August 28, 2007

Mountain Outing


After Kenna's dedication service, our family decided to beat the heat by heading to the mountains! We ate lunch at home so we wouldn't have to pack a picnic lunch--normally it would be a great idea to take a picnic to the mountains, but by the time I finish serving in the pre-school classes at the 11:45 service, it's WAY too late to think about delaying lunch any longer. As it was, we heard the phrase, "Are we there yet?" at least 100 times on the 40-minute drive.

One of our goals was to collect science stuff. One simply cannot evaluate SOIL down here in the desert! Or at least, we couldn't in our yard. Since our science activities and reading have revolved around plants and trees, we:

* Looked at the rings on tree stumps
* Collected a scoop of soil in a jar (At home we added water and shook it up so we could watch it settle into layers--humus floating on the top, with clay, sand, and rocks at the bottom.)
* Collected a variety of leaves for leaf rubbings
* Examined "leaf litter"
* And generally enjoyed ourselves tramping around the forest.


It was considerably cooler at 8,000 feet than down here in the hot valley! The kids got thoroughly dirty climbing all over the place and begged us to come back at least "one time every month!"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a fun trip!

Amos said...

What an awesome time. I love how you always have "learning" trips planned when you go to cool off too. You are an inspiration!