Firstlight Art Class

Carter and Rylan still have a single activity on our now completely empty calendar - their art class.  Firstlight is still doing their classes via Zoom at their normal times and with the normal instructors.  All the kids in the class get on Zoom and they can all see one another and talk as they complete their normal lesson at home.  The instructor can do private breakout discussions with each student to talk about the piece they are working on as well.

It's great, except for the paint!  Carter did okay but Rylan had it on everything, including his computer.  Luckily it mostly came off everything :)

Here was the goal of Friday's lesson:

Students will learn how to use the palette knife technique before working on a landscape. There are specific colors that must be mixed and used side by side. This helps artists see how expanding your colors to several variations enhances the final painting.

Here are the landscapes each boy chose to paint as well as their completed works.

Carter:

Rylan:

Timberland Park

Brian and I took the boys to a new park this afternoon to do a little hiking.  It's beautiful today (around 70F and sunny) so we really wanted to get outside for awhile.  We went to Timberland Park which is off the Natchez Trace and managed by Williamson County Parks and Rec.  It's a fairly new park with a interconnecting trails that go up and down some small hills and ravines.  We probably did about two miles and also found a couple of geocaches.  The park is so new that their fancy trailmarkers are still in good shape and not vandalized!

Group selfie!

This guys looks pretty cool in his shades :)

Though we've seen a lot more wildflowers on other recent hikes, I decided to do a little science lesson with the boys with the wildflowers we did see (homeschooling, ahhh!).  I took pictures of some of the wildflowers and then when we got home, we identified them.  We also talked about their Latin names and what that means.

Toadshade (Trillium Sessile):

Celandine Poppy (Stylophorum Diphyllum):

Carolina Springbeauty (Claytonia Caroliniana):

Star Chickweed (Stellaria Pubera):

Common Blue Violet (Viola Sororia):

Wild Blue Phlox (Phlox Divaricata):

Two-Flower Cynthia (Krigia Biflora):

Bare-Toothed Russula (Russula Vesca):

Utah Trip 2019 - Day 4

Tuesday (May 28th) was our last day at Bryce Canyon so we had to pack up camp first thing.  It was still cold (probably about 40F) but it wasn't raining or snowing at least.  Our rain fly was soaked but most of the rest of our gear was dry.

We decided to hike down Queen's Garden Trail.  We had really wanted to do add on the Navajo Loop Trail but it was still closed due to rockslides and unsafe conditions.  We put Gray in the backpack and headed out.  It was still muddy but better than the day before.

Queen Victoria Hoodoo:

Our plan had been to hike to the first "Hike the Hoodoos" sign at Queen Victoria (which was at 0.9 miles) and then head back.  However, since most people were turning around at this point as well, we decided to continue on to where the Navajo Loop Trail meets the Queen's Garden Trail to enjoy some hiking with less people (it was super crowded up until this point).  This added another 0.8 miles one way to the hike.

Thor's Hammer in the distance:

Once we got to the junction with the Navajo Loop Trail, we stopped for a snack and decided we didn't want to go back the way we'd come.  We wanted to see more and deal with less people.  Since we had enough food and water with us, we decided to hike up Peekaboo Loop Trail to Bryce Point.  From there we could take a shuttle back to our car.  Our total mileage for the hike would be about 4.5 miles (but the hike out would be straight up).

So, on we went!

This time with Gray out of the backpack.  At least for awhile!

We even got another "Hike the Hoodoos" sign for a total of 5 on the trip.

As we were heading out of the canyon, there was a small rockslide from the area in the picture below where the rock is worn away in the wall (near the top left corner).  It was crazy loud and the rocks went across an area of the trail we had passed about 10 minutes earlier.

It was definitely worth continuing on because we saw a bunch of different formations and landscapes.  We were tired when done but in a good way.  We took the shuttle from Bryce Point back to our car at Sunrise Point.  We made sandwiches for lunch at the car and then stopped by the Visitor Center for our "Hike the Hoodoos" sticker before leaving the park.

We decided to stop at the Red Canyon Visitor Center which is just outside of the Nation Park.  We ended up hiking the Arches Trail which is a 0.7 mile loop.  It was a fun, rocky trail with some small arches.

After finishing our hike, we drove on to Zion National Park which was about a two hour drive.  We entered from the east side of the park and were in awe of the landscape.  I likes this area much better than the canyon.  We even drove through a tunnel that was a mile long (the boys especially liked this).

Our first stop was the Visitor Center to get our permit for hiking the Subway.  Brian and I had both applied for permits that would cover all five of us (it's a lottery system).  Brian ended up receiving a permit for Wednesday, and I got one for Friday.  I feel like we were crazy lucky to each get one as only 80 people a day are allowed in the canyon, which includes both directions of the trail (bottom up and top down).

Since the rain chances were low for Wednesday (you can't hike the trail when there is rain in the area because of the high risk of flash floods), we decided to go ahead and do the hike the next day.

This was an unusual year in Zion.  Water levels were extremely high.  There was still a lot of snow melting (obviously, as we got snowed on in Bryce).  We were warned that the hike may be really difficult with the kids, but we knew that and planned to only go as far as we were comfortable with.  Another hike we had hoped to do, the Narrows, was still closed because of high water levels (and it's never closed this late in the year).  And another two hikes I had wanted to do were closed due to rockslides (Observation Point and Hidden Canyon).  So we were willing to get in whatever we could.

While we were at the Visitor Center we also picked up the Junior Ranger Books for Zion and then we headed to our campsite.

We had reserved a site in the park at the Watchman Campground (which is next to the Visitor Center).  Unfortunately by the time I made the reservations in January, the campground was almost completely full.  We spent 4 nights at the campground and ended up at 3 different sites.  We were at site F5 the first two nights and it was our favorite site of the three.  It was a walk-in site but the car was only 10-15 yards away.  And though they were somewhat close, we couldn't really see the other sites.

That night we made dinner (kielbasa with potatoes and macaroni & cheese for the kids), played some cards, and then went to sleep.  It was much warmer here - about 50 F at night.  We really enjoyed not freezing at night!