They were having a free day today and we’ve never been there before.

The girls got harnessed up for a little rock climbing.

They all did well going up.

Hannah spun around when she was going down and then was laughing too hard to right herself. She kept swinging back and forth bonking her head on the wall (she had a helmet on.) That only made her laugh more. Finally everyone was unharnessed and we went through the museum part of the mountain center.

Here is a fake crack in the floor, don’t look down!

There is a scale model of Mt. Everest, lots of computers where you could find out about climbing history or Colorado 14′ers.

We learned about scrambling, which is what we do when we climb on the rocks around here (no ropes, so nothing terribly hard.) We got information about storms, altitude and rock climbing classes.

We thought this tent that attaches to the side of a mountain was neat, we also saw a portable hyperbaric chamber.

We left the museum and took a walk on Golden’s main street.

We had a good view of Table mountain.

The bridge over clear creek is very nice.

Clear creek with Lookout mountain in the background.

On the way back to the car I saw a perfect icicle that had dripped off the tree. Explore the museum online here. Explore Golden here.

See sea otters at the Monterey aquarium here.

Shamu cam at San Diego Sea world here.

Winter’s web came in Florida here.

Alpaca cam here, a baby is due soon.

I kind of (ok I DID) coerce him into going to the mountaineering museum later. I said, ‘Hey Joel, how about we pick you up after class and go eat at Jack in the box (and then in a whisper) and then go to the mountaineering museum?’ He said yes, then said what? But, I think he will have a good time there with us, they have rock climbing and they are having a mountain fest outdoors (complete with the 6-10 inches of snow we got yesterday.)

Oh yes, Happy Spring!

We did some art today. First we watercolored a sunset background for our tree pictures.

While that was drying we wove trees out of a tree branch hoop and yarn.

We had some cool black and white furry yarn that kind of looks like aspen bark.

The girls wove the yarn back and forth and then we wrapped the branches of the trees. We went back and added more color to the tree paintings and while that dried we made some Mexcian mirrors.

Later the girls added the trees to their sunset pictures.

Outside Maisy is chasing her squirrel and the snow is blowing, nice!

Who says you can’t do school in the pool? (That would be the history lesson, math and spelling not the Lost cast quiz)

Here is 3.14159.

We found some patterns like red/pink, pink/red (9/7, 7/9),

there are only two 0’s in the first 50 places (white), lots of 3’s (orange)

and it looks pretty hanging in the kitchen.

This place used to be a plains Indian hunting ground, then it was farmland for settlers, after Pearl Harbor the site was used for making chemical weapons (called Rocky Mt. arsenal), then it was a site where agricultural chemicals were made, a site for cold war weapons production and finally after extensive clean up, a wildlife refuge. That’s a long history of this 12,000 acre site. We stopped by the visitor center and looked at the history of the site from Indians to today.

Hannah liked pushing the warning siren.

Here is a war exhibit and a phone that can withstand an explosion (hmm…really?)

Here is a neat bomb detonating stand, complete with static stand for your feet to discharge the static before you pressed the button.

It is very static-y here, so I’m sure that stand came in handy. We looked at bee hives, wasp’s nests and insect collections.

We saw a bull snake and got to dissect owl pellets.

Hannah found 2 shrew skulls in hers and lots of leg bones.

Then we went out for a hike.

We love this bridge that goes almost halfway around the lake, there are lots of great views from here.

On the other side we saw a herd of deer and when they ran, we followed.

The girls were sneaking up the trail and we finally caught up to them again.

This is another place that we need to come back to in the summer. Too bad you can’t swim in the pond.

We went today because they were having a celebration of their buffalo herd. They are up to 47 head now.

(pic from RM website)

They had a bus tour (they keep the herd further away from the main trails to protect them and us) but it was all full. Maybe when we go back in the summer we’ll catch the tour.

After our hike we went over to the Fox theater to see Mudra dance studio dance for Holi (an Indian Spring festival.)

I wish the Fox had been doing an Irish celebration (especially since this was St. Patrick’s day) but the dancers were great.

The girls liked watching the dancers’ hands moving around. At the very end we all got up and learned a small dance, it was a good workout! We picked up Joel, yay last day of CSAP, and went home.

At home we read Tommie DePaola’s book Patrick Patron Saint of Ireland, I love his illustrations.

Then we took some obligatory pics for Grandma.

Even Maisy got into the Irish spirit (for a quick pic anyway.)

Tomorrow it’s back to school work and working on our Pi paper chain.

We played with the butter churner.

We wore hats, lots of them.

