An Adventure With My Father

On Friday and Saturday, me and my dad visited the Bigg’s property in Nevada City for a father and son campout.  My dad signed up to be the one in charge of the food which meant my mom and the kids had to spend the day making the food.  My job with the food was making the sauce for the Sloppy Joe’s.  My mom did the meat while my two sisters made 240 cookies and cracked 180 eggs.  We headed up early Friday evening to get set up for dinner.  The first thing I did when we got there was to go canoeing on the pond with my friends Jake and Logan.  The activities we got to do at the Bigg’s were zip-lining across the pond, canoeing, going through a hay maze, walking across high ropes in trees (20 feet up with no harnesses!), and swinging on the biggest rope swing in the world!  My mom would have been worried but my dad was all over it.  Logan and I headed up to the zip-line and had to wait 30 minutes for our turn.  Right when it was our turn the guy in charge said it was time for dinner so we didn’t get to go until after dinner 😦   That night they held a campfire program.  It was a play about Joseph Smith and the First Vision and the Restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood.  It was one of the most awesome plays I have ever seen.  They even had a guy strapped to the zip-line and he came down as the Angel Moroni.  That night my dad and I slept in the back of our car.  (Because my dad is scared of bugs! Haha)  When we woke up in the morning, all my friends, Logan, Alex, and Jake, were watching me through the window and knocking on the glass.  They all wanted to go to the rope swing, so we did.  Later on in the day we started the activities.  First, was a relay race. They split the teams by ward but let Alex stay on our team.  Alex’s ward was not happy about it.  There were a lot of other activities like canoe races, tug-o-war and fishing contests even though I didn’t do all of them.  The reason we didn’t do the canoe races was because one of the leaders, Geram Madsen, got out a fire hose and was spraying the racers as they came by. This father and son camping program is a major opportunity to meet new people and create a better father-son relationship.  – Brayden

Safeway and Whole Foods Behind the Scenes

Last Friday we went to Safeway in Auburn and Whole Foods in Roseville and went behind the scenes to a whole different world of a grocery store.  When we arrived at Safeway it was 10:00 am.  The guy that was to give us the tour met us at the front of the store by Starbucks.  He had reserved four tables for our group. We each got our own goody bag with our name on it to collect goodies on our tour.  First, we went to the bakery.  He showed us the bread dough, there was a lot of it!  He showed us the huge oven that was very hot.  We all got a cookie to put in our bags.  Next, we went to the sushi bar. He asked who would like a sample of sushi they had just made.  We all said no except for our friends the Skeehans.  Then we went to the deli.  They gave us a sample of turkey and Havarti cheese.  I love Havarti cheese.  Then we walked into the back area where we saw the walk-in ice cream freezer that was zero degrees.  Brrrr!  In the back it seemed less colorful and not as bright as in the main part of the store.  We walked into the meat cooler and then through the part where men were cutting and packaging the meat.   All that raw meat looked gross.  I would hate to do that job.  If the meat was cooked I know it would taste very yummy.  We met Pete the fish man.  We walked through the milk and juice cooler and got a Sunny Delight to put in our bag. We saw a truck backed up right to a big door in the building.  It was full of soda, tons of soda.  Next, we went through the produce section.  He let us pick a piece or two of fruit.  I picked a two peaches to add to my bag.  We returned to where we had started and got a free sample of a strawberry smoothie.  While my mom was drinking her strawberry smoothie she said she loved these orange and yellow tulips in the store.  I went with Maddy and bought them for her for Mother’s Day without her seeing.  We had to sneak them in the back of the car.

From Safeway we drove down to Whole Foods in the Fountains.  We had a similar tour of this store but some things were different.  Our tour guide was not as patient and nice as the man at Safeway.  My mom said she didn’t think he had children or was not use to them.  There were nicer things at Whole Foods like special chocolate, nuts, organic food, and gelato.   We were able to sample jicama, artichoke dip, dates, salad that I didn’t like and gelato.  I learned that the difference between ice cream and gelato is that ice cream is made with cream and gelato is made with milk.  I tried the lemonade flavor and loved it.

I didn’t realize how much we would get to see on this field trip and didn’t expect the get so many samples.  I thought that I was a very good trip.  – Gracie

Energy Fair

Last Friday we held an Energy Fair at our house for our home school group.  We invited both of our grandpas and a friend to help us learn about energy.  We also asked each of the families we invited to share a science experiment.  It turned out to be a great day full of learning, fun and food.

Maddy – My Grandpa Bearry talked about electricity.  He explained how electricity gets to our homes and gives us power.  He also explained how you need both positive (“Posi”) and negative (“Neg”) currents.  These two don’t like each other so when they collide power is made.  When you are dealing with electricity only use one hand.  If you use two hands the current could travel through your hearts, that’s what can kill you if you get electrocuted.  He passed around different sized wires so we could see the difference in the types and sizes used for different things.  He told us that the bigger the wire, the bigger the power that could travel through it.  One of the families who came, the Hale’s, suggested an experiment they did.  They went outside and looked at the meter on the side of their house.  They noticed that when all their lights were turned on the meter was spinning quickly but when they turned off all their lights it hardly moved.  This helped them realized that they save money when they turn of the lights and conserve power.

My favorite experiment was the one the Huisken’s shared with us.  They took an empty personal size chip bag and put it in the microwave for 5 seconds.  After a few sparks we opened it and it had shrunk!  They explained that the material used to make the bag had started out this size but then had been stretched and painted before putting the chips inside.  It was really exciting and scary when it sparked!  I was so surprised that it shrunk so much so quickly!

Gracie – Our friend, Peggy Matson, taught us about solar energy.  She showed us a solar panel used in a car that can stick onto your window.  She explained that solar energy does not come from heat.  Instead it comes from light so you can even collect energy on a cloudy day.  Solar panels can be made of glass or even fabric.  Solar power is good because we will never run out of light unlike coal that that we could run out of.  Solar power is especially helpful in areas like Africa because there are many places that do not have electricity and solar power allows them to have some.  She also told us about energy collected from windmills but sometimes there is not much wind.

My favorite experiment was the one that we did.  We made a home made light bulb by connecting alligator clips to a piece of graphite lead and touching the other ends to eight batteries hooked together.  The lead got so hot that it started to glow and made a light bulb.  It only last about 15 seconds so it wouldn’t really be a good choice to use at your house for light.  It would be cool if it lasted longer though.  Me and my brother and sister did it over and over until we ran out of lead.  I thought it was very interesting.

Brayden – My Grandpa Wood taught us about geothermal energy.  Geo means earth and thermal means heat.  So geothermal energy is energy we get from the earth’s core and the heat released from it.  He cracked open a hard boiled egg and cut it in half to show us an example of the earth’s layers.  My grandpa was one of the people that built the first geothermal plant in the world.  He showed us a video of the construction of this plant.  When I watched the video I was surprised how young he looked and that he had helped with such a big project.  I never even knew that my grandpa did this and that he knew so much about geothermal energy.  

Although my favorite experiment was the shrinking chip bag I also really liked the bottle rockets.  The Skeehans brought 3 bottles with different liquids in them which were vinegar, grapefruit juice and lemon juice.  Then they added a spoon full of baking soda to each.  Which one do you think had the greatest reaction?  I thought it might be the vinegar but it turned out to be the lemon juice.  In fact, the cork popped off and sprayed all over, especially on Lathan!  This energy fair turned out to be one of my favorite things we have done this year:)