Home school field trip to St. Helens

Here are the kids with Jeff and Reid at Mt. St. Helens Visitor Center on a gorgeous fall day!

Very large mural of the eruption in 1980. Ten days before I was born!

Katy participating in an Earth-moving hands on exhibit.

Jeff learns about the Pacific Ring of Fire along with every other volcano on Earth.


Look at all these artifacts Mom! Is this what we came 2 hours in the car to see? Wow! Cool!

Brindy descends into the bowels of Mount St. fiberglass exhibit. OOOOhhh! The horror!
As her children enter the volcano model, Mom is too busy with her fancy camera work to realize that the sign says exit only. Good work Mom!

Deep down in the basement they have a decent representation of magma bubbling away.
Look how much volcanic ash fell in different northwest cities! We are learning and touching!
Look at this old tree cross section. Is there a national monument somewhere that does not have one of these? (See staycation pics from 09 - visit to Mt. Rainier)
Make your own Earthquake by stomping and smacking this delicate exhibit and set visitor center staff and Sunbeam mom on edge! Yippee!
How many layers tall are you Jeff?
There is a volcano in the background. I promise.
Me and the kiddos. The mountain is even harder to see in this one. Don't worry. There's more. I will have to make a part B to this post. There are just too many pics and it's late. I have to read six chapters in Alma before I can go to bed. Tomorrow I will put up more volcano pics and the neat dinner I made for the missionaries tonight.

Corn bread recipe

For those who wanted the corn bread recipe I use, here it is. (This is my modified version of Carol Mugleston's recipe. She uses four teaspoons of baking powder.)

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup corn meal
1/2 cup sugar
2 teasp. baking powder
1/2 teasp. salt

1 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 cup oil

Sift dry ingredients, add egg, milk, and oil. Spoon into greased muffin cups. Bake at 425 for 12 minutes.

Playing in the kitchen.

Came up with a healthy and easy corn dog by using mini muffin cups and my favorite cornbread recipe. I put some on a skewer for the photo, but my kids just gobbled them up as they were. I chopped up a package of hot dogs and added them to the batter, but I suppose you could just slice into thick chunks and press into the batter once you have spooned some into the pan.

Better than building blocks!

Natalie found the toilet paper package and had a ball building this tower on top of the coffee table.

Fresh squeezed goodness!

I found oranges on sale this week, so I bought two huge bags. This afternoon I made about a quart and a half of fresh squeezed orange juice! Oh so good, and hopefully it will help my kids fight off the germ bugs that are causing runny noses etc. I think we'll add some bananas later for an orange julius type of smoothie. Mmmm. . .

The garden is beginning to grow, but I can't use my computer with the new camera card, so no pics yet. It isn't that impressive anyway. There are a few sprouts here and there.

Heading off to spend a night away from the kiddos tonight. I know that doesn't sound like it has anything to do with home school, but really, it does. If you are home all day every day with the kids always with you, you need some time away every once in a while. Spend time with your sweetie pie and then you will be a better teacher and mom for your little ones! Tomorrow is my first 8k and it starts at Mt. Si high school, so we are spending a night in North Bend at a bed and breakfast. Sounds relaxing? Yeah.