We saw this thing (ahem, I knew what it was.)

Even with the fake toast in it the girls had to really think about what it might be. We played musical instruments (LOUDLY),

sprung Slinky’s, caught balls in cups, played with buzz saw toys and ice picker uppers (is that the technical term?)

Hannah donned green gloves and grabbed a hand mixer and proclaimed herself a doctor.

She proceeded to whack me on the back with the mixer, it actually felt good. Then we used the Tinkertoys for massages too. We went to the Aurora exhibit and took pictures of the birds we might see on the hike later.

Then the girls took pics of Swanson TV dinners (I asked them how they cooked TV dinners without a microwave – Grace said they didn’t, they just ate them cold!) and 1950’s stuff.

There was an awesome exhibit about aerial photography, we had lots of inspiration for abstract paintings to come.

Our hike started at the Star K ranch Sand creek greenway. We’ve never hiked at this point before, though we have been to the ranch (but it’s been a long time.) We jumped on these cottonwood logs and climbed the tree.

I love the trees, they are calling to me.

They are saying, remember the summers when our leaves provided respite from the sun?

Remember the cool shade we provided, the sights you can see from our limbs, the rough bark….I digress.

As we walked down the path the sun was beating down on the leaves that had been wet, dry, snowed on, baked again.

The smell when the breeze drifted by was like…a daydream. Sweet and earthy, light and sunny, oh it smelled like Summer. We hiked towards the creek, the creek wasn’t flowing very well, so it puddled up here as an algae green water.

Spring is coming, proof is here in the buds on the trees.

We walked through a wetlands and ended up back at the giant cottonwood. The girls were climbing all over it and tucking sticks in the crook of the tree for a bird to use as a nest.

As the girls played I closed my eyes and listened to the present. The wind rattled leaves on the trees like a snake shaking its tail. There was that smell of dusty, dead leaves. I sat in the shade of the cottonwood while the sun baked the wood around me.

The trees stretched out their branches towards the great blue sky. The prairie grass was bent and brown, but soon it will be green again.

It was nice.

We left there and ran a few errands and then met a friend for his birthday. We all went to see Alice in Wonderland. I don’t like Tim Burton, but I have to say – he is weird and so is the story of Alice, so it works out. It was fairly true to the book, so very weird and strange, the characters were mostly strange, but no one was scared to watch the movie. The girls thought it was very cool when Alice looked through the little door and saw wonderland, just like we looked through the little door at the MOA and saw a paper wonderland.

(We did not see the movie in 3-D.)

Tomorrow is the last day of CSAP (Joel says Yay!) and we have 2 things to go to, it’s also St. Patrick’s day and my brothers b-day. Here is a site for Paddy’s day.

Bethany got a very energetic dance this time.

Hannah likes her dance too.

It was observation day at dance, I got to see a bit of Grace dancing and then I had to go pick up Joel. I came back and dropped off Hannah and went to my class. We were talking about last week’s if/then statement which was basically ‘If I am so into myself and thinking of myself only, then I can’t know and be on the mission that Jesus has called me for’ Ok, that’s a loose paraphrase. Andrew Murray said that if we are to be on a Heavenly mission then it has to be identical to Christ’s. But, we have to know what His mission was and is in order to follow it. Jesus came to make known God’s love, show salvation to sinners and to represent God. If I am so into myself and consumed with selfish thoughts then I can’t show God’s love, I can’t represent Him. God gives us everything we need for our mission, nothing less. He will give us faith when we doubt, fill us with grace when we are at wits end, give us hope when we are hopeless, give us love when we feel unlovable, and give us drive for our mission. So, that was a lot to think about during devotional time.

In addition I have been mulling over some writings of Pascal from his Pensees like this one: We never keep ourselves to the present moment. We look forward to the future as too slow in coming, as if to hasten its arrival, or we remember the past to hold it up as if it had happened too quickly. We are so undiscerning that we stray into times which are not our own and do not think of the only one that is truly ours, and so vain that we dream about those which no longer exist and allow the present to escape without thinking about it. This is because the present usually hurts us. We hide it from sight because it wounds us, and if it is pleasant then we are sorry to see it pass. We try to buttress it with the future, and think of arranging things which are not in our power for a time we cannot be at all sure of attaining. Everyone should study their thoughts. They will find them all centered on the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do it is to simply shed some light on the future. The present is never our end. Past and present are our means, only the future is our end.

Deep thoughts to think about. Am I learning about the mission of Jesus so I can follow in His mission? Do I think more about myself and so neglect others? Do I dwell on the past or live for the future?