Rendezvous

One of the big field trips for 4th grade is Rendezvous. I was able to tag along as a chaperone with Emmrey's class. I was pretty excited about it since I did it with both Bailee and Karsyn in Cody. This one was a little different than what I was expecting. It was held at Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, which is a cool place in itself, but not really "Rendezvous like".  There are six learning stations around the museum grounds that offer hands-on activities for the kids to learn how human and environmental interactions have shaped Colorado. Our group was the Miners. We first learned about how mining has evolved and the kids got to pan for gold. 

 After some classroom time, we went to the Digital Dome for a show about the night sky in Colorado 

(too dark for pics).

 Next we went to the Rooftop deck for a presentation on the evolution of transportation. The kids got to use binoculars for a "forms of transportation" scavenger hunt overlooking Fort Collins.

Emm and Tania

 We had our lunch on the rooftop as well. It was just starting to look like rain .....

my feet, Emm, Addie, Tania, Rylan;)

 We made it to the near end of our fourth rotation at the outdoor amphitheatre when the rain started pouring down. With no signs of letting up and two more outdoor stations, 

the teachers decided to call it a day. 

The kids were disappointed about having to cut it short, but these two enjoyed the ride back to school!

YW Recognition Evening

Bailee completed her Personal Progress and was invited to a special evening of recognition. She was one of six (4 girls 2 leaders) from our ward who finished this year.

She has really devoted herself to the program and has put in many hours. Each of the eight values they focus on requires a 10 hour project in addition to several experiences. The girls each displayed a table of some of the things they have done. Bailee's final project is making blankets for babies in the NICU at LDS Hospital where she spent the first 5 weeks of life. She is looking forward to delivering them when we visit Utah this summer. I am hoping she can inspire Kars to start working toward this achievement;) Along with a plaque, she was recognized at church and received a beautiful pendant.

 She has had some wonderful leaders that have been a huge support and encouragement of her spiritual growth. Bailee is strong in her commitment to her faith. I love that about her and have learned so much from her example.

Kristi Jensen and Bay

The Intern

Bailee had a pretty cool experience this semester. She participated in the PWR (Postsecondary and Workforce Ready) internship program with the school district. Students are selected through a strict application process and are then placed with an employer in Northern Colorado based on their interests and future career plans. Bailee is planning to pursue a degree in the medical field and was placed with UC Health and the Healthy Hearts Program. The office is housed at Medical Center of the Rockies, although she was primarily at various schools. She was always telling us new facts about heart health. 

A firsthand account of the intern experience (per the intern herself):

As a Healthy Heart intern I was able to go into different classrooms in our school district and participate in their education program that typically included three days learning about our hearts and things we can do to prevent heart disease. At the end of the unit, students and teachers were given the opportunity to have their health screenings done. This was also a really neat procedure that I got to be part of. My job mainly consisted of pricking people's fingers to take blood and test their cholesterol levels, taking their height, weight, and blood pressure, and then walking them through what their numbers meant. I really enjoyed getting to talk with the students and listen to their take on heart health and feel like I was influencing a younger population to have a long and healthy life by making lifestyle adjustments. 

I had the opportunity to work in the community gardens near my school as part of my internship hours. This is a place where anyone in our community can come help plant vegetables and herbs and reap the benefits from participating. This was just fun to see everything come full circle. Helping in the garden was fun and it also provides families with healthy foods. 

To conclude my internship we were asked to present what we learned at the district offices where important school board representatives were able to come and see the results of the program they had created. It was really great to be able to share my experience with other community members and recognize things I had gained from this experience. 

Easter 2017

Easter weekend was packed full. We had originally talked about going to Utah to be with family since the last time we did that was 2008. With the UW day on Friday and Mark having to leave town on Monday, it just didn't seem practical. So instead we did the traditional festivities starting with the Community Egg Hunt at Harvest Farm. It's a great event put on by our town and contributes to the program at Harvest Farm, but man ... sometimes it's disheartening to be among the finest folks that live in your town:( The lengths adults will go to for their kid to collect a few plastic eggs filled with crappy candy.

 One more year for Emmrey and then she will have to be a helper instead.

 Doing a quick check to see if she got lucky with a prize ticket. Nope not this year ... again!

 Emm was more excited to see the animals than anything else. There were several newborn goats that were adorable. This gentleman that is part of the program at the farm, was kind enough to bring this little guy closer for us to have a look. He was born within the week ... adorable!

 Later that afternoon when we all got our chores done, we took the girls to see Hidden Figures. 

Loved .. Loved .. Loved it!!

 Saturday night we dyed our eggs.

 We still have one at our house that gets super excited about the holidays (and anything). She was up early Easter Sunday waiting for her sisters to check baskets. This girl is a believer through and through. We are enjoying it while it lasts.

Some sweet girl (Bay) surprised me by hiding a Cadbury goody in my ceramic egg that my mom made for each of us kids when we were all still at home. Many Easter's we would find this same treat in our egg.

The girls got all sorts of traditional treats in their baskets including a personalized chocolate egg just like the ones I used to get as a kid. They also got their photo books for 2016.

