Bless Us!

Our family is hoping to return to normal life this week sometime. It seems as if we have had a crazier than normal schedule this month with illness and much missing of school and work. Over the past 2 weeks we have had 11 such days missed between all 6 family members.
We have had sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, phlegm, phlegm, more phlegm, vomiting, asthma, nebulizer treatments, 3 sinus infections, 3 antibiotics, 4 hour Dr. visit waits, 5 bottles of cold/cough/asthma medicine, 6 boxes of tissues (with lotion please)...I could make this into a sick version of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'!
Anyway, you get the picture of what our March has been like. And just as everyone is nearing recovery, we can welcome spring and ALLERGY SEASON! I seem to always forget about that when I'm in the snow and looking forward to warmer weather.
Alas, each season has its good and bad points. I do welcome spring and its pollen, because it also brings with it (hopefully) an end to the cold and flu season. Sorry, I lied That season has no good points.

I love this place

We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful place so close to home. On Saturday morning we drove 10 min. to the north end of Farmington Bay to the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve. It has become a favorite place for us to take a nice stroll on the mile-long boardwalk and observe nature along the way. Close to the shore we didn't see many birds, and the frogs are most likely still hibernating, but we could hear lots of birds further out and couldn't wait to get to the observation tower to see what was making such a ruckus.
The view from the top was amazing as we could see the lake, the mountains and thousands of birds. There were many little black birds that never flew up so we couldn't tell what they were, but also hundreds of Canadian and pure white geese. The geese would occasionally fly overhead so we got some great views of them. We also watched a hawk circling around hunting. (The photo below shows just one section of birds.)
Right now the reeds are smashed down from the snow, but we agreed as a family that we should try to go there every month to see the changes and the different birds as the pass through on their migratory route. Although after attempting a walk one summer evening there, we might skip that time. We got half-way around the loop and the brine flies got so thick we could hardly breath in, so we had to pull our shirts over our noses and make a run for it. Maybe summer mornings aren't as bad.
We decided we need a bird book to be able to identify what we see, and more pairs of binoculars.
If you are ever in the area I highly recommend a visit.

Creative daughter

I know everyone says she's just like me, and she is, but times 10! I don't think I got that creative, that early in life. She's way ahead of me in a lot of things.
Take for instance, her book report. I don't remember what this style was called, but she was supposed to draw pictures on the 4 triangles, hook them together, and write the report on the flat part (see photo). That was too easy for my daughter. She had to make the pictures 3D. I didn't mind that, and I thought it was really cute, but she spent nearly 10 hours (maybe more) doing this and barely finished the project in time. She did her report on 'Book of a Thousand Days' by Shannon Hale.
It turned out awesome, but wow, that's a lot of time to spend on a book report. She was surprised that only 1 other classmate had anything 3D on their report - I wasn't. But, that's my daughter, she wouldn't have been happy with it any other way.

Here I go

Okay, so I created this blog a couple of months ago but haven't posted anything yet. I have seen some really great blogs, and kept wondering how I could possibly write anything to compete with them. I finally realized I don't have to. My blog is really for me, so it should show me and not a copy of someone else. So I won't try to compete, I won't try to start with some amazing post, I'll just be myself and put what I feel like on here and start with this post. If nobody wants to read it, that's okay with me. At least I finally got it started.
I'm sure my blog will improve over time because I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out. But I know what I want it to be, so you may want to visit occasionally. It might just turn out good. So if anyone is reading this, here I go- GERONIMO!