I'm Thankful for Nerds, Thanksgiving 2011

That includes me.  And that's a compliment to all who I will write about. Noticed I capitalized Nerds. That's important.

We had a great Thanksgiving!  All the Astlings came to our house to eat and play and play and eat.  And think.  We generally do some thinking during the day, but when David wore scientific riddle shirts every day like this . .

we had to start thinking before breakfast was served.  I think I stared at his chest for five minutes when he wore the periodic table called "The questionable table of elements."  Sorry if that made you uncomfortable Dave. Here's a sample:

The day he wore that shirt, we went to the new Utah Natural History Museum and wouldn't you know it, they had periodic table flash cards that David was determined to put in order.  The rest of us left after 12 elements in place. We went with Jenny, Stephen, Lieve and David.  It was great to have five adult brains and five set hands (and extra shoulders to cart James) for three boys.  We were all extremely impressed with the museum and learned more about Bonneville Lake, dinosaurs discovered in Utah and other places, Utah landscape, how to save water, the economy and reduce pollution, cell division, DNA, deer scat, ants, solar power, American Indians, erosion, wind force, viruses and much, much more!  The museum is beautiful and uses every bit of space for learning.  I highly recommend it!

That evening, we counted pennies.  Well, not really.  We weren't allowed to count them until we figured out how many were in the jar.  Over the course of an hour, the boys, David, Lieve and with a few interjections from me, the boys eventually figured out the if you weigh ten pennies, divide the weight in grams by that number (26), you get the weight of the average penny.  If you weigh all the pennies in the bottle (3023 kg) and divide by the weight of one penny you get the number of pennies in the jar without counting! Answer: 1,162.69 pennies.  That wasn't good enough for my practical brain, so I made everyone count pennies.  If our counting was correct, we counted 1,177 pennies, which means our math was only off by 14.31!  Pretty darn good if you ask me!  I am thankful for brainpower and patient people. And thanks for the jar Granna!

Brainstorming. . . 

Weighing the booty! (James approves)

We decided this year to fry a turkey. . . and bake one just in case the fry turkey ended up as charcoal.  Mark was very kind to show me some youtube videos on turkey frying safety controlled by firemen.  After reading statistics that there are 5 deaths every year from turkey fryers and multiple injuries and $15 gazillion in damages, I tried to convince Mark to fry it at a park away from our home.  But he assured me that he had it under control.  Plus he had "As Seen On TV Ove gloves" so all was well.  Some of us stayed inside while he verrrrrrrry sloooooowwwwly lowered the turkey into the fryer.  Not a problem.  The turkey was out in 50 minutes and was very tasty!

Before

After

Dinner was great, if I do say so myself, with welcome additions of salad, pumpkin cookies, drinks and veggie platter to cut the density of all the other dishes.  We laughed and ate and ate and laughed, though I don't think we did one math problem, except maybe to calculate which of the Astling boys has produced children. The evening was full of games, puzzles and science experiments accompanied by an ensemble of football games.

Mark, Spencer and D.J. went to the last Utah home game where we were hoping the math of wins and losses would equal a visit to the Rose Bowl, but sadly that problem was over thought.

We had to have one brainless event though.  It happened after I left my chair and I returned to find that James had put banana peels under the legs of my chair.  Duh. Guess who get mop duty.

Saturday was the Mark Astling nuclear family time, so we went to, not Boondocks, not Kangaroo Zoo, but. . . drumroll. . . .  the Clark Planetarium, where we watched an IMAX movie called Flying Monsters - the history of the Pterodactyl and other flying dinosaurs.

The evening ended with Grandma Wheeler coming to babysit while Mark and I had mind-stinulating conversation over dinner and a movie about time used as currency.

Perhaps I should go watch a fluffy chick flick to decompress.

Thanks for all the mind-stimulating fun!

A Few Words About D.J.

D.J. is very kind.  He's an easy kid to like because he's so easy-going and he cares about your feelings and he's fun to laugh with.  He is very strong and also a bit stubborn.  For these reasons, you don't want to be caught underneath him.  Like this. . . 

D.J. decided to try a sport that's new to us: wrestling.  It was a three week clinic with one practice and one meet each week.  He did pretty well for a first year.  He didn't give up and just kept trying.  We soon discovered though, that technique trumps strength and stubbornness. So a few of the wrestlers who had been to the clinic since kindergarten had a bit of an advantage.  But he had fun and it was quite entertaining to watch!

 Good job D.J.!!!

There is one other thing about D.J. that I would like to remember.  This school year he's had a hard time remembering to bring home his lunch box.  I have a few back ups, but then he forgets to bring the back ups home.  So I sent his lunch in a few other things: a tin can and a Ritz box (on which I wrote: consider this your howler - Harry Potter reference to a yelling letter).  I could just send his lunch in a disposable brown paper bag, but I can be stubborn environmentalist too.  So, I warned him that if he doesn't bring ALL of his lunch boxes home, I will go buy a pink lunch box for him to use.  Just to prove my point, I bought a pink lunch box that turned out to be a little purse (I just grabbed it off the shelf). When he saw the lunch box he was red-faced MAD.  He has not forgotten his lunch box since.  I'm such a mean Mom.

Family Pictures 2011

After five long years, we finally got family pictures again!  The last time we got pictures James was 1 1/2 years old!  Thankfully there were a few pictures that turned out alright amid the joking, laughing, blinking, smirking, fake smiles and poking.  Here are our favorites:

UEA Moab, October 2011

We are not deer hunters.  But we do take advantage of the Utah Education Association teacher's meetings that happen every fall, wherein the kids get two days off of school and we get a four day weekend.  Usually we go to Nevada for some relaxation, but we decided to do something new this year.  We have never been to Moab (except Mark who went when he was 7-8), and we've heard such great things about it, so we decided to try it.  In July, we went to Yellowstone with some friends and opted to camp in the park, which turned out to be very inexpensive and very fun.  So, we decided we would camp this time around too.  It was inexpensive and fun, but it was cold at night!  We were hoping Southern-ish Utah would be warmer in October.  The great 70 degree hiking days made up for the night time chills (mostly).

Arches National Park was beautiful!  To me the appeal is in the contrast of the blue skies and red rock and the amazing formation of rock that seems orderly and disorderly at the same time (kind of like life).  We had fun exploring, hiking and playing!

James didn't quite get the hang of making it look like he is pushing over Balanced Rock. . or maybe he's so strong he can push it over with his pinky?

Delcate Arch: check off bucket list.

Sand Dune Arch was a favorite! We had to visit it twice!

The boys had a great time hiking and hiding in Goblin Valley.  I'm glad we did this one in October.  We would have lasted only 30 minutes in July!

Dead Horse Point was beautiful! It's called the Grand Canyon of Utah.  It's just outside of Canyonlands National Park (which we will have to catch next time).

We consumed quite a bit of hot chocolate on this trip!

D.J. discovered that with his visor on, his shadow looked like Megamind.

Then Spencer discovered that with his hat, his shadow looked like Voldemort.

The Astling family at landscape bridge, our last hike for the trip.