Church wasn't until 2 so we had lots of time to kill. 

I'm so glad these two are good sports and will still participate in the egg hunt for the sake of making it fun for their little sis;)

Bailee gave a talk at church and blew me away with her poise and preparation. 

 We had a yummy dinner of ham, cornflake potatoes, green beans, deviled eggs, and carrot cake. We all missed being with our "big" family, but I am thrilled I got to spend the day with this crazy group. 

We should probably brush up on our silly poses since Emm is always requesting one;)

UW Admitted Student Day

After a great deal of agonizing deliberation, Bay decided she will attend University of Wyoming in the fall. It was not a decision made easily, but we all feel like it is the right decision for now. This day was similar to the others we have spent at UW (speakers, tours, lunch), but we also attended a "college class" and separated from our student half the day. They did some activities and parents had a Q&A. Bailee has been accepted into the Honors Program so we toured the Honors House to see if she wanted to apply to live there (she decided she didn't) and she talked with a representative in the Health Sciences department. 

 I am not sure she learned a whole lot more than she already knew, but it was good for her to visit having made the decision and seeing things as "when" rather than just "if".

Our attempt at a decent selfie ... ahh the wind!!

Bridal Veil Falls

We had several weeks of beautiful weather in April, prompting an itch to get out for a hike. After getting the girls off to school, Mark and I set off for a day in RMNP. We chose a nice leisure hike to Bridal Veil Falls (one of many bearing the name). The trail starts at a Historic ranch. 

 It follows Cow Creek 3+ miles upstream before cascading over the edge to create the falls. 

Not quite at the top you run into "bridesmaid falls" ... a little teaser before the real deal.

 

 This location of Bridal Veil Falls isn't all that grand or awe-inspiring, but it's still impressive.

 The 6.5 mile round trip hike was beautiful and moderate, making it ideal. 

 The trail was pretty empty. We only ran into a couple other groups, which is very unusual for Colorado outdoors. Our outing ended with lunch at Poppy's in Estes Park. Pretty perfect day!

Senior Prom

Bailee has not had any interest in going to high school dances. She thinks they are overrated;) However, her job as an editor got her roped into attending Senior Prom.  She was assigned to be one of two yearbook photographers for the night. Initially, she had mixed feelings about it all, but ultimately accepted the idea of participating in this "rite of passage". Dress shopping was a chore. She didn't want anything too fancy or long. We found her a cute little dress that worked with The Great Gatsby theme. 

She looked beautiful!

She did meet up with a group of girls for dinner at Bisetti's before she was off to do her job. Although she didn't go to prom in the traditional sense, I think she was glad she went?

Kaylee, Rylie , Kayla, Bailee, KC, Katie

NaNoWriMo x 2

Emmrey put on her author hat again this year to participate in National Novel Writing Month.  NaNoWriMo happens every November. It's a fun, furious writing event where the challenge is to draft an entire novel in just 30 days. Although the writing has to be completed and submitted by the end of November, the editing and publishing process doesn't begin until months later. 

The group of authors started out as 17 students and 1 teacher who wrote nearly 130,000 words. Of the kids that started, only 7 met their goal within the month (4th grade- 7500 words) and of those seven, Emm was one of only three that continued into the publishing phase. It just so happens they were each from a different grade and two were siblings;)

Emm (4th) Mrs. Milford, Brooke Moore (5th) Luke Moore (3rd)

Her finished book was a sequel to Hillary Farm. She just felt like there was more story to tell with Elliot and Elijop. 

How many people, let alone a 10 year old, can say they have published two books? I am so impressed with this kid. She loves to write and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if she is a famous author someday;)

Robotics Club

Emmrey had the chance to participate in an after school LEGO Robotics Club. The group of about twenty 4th-5th graders met once a week to design and program a robot using the EV3 Mindstorm program. It was a bit of a crash course (5 weeks) and the school hopes to expand it next year to be more involved. It was a great opportunity for all the kids to practice lots of coding and problem solving skills. Emm loved it! 

Chicky Babies

Mark has been throwing around the idea of getting chickens pretty much since we moved into this house. The problem is we are not set up to keep chickens in our yard. Once he had Emmrey all excited about it, there was no hearing the end of it. We came up with a compromise. We would raise the chicks until they could no longer be in the coop in our basement and then have them go to our friends farm. Chick Day was March 24th. We picked up three Ameraucana babies. We bought all the supplies. 

However, Emm purchased the chicks with her own money:)

One of the first items of business was to paint a nail on each of them so she could tell them apart.

Meet Betty, Peaches and Omelette.....

Emmrey had done some research and was well prepared to be a chicky mama. Between daily food, water and changing out the bedding, she learned quickly that they were quite a bit of work. They were fun to have around and I got used to the constant chirping in the basement. At about 6 weeks they were outgrowing their space and were starting to "fly" around enough that it was becoming clear they needed outdoor living. Before we sent them off, Emm took them out for a little photo shoot with Stewy.
They weren't sure what to think of each other.