Welcome October!

It's already October! Sometimes it seems like the longest year ever, and other days I am shocked that it is already October... which just happens to be my favorite month! The temperatures are cooling down, the leaves are amazing, and we are finally into a really good routine with school.

Christian: Since Christian has been working hard on his Life Fitness class, we have been trying to find fun ways to get our exercise in. Since it is fall and gorgeous in Provo canyon, we went on a hike with both sets of grandparents. It was so amazingly beautiful! Around every corner was another stunning sight. Christian doesn't usually love hiking, but the cool weather, easy trail, and colorful leaves made it so that he was really happy the whole time. He did great and was at the front of the pack. He logged over 11,000 steps that day!

While we were on our hike, the kids got to do their "Cooking with Grandma" class. Last week, they put together a bunch of hiking food to take with us. When we arrived at Stewart Falls, they got to cook their packets. Grandpa Hill taught them how to filter water from the stream, boil it, and then use it for their rice, hot chocolate, and apple crisp. We ate the meal right there by the waterfall. It was great for them to learn survival skills like that. 

Andrew: For our Story of the World this week, we talked about early African culture. We listened to a couple of fables about Anansi the Spider. One of the fables was about Anansi being very hungry and leaving his camp to go find food. At each new camp along the way, Anansi would find something that he wanted to eat, but then see another camp ahead that seemed more interesting and exciting. After going through several camps without eating, he came to the final camp. It turned out that he had gotten back to his own camp where there was no food. Because of his greed, he was left hungry and tired. We decided that the moral of the story was that we need to be happy with the blessings we have and not always want more. It's been interesting to learn about other cultures and how their stories are similar or different than ours.

Hyrum: I have really had to keep on my toes to keep this little guy focused and engaged. This week, it was lots of games, art projects, and physical activities mixed in with the learning. Math has been a bit of a struggle lately because he gets bored really quickly. We finally had a really good lesson this week, and I caught part of it on video. He was learning about greater than and less than. Hyrum is obsessed with sharks, so I had the random flash of inspiration to use our leftover gummy sharks from Marine Biology. I let him have a gummy shark to eat the bigger number. I then showed him how the "greather than" sign looks like a shark mouth that is eating the bigger number (i.e. 214 > 199). He loved it, and played with his gummy shark the whole time he was doing math. I am thankful for that crazy inspiration!