April Fool's Jokes

 I love April Fool's Day. I feel like it's a fun opportunity to play some nice jokes. It started a few years back, when I read about freezing the kids' cereal. It looks pretty normal, but when they try to eat it, the spoon bounces off the frozen milk.

Here's Desert Boy's expression as he's trying to figure this out (a few years ago).


Desert Girl wasn't too thrilled. But they both got normal cereal and milk a few minutes later and now love to tell the story.


Another year I said we were celebrating the dog's birthday and I had special cupcakes. We even lit candles.


They were special cupcakes, made of meatloaf with mashed sweet potato frosting. Desert Girl wasn't impressed.


The accompanying drink was a hit. Although they couldn't suck anything up the straw, they liked the jello!


Last year I wasn't going to do anything, but the kids asked for some kind of prank. So I did some quick research the night before and found something good. When the kids came to the breakfast table, they found April sitting there, reading the newspaper. We told them that April was kind of shy and didn't talk much. Desert Girl sat there the entire breakfast, eating her cereal, waiting patiently for April to talk. At the end of breakfast, we revealed that April wasn't ever going to talk. Desert Girl was so sad, she had been so happy to have a special visitor!


This year both kids repeatedly said that they weren't going to forget that it was April Fool's Day. So they were all smiles when they opened the refrigerator door and found out that everything was looking back at them. I had glued googly eyes onto all the containers.

Desert Girl liked this one.

Desert Boy went out to do morning chores, and when he came back in, he found a tied envelope on the doorstep. He brought it in, smiling.

He unwrapped it to find an acceptance letter from Hogwarts!


Just in time, as he will be turning 11 soon. He needs to figure out how to train an owl to get his message back, but otherwise I think we can get him to London by 1 September. The list of supplies and books may be a little troublesome, though.

(If you'd like to make your own, this website was incredibly helpful.)

The kids retaliated. They wrapped my computer in saran wrap.

And their uncle had written them a letter with a bunch of suggestions. They used one, and when I unrolled the toilet paper found a bus drawn on it. Later, when we Facetimed my brother, he said his suggestion was to draw a bug, not a bus, on the toilet paper. Maybe next time!

I got in the last joke of the day, serving fried eggs. 

These were made from peach halves on top of yogurt.

 It's never too early to start planning for next year! What are some of your favorite pranks?

A Bike Riding Adventure

 We haven't traveled much this spring break. When I proposed to the kids that I could take them to Cedar City for the afternoon and the next day go skiing, they said no. (In a few years, they might wonder about passing up a paid ski trip!). So I went out for a run, and when I came back, they had a plan. They wanted to bike alone to Ely.

"We've figured it out by math, Mom," said Desert Boy. He explained that if they left by 8:30 in the morning, they should arrive by 8:30 at night, covering the 64 miles. That's because they could ride 16 miles for the Wheel-a-thon (a school fundraiser) in three hours. I was impressed, they were actually doing some logical thinking. They might have left out going over two mountain passes, but they did have headlamps packed and blinky lights for the bikes, front and back.

So I said what any good mom would say. "Okay, you can go, but I'm going to go with you." They were surprised by that. And then I made them reduce the weight in their backpacks. We didn't really need a hatchet. Or a book for reading. Or two changes of clothes. Or sand from the broken snow globe. But they had water and food.

We put on sunscreen and saddled up and started out of town.

Desert Girl wasn't as convinced that riding for 12 hours was that great of an idea. "Why don't we go to the Border Inn instead?"

Desert Boy resisted. I told them we could wait until we got to the cutoff road to decide. And less than two miles later, when we got to the cutoff road, we were all unanimous. The Border Inn would be our destination.

We turned and enjoyed a delightful downhill. Desert Girl rang her bell, honked her horn, and sang. We kept an eye out for burrowing owls and kit foxes. We didn't see any, but the clouds were beautiful. We were under a wind advisory for later in the day, so the clouds moved fast.

We took a break, and the kids still had smiles.

Then it was onto the highway.

Even the highways out here have cattle guards.

I was very nervous about them riding on the highway with a speed limit of 70 and no shoulders. Fortunately there was very little traffic, and everyone that passed us moved into the other lane.

A strong tail wind propelled us to the Border Inn quickly.

Desert Girl rode to the Utah sign. We rode to another state!

Just past it was the "Next Services 83 miles" sign. Desert Girl mimicked a reaction. It might not have been too bad a ride with the tail wind. But we were ready for a break.

So we went inside and had brunch. Yum!

We took the back way to return home. This time we had to bike into the wind.

Desert Girl was not happy. Tears were shed.

We had a long break at the Stop sign. It's the beginning of the runway and also marks the ranch property boundary.

After more tears and more wind, we made it home. It was a good 3.5-hour adventure. I was so glad the kids had decided to do something outside.

And Desert Boy already has his alarm set to go do more bike training tomorrow morning.

Signs of Spring

 The snow is slowly melting...and then we get another snow flurry! Nevertheless, there are clear signs that spring is on its way.

Here are two of the first wildflowers of the year, both closely related. One is Nevada Parsley. I'm not sure on the other.

For St. Patrick's Day, Desert Girl made a Leprechaun spotter, inspired by her cousin George who we had chatted with on Facetime. I don't think she found any pots of gold. But she got a little more gold for a second front tooth that fell out. Now she's singing, "All I want for Easter are my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth..."

Desert Boy discovered using a magnifying glass to burn letters and designs into wood. He spent a couple hours doing it and has some grander plans in mind.

 The spring storms are so pretty, with very interesting clouds.

The heifers and their calves are near our house. We've been trying to keep our new gate closed more (they jump right over the cattle guard), and that's been helping us keep them out of the yard.

 One morning we awoke to very low clouds. It was so cool, as this is a rarity here.

What signs of spring are you seeing?

Playing in Snow

 So back in February we got a good snowstorm. We headed up to Too Tall Tony hill to go sledding with friends.

It's a short but steep hill.

Then we decided to go up to Upper Lehman Campground to see what sledding would be like there. The huge ponderosa pines were so beautiful!

This sledding hill is down the road. It's slower going but they can have some long runs.

I wandered off for a walk and crossed the creek.

The campfire ring at the amphitheater looks cool. Literally!

And sometime I would just like to spend a day looking up at big, beautiful trees.

What the kids enjoyed most was digging. They found the pile left by the snow plow and started shoveling. Eventually they made a tunnel through it!

Even Jenny gave it a try!

We had so much fun that we went back with some other friends and dug some more.


I took a short walk up the Scenic Drive, where I could see the snow really blowing on the peak.

 It's mid-March now, and I have a feeling that winter will soon be coming to an end. I really love the snow, and we had so little of it this winter that I'm craving more. Right now we're back in a cool snap, which is good, as the apricot trees aren't blooming yet. I had a reminder on my Facebook feed that they were last year. And maybe we're going to get a little more snow over the next few days. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed!