Mean Buttology

Once upon the time when Elliot was about to start Kindergarten in the midst of a pandemic I considered homeschooling him. I spent a week or so researching various curriculums and downloaded some free materials. Fast forward to this summer when I decided to try out the free marine biology course from The Good and the Beautiful (www.goodandbeautiful.com/free-downloads/marine-biology/). Claudia had done it with her girls during the year and I had been admiring all the crafts and worksheets on their walls. 

Marine Biology (or Mean Buttology as Annie called it) was a great hit! Elliot does really well with any kind of one on one attention. He was very diligent with his invertebrates book and proudly taped every experiment, craft, and worksheet to a section of the wall that he labeled "The Marine Biology Wall" with a brick patterned sign. The chair where we kept in progress work got labeled as well. He made a strip of paper to mark off the whole "Marine Biology Zone."

I failed to document the Marine Biology Zone very well. This is the only picture I have with it in the background. 

I learned a ton and I could tell that a lot was clicking with Elliot as well. Annie was enthusiastic about the science experiments, but protested mightily when we did any of the reading/writing activities. A highlight was the blubber experiment. We put our hands in ice water, then tried it again with a butter insulated zip lock bag glove thing. The funny part was that we had Annie go first. We told her to put her hand in the ice water and see how long she could leave it in there. She made a funny face but kept it in for a really long time before asking if she could take it out. Elliot and I went next and both only lasted a few seconds without the blubber glove. I don't know if it is a testament to her toughness or her obedience. She's a champ!

The reward for working hard and learning: A trip to the Aquarium in Phoenix! We are always happy for excuses to go visit Mary and this was a good one. We have been to this aquarium before but not for a few years.

Elliot and Andrew in the shark tunnel! 

Cactus Harvest

 I did a new thing this year! I was going on a morning jog on the wilderness trail when I came across a short saguaro with some fruit I could reach. It was kind of pink, so I went ahead and picked it. 

Showered version of me with my prize! I mixed the fruit into a bowl of yogurt for breakfast. 

Annie and I both gave saguaro yogurt a thumbs up!

Emboldened by our success, I recruited some helpers to come do a more intense harvest.

You may think that children would be tempted to whack each other with such lovely long sticks. 

You may be right. 

We got it under control with a few targeted threats. 

Our targets

Knocking off the fruit of a relatively short guy. Bree was an excellent catcher. 

It was harder than it looks! Those fruits are stuck on hard and you really have to push to knock them off. 

Saguaro fruit does not have spines on it like prickly pear fruit does unless it gets them from the side of the saguaro. I wore a glove just in case. The fruit was kind of mushy and not all that great by itself. We froze most of it to toss into smoothies. We also froze some to make the first ever Saguapsicles (patent pending, this is going to be big time folks)

Saguaro fruit spread on some peanut butter toast

Of course I also had to do my annual prickly pear harvest. I borrowed Stephen's juicer. The juicer works really well but just takes a long time. Next year we will pick and juice in one day and then do jelly time the next day. 

Behold the glory! A pitcher of prickly pear lemonade, some setting jam, and some canned jelly in the background

Elliot rides a bike & Loses a Tooth

 I've been trying to persuade Elliot to ride a bike for about 3 years now. We tried bribery. We tried peer pressure. What finally worked was seeing Annie zip around on her strider bike. He couldn't stand for that! As soon as he expressed a slight willingness to learn, I borrowed a bike from the Sevey's and made a sticker chart. Riding the bike around the gym when we were there for volleyball/playgroup would earn him screen time. Then there were four challenges at the end for increasingly long routes around our neighborhood. 

I can't give Elliot too much shade for his bike avoidance since I learned just a month before him. I made it 3 decades without learning how to ride a bike. My mom got hit by a car while riding a bike when she was 16 and spent a year in a wheelchair, so there is some understandable bike trauma there. My siblings all learned somewhat at scouts or neighbor's houses, but I never got on a bike until my college roommates pushed me around the Helaman Halls parking lot. It was terrifying. I went on a bike ride with 9 year old Blake that summer. He left me in his dust while I crashed into various rocks and then walked the bike home. Aaron got me on one once, but I never got past the point where I was in constant panic mode- until this year! My friend Bethany Mulder gave me her old bike before she moved away and gave me some lessons. She deserves a sainthood for her patience. Now I can ride and I love it! 

We learned in the church gym. He didn't have training wheels. At first I would hold/push him back and forth while he got used to peddling. Then I would let go for the middle part before helping him stop at the end. Then he was able to ride and stop by himself after an initial push. Then a few sessions later he was zooming around all by himself while my heart did these little pride explosions. 

The grand prize was for riding his bike all the way to Stanley the rock snake and back, which is a little over a mile. Wild Katz proved to be well worth his efforts! 

One of the few pictures I got of Elliot at Wild Katz- he was running all over the place exploring while I kind of kept up with the littler kids.

Isaac absolutely did not know what to do with this clear floor panel on the upper level of the jungle gym thing and it cracked me up.

In other news, Elliot lost his first tooth! It got loose when he was eating a burrito on our campout and fell out a week or so later when he was eating some cantaloupe. He instructed me to document the food related details of this experience for the blog, so here it is folks!