Frisco's Charcoal Ovens

 A few weeks ago we decided to stop at Frisco, a ghost town with a lot of mining history, since the friends we were traveling with had never visited. I wrote about Frisco's history in this post from 2008. (It was good for me to reread, as I had forgotten a lot of it. Which is one of the reasons I started a blog in the first place, so I could help myself remember all these fun little things that I learn!)

 Five charcoal ovens are at the site, and  a couple of them are still in really good condition.

 The kids. I like the sepia--almost makes it look old-fashioned. If you just ignore the fleece, puffy jackets, character t-shirts, velcro shoes, zip off pants, embroidered jeans, etc. These kids are probably a little too clean to be kids living in a mining village.

 The charcoal ovens are a lot of fun to photograph.

 However, the kids didn't want to stay there. They wanted to explore some of the old buildings.

 This roof looks out of place on the ground. What happened to the rest of the building?

 Here's the group peeking in.

 Turns out there's a cellar underneath the roof, with some fun light on the wall from holes in the roof.

Here Evan, Desert Boy, Desert Girl, and Anna check out a foundation, with the ovens in the background. There's so much more to explore in this area! The old railroad bed looks like it could be a fun hike. Every time I visit a ghost town, I try to imagine what life was like. My overwhelming feeling is that it was a lot harder than today.

Stunt Riding

Jenny and I took the kids for a little bike riding adventure last week. We went to this little terrain park that features small dirt hills. We figured it would be a good challenge for our four-year olds.

Going down the hill was exciting.

Apparently going across the mostly flat bottom was a good opportunity for sticking out your tongue!


Going up the hill on one side was a bit challenging, and the kids always had to walk their bikes up that hill. Even though it doesn't look big, it turned out to be a good workout.

We wanted to get everyone lined up to go at the same time, but it never seemed to work out.

More waiting to go at the same time. Desert Girl thought it was a blast and kept saying, "Again. Again."

It was a fun place to go.

Jenny and I liked that we were able to get a workout!

Finally Ava and Jenny were able to ride at the same time.

Up the near hill!

Way to go! We'll definitely be going back. And before long, we may be looking for some real mountain bike trails.

Volcano Hill

 We have a large mound of dirt in our yard, and I thought it might be the perfect place to try out our volcanoes, as I didn't want to repeat the inside explosion. Desert Girl was happy to dig.

Desert Boy was given the task of burying some plastic bottles, aka magma chambers.

 Then his friend Neto came over to help with the volcano eruption. I mixed a little food coloring in with the vinegar to give it some extra oomph.

 I never did find the exact proportions of baking soda to vinegar we were supposed to be using, so I just guessed. I also had the kids make a "forest" on the hill.

 Eruption time! Looks like the forest was spared.

That was so much fun we had to do it again and again until we had used up all the baking soda and vinegar.

 A few days later, after resupplying, Ava came over and we had to show her volcano hill.

 The kids were looking forward to what would happen.

 Ava and Desert Girl don't look so sure about the eruption, but Desert Boy is clearly enjoying the mess.

We kept going with more explosions. We are still trying to perfect the technique and see a two-foot high explosion. So if you have any ideas, let us know. In the meantime, we'll keep experimenting. It's nice to be outdoors!

Preschool Games

 It seems like I have taken a lot of photos at preschool but don't get around to posting them very often. Here are some scenes from a couple (few?) weeks ago. The kids were really intrigued by this game where they put the shapes into spaces, then set the timer and wait for it to pop up.

The little girls cooperated for a bit with a puzzle. I like how they are both holding other things with their non-puzzle hand.

In other news, we did a major clean up of one of our sheds today. I didn't manage to take any photos, but we did manage to throw away tons of stuff. Well maybe not tons, but I did get a good workout. My husband also leveled the building so it doesn't have one corner a foot lower than the other. That's quite nice. We found three little chalk boards, so we decided that the shed is now going to become our own little school. Desert Boy can't wait to get started. We'll have to find some chalk first, but hey, why sweat the little details?!

Four-Year Old Attitudes

The other day we were fortunate to have Ava and Isaac come over for a play date. I get a kick out of watching the kids' interactions. At lunch time Desert Boy and Ava were delighted to have their own little table and they had quite the conversation.

First Ava got to say her piece.

It looks like Desert Boy had a different opinion.

I think he thought if he stared hard enough, he could get Ava to change her mind. Somehow, I don't think that would work. They're both stubborn kids!


It all ended well and they moved on to the next point of discussion.


Meanwhile the little kids were just peachy-happy eating their lunch. They don't have such long conversations--yet!

Then it was time to go play on the gravel pile in our driveway. Again there were some serious discussions and battles over who's in charge.

Ava finally decided she had more important things to do.

 We went over to Jenny's and the kids still had lots of energy, so we headed to the trampoline to wear them out. Jenny showed off some of her trampoline tricks. Cool!

Wow, those kids sure have a lot of energy! It was a fun day, and it's nice to try and have them wear each other out, because they do a much better job of it than I do!

Park Discovery

When we went to Cedar City last week, Jenny and I decided to take the kids to a park I had read about but had never visited, up on the hill above Walmart and across the street from the Aquatic Center.

It turned out to be a really cool looking park, and we hurried to enter.

No one else was there on that January day at lunchtime.

I can imagine that it gets quite busy during the warmer months of the year!

All the kids liked the series of steps and buildings to run through.

Ava balanced well on a mushroom--at least that's what I think it was!

Although Desert Girl was first to go over the suspension bridge, the bigger kids couldn't wait.

And away they go!

I kept trying to get photos of the kids, but they were moving fast! Desert Boy and Ava paused for just a moment.

Then Desert Girl had to take a turn!

They even had a bouldering wall. It's extra challenging in cowboy boots!

The park opened in 2001, so we were surprised we hadn't ever heard of it before. Now that we know it exists, we will certainly be back! For directions on how to get there, click here.