A Last Fieldtrip

Pengbo had to leave us yesterday to return home to China. Bronwyn cried most of the morning. (Pengbo was an awesome big sister to have at home, especially in a household of boys. Bronwyn feels very outnumbered sometimes.). It was a very early flight out -- we had to have her at the airport at 6 a.m., but that didn't stop Evan, Owen, and Bronwyn from wanting to come. Justin stayed home with Liam (who wanted to sleep).

Anyway, I decided for our final field trip that we needed to visit This Is The Place Heritage Park. I hadn't been there for years, since my mother was a volunteer docent there. It was so interesting! We all loved it. We took lots of pictures, but here are just a few:

What could possibly make a field trip more complete than getting to pet lambs and kids? There was also a duck/goose enclosure with ducklings and goslings running around, but Liam and Bronwyn couldn't ever get close enough to actually touch one. That didn't stop them from trying, however.

Everyone got to try their hand at dipping candles. Boy that takes a long time! Pengbo turned hers into a duck. Liam's looked like a giant teardrop, and Bronwyn put a curl on the bottom of hers to try to get it to stand upright.

An Indian village has been added brand new this year. They had Shoshone tepees (I learned that the tepee belonged to the woman and she was responsible for setting it up and taking it down. She could set it up in about 20 minutes and take it down in five. Wow!) as well as Navajo hogans. The Native American fellow who was explaining things told me that in Navajo culture there is always a male and a female side to everything. So there is a male hogan and a female hogan. The female hogan is what the family lives in, so here are the girls in front of the female hogan.

Here is Brigham Young's Forest Farmhouse that he never actually lived in. The most interesting thing I learned here is that there are no hallways because those counted as rooms, an important detail when your home was taxed according to how many rooms were in it. In fact, the docent there said that most people continued to live in one-room homes even though they could afford to build more until that tax was taken away (WHAT? A tax that was actually removed? Incredible.). We spent over five hours there and still didn't quite get to see everything. There are activities to participate in all over the park and the kids are excited about going back later this summer. We'll have to take Evan along the next time because he didn't come.

Thanks, Pengbo, for coming to stay with us. It was a wonderful year!