Moving Forward in January 2014

Here’s a recap of the adventures our little family has been up to this month!

Lily and I started 2014 with an educational bang by going to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at The Leonardo courtesy of Today’s Mama. The exhibit continues through April 27th and I highly recommend it! For a small amount you can rent an audio player – worth every penny. Lily listened to every track on the player and learned even more facts than I did! It’s hard to find the right words to describe the exhibit – stunning, inspiring, thought-provoking, and simply amazing!

The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit is one of my favorite activities that I have done with my daughter.  I loved seeing her eyes light up as she learned new things and experienced a small part of what life was like 1,000s of years ago. The exhibit was one intriguing teaching moment after another for both mother and daughter. For an afternoon we were transported back in our religious heritage as we soaked up as much knowledge as we could.

The audio combined with the larger than life artifacts and displays held Lily’s attention for the better part of two hours. If you are taking young children, I would go during the week when there are less crowds and lines. Plan on at least 2-4 hours if you are a history buff like me!

Up to this point, all of Lily’s charter school field trips took place Monday-Wednesday so I haven’t been able to go. Major bummer. When the Clark Planetarium field tip was scheduled for a Thursday in January, this mama was over the moon. Field trips are right up my alley!

My group of four first-grade girls were entranced by all of the exhibits – especially the interactive ones. The tornado and fog exhibits caught their eyes immediately. We spent at least ten minutes playing on the moon and Mars upstairs as well. My favorite part of the field trip – all the questions from the girls. They were eager to learn about space ships, solar flares, and even how cold it is in space. Love seeing girls get excited about science!

Our Christmas festivities spilled over into January for a Scroll reunion with some of my all-time favorite people. Fifteen years ago, I started working for the Scroll newspaper at Ricks College not knowing that I would meet my life-time best friends there. Salt of the earth people, I tell you! We laughed our way across Europe together in college and now we still travel together every other year. It did my soul good to sit down and chat with these friends while our children played together.

One of my favorite times of the week is volunteering at Lily’s school. Thursday and Friday mornings I go in to exchange the take-home readers and help the student’s with their AR tests. It’s been such a treat to watch Lily slowly blossom into a reader. On the day I took this picture Lily asked to stay and read in the library just a little bit longer – that’s my girl!

Unfortunately were were a house full of sickies this month! Pneumonia, strep throat, bronchitis … oh my! Lots of cleaning, resting, and recuperating going on at the Parker household!

At the end of November I was called to work the children in our ward’s Primary. I am the secretary and I love it! We busily put together Proclamation on the Family booklets over the holidays so that the family’s would each have one for their children. Love how they turned out! A ward member created the beautiful painting on the left for us to depict this year’s theme: Families are Forever. The calling has sure kept me busy, but I adore being in my with my children!

And that’s a wrap for January! A tiny peek into our many adventures. There are so many more in store for February!

What was the highlight of your January?