets, the kids got really excited to find souvenir penny smasher machines. You may remember that when we were in North Carolina they were introduced to this concept, and I had since found penny passports for them to keep their smashed pennies in, and penny smashing machines here at the tar pits meant they got to add a second penny to their collection. So when we were finished checking out the atrium and we were about ready to go, we lined all the kids up on the bench while I tried to figure out how many quarters and how many pennies I had. 😉

I am really glad we were able to make time to visit the La Brea Tar Pits. I think most of the kids really enjoyed it too, of course Lydia and Adam don’t really care very much, but they were pleasant sitting in the stroller and just checking things out.

How did she do that?

HOW did Lydia happen to flip my desktop sideways???

It is incredibly difficult to type, or to move the mouse around when the orientation has been flipped.

Kyle figured it out when he got home from work, and it ended up being a simple combination of specific keys being pushed at the same time. So he flipped it back the right way and then went into the settings to turn that command off. 🙂

Signs of Spring

A couple of weeks ago a neighbor shared a picture of one of her kids covered in mud from about the waste down.

Last week Tyra came home in mud looking about the same as the neighbor kid did.

The other day as I was driving to the dentist I noticed some tractors out working in the fields.

At the dentist office, I noticed buds on the bushes around the building.

The backyard is all thawed except by the back fence where it gets no sunshine.

The front yard is mostly thawed aside from the areas that are in the shade most of the time, and the lawn is squishy.

There are buds on our trees.

And Chewy was covered in mud when he wanted to come inside today.

Yes sir, even though today is bleak and overcast, I do believe that spring really is around the corner. This winter has been so cold that everything has been frozen solid for so long, and now the fact that everything is thawing indicates spring is coming. And for that I will rejoice. 🙂

What goes on in her mind?

Yesterday Tyra didn’t come straight home like she is supposed to. She left the school with the boys, but then she went with her friend Carley, to Carley’s house. She came home with Carley to tell me that Carley’s mom said that she can come over to play. I told her that she didn’t ask me if Carley could come over, and I pointed out that she has lots of homework to get done before I even consider letting her have a friend over. Not to mention that the house is a mess because we are in the process of moving everything around now that the basement is finished. So she sent Carley home saying that she can’t play today, but maybe another day.

Today, the boys again, came in the house without Tyra. Ethan informed me that she was in the front yard. When Tyra did come in the house, she brought someone else with her, and she came to me to tell me “She wants to watch me do my homework.” I told her that I really don’t think this girl wants to watch you do your homework. Then I pointed out that Tyra still hadn’t even started her homework for the week, and that Daddy and Ethan have scouts tonight and we just have a lot going on. I told the other little girl that we will have to talk to her parents and set up a play date in advance for some other time. She said ok and then Tyra took her to the door, telling her to tell her mom that she can’t play today and not to be scared going home. Then Tyra came back to me to yell at me “I didn’t know that you would send that LITTLE girl home!” The phrase “little girl” caught my attention. I asked Tyra, “what is that girl’s name?” Tyra had no clue what this girl’s name was but says “She lives over there somewhere” as she points to the back of the house.

So at this point I’m thinking “Great, this girl’s mom is going to think I’m a snob or something because I wouldn’t let her stay and play, assuming her mom knew that she had come to my house. Also because I have no idea who she was or who her parents are, or where they live or anything like that, I CAN’T set up a play date for anytime.

I don’t know why Tyra thought that maybe I would let this girl stay and play, when I wouldn’t let Carley stay and play yesterday. Why would she think there was a difference? She still hasn’t done any homework. The house is still a mess and she isn’t helping to clean it up. Both of those were reasons I said we couldn’t have friends over, yesterday. Why would I have changed my mind for today just because she brought a different kid over? It’s like she is testing me or trying to trick me or something.

World Thinking Day

When I was a girl scout I remember participating in an activity that we called “International day”. We got together with a whole bunch of other troops and each troop represented a different country. We had a display to show things from our country and we got to dress up to represent our country and as a troop we made a treat to share, and we had passports that we got to take with us from table to table and as we got to taste the treats from all the other countries they stamped our passports. Upon becoming a leader I tried to look it up to see when it was supposed to be and found information on “World Thinking Day” which seems to be the same thing and it’s on February 22nd every year. Last year, we celebrated World Thinking day as a troop. Each of our girls got to pick a country, and they learned a little bit about that country, and came to our meeting dressed up to represent their country and they brought a snack from their country. When our service unit asked for activity suggestions, I suggested a World Thinking day activity and I described the way it was when I was a girl. (I also described the girl scout olympics, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with this post. 😉 ) This year, our service unit is put on a World Thinking Day event and it was similar to the way it was when I was a girl. Each troop represented a country, and they had treats and swaps, and a display, not many people dressed up though. The older girl scouts made passports for all the girls attending. I kind of think the passports that I had when I was a girl were better though. Mine have my picture on them and info about what troop I was in, and what country we were representing and things like that. These passports were just some folded papers inside a laminated cover that said “Passport” on the front. But there were enough pages inside to make it difficult for the staples to actually hold them all inside (Tyra’s fell apart, halfway around the room). Our troop represented Micronesia this year, because Amy’s sister lived there for awhile and had some things that we could put on display and she came to one of our meetings to tell the girls about the islands and the people that live there (Tyra and I missed that meeting though due to our impromptu trip to North Carolina).

If the service unit puts this on again next year I would like to get the girls more involved in deciding which country to represent. Amy split the girls up and set up shifts at our booth for the girls to cover. That way everyone had a turn to be at the table to answer questions about Micronesia, but that way they didn’t have to be at the booth the whole time and could check out the other booths before or after their shifts. Tyra’s shift was the second to last, so we started out by going around the room. We were just finishing our rounds when we heard them say that we would be ending in 10 minutes. I flipped out, thinking that I totally spaced the time and missed taking Tyra to our troop’s booth for her shift. But, upon looking at the time, I noticed that we still had time before her shift was about to start, and that there was supposed to still be another HOUR of the activity. Amy asked the ladies in charge about this and was told that some of the kids were starting to act up and the events director decided it was time to just end the activity since those girls had already been to every booth and were getting bored. Amy was quite angry with this decision. She had sent her daughter out with her husband to deliver as many cookies as they could, and then her husband was supposed to bring her to the World Thinking day activity for the last hour. But they were ending it an hour early and Amy’s husband hadn’t arrived with her daughter yet. I wasn’t really angry, but I was rather upset at their decision to end an hour early. I sent Amy around to the tables to quickly go get some swaps and things for her daughter, and while she was doing that, her husband and kids arrived, so I filled him in on what was going on. He wasn’t too pleased either.

They finished off the activity with a really big friendship circle and sang “Make New Friends”:

All in all, I think the event went well. And I think the three hours would have been a fine length of time if more troops had been willing to participate. My hope is, that they will want to do this again next year, and that more troops will be interested in participating. 🙂