The Quiver

Our two year old acts much older than his years. When Mom cleans the bathrooms, he’s there helping; when it’s time to cook dinner, he pulls over his stool to help stir. Recently the latest editions of The Ensign and The Friend came in the mail. (These are magazines published by the LDS Church. They have three, each age targeted: The Friend is for children, The New Era is for teens, and The Ensign is for … well, everyone actually, but specifically for adults. They also publish the Liahona internationally in many languages.)

Bookworm had, of course, immediately laid claim to The Friend as soon as she found it. I had been reading the previous copy of The Ensign to get the monthly message to share with my Home Teaching families.

Not to be left out, Mr. Grownup found himself a copy (The Ensign in this case), sat himself down in the love seat, and opened it up for a read. The fact that he can’t read bothered him about as much as the fact that he had the magazine upside down: not one whit.

The SoapQueen and her partners in Primary crime organized a Pioneer Day for the kids in our Ward. They had three different activity tracks: life on the move, living in tents, building homes, etc.; a day in school for pioneer kids; home ec (basic home tasks) for the pioneers.

Storytime

The kids learned about having to live in a lean-to; being sick from the poor conditions; building a log cabin; working as a black-smith; living in a real “frame” home. They also heard stories about crossing the plains, and arriving at the Salt Lake valley.

Pioneer home ec.

The pioneers out on the prairies, in the woods, crossing the plains, etc. didn’t have access to a dry-goods store and had to make much of their own … well, everything. They had to make their own soap and candles, they had to bake their own bread, and if they wanted something special, they had to make their own candy. Some flavors were better received than others.

School … well, recess for the pioneer kids

Once the pioneers settled down into small communities, one of the most important things they did was to build one-roomed school houses. They showed the kids how the boys would sit on one side, the girls on the other, youngest in the front, oldest in the back. By far the most interesting was the “recess” demonstration. There was stick-pulling, arm-wrestling, and hoop-rolling.

The kids had a fine time. We actually got very good reactions from all of our kids when we asked them about it. Several mentioned the “lean-to” stories as their favorite part of the day. That was the part that my brother- and sister-in-law were playing the poor souls suffering from illness and cold while living in a lean-to with their meager little fire. OK, maybe the fire was the highlight. (It was just a fake fire made from logs, a light bulb, a fan and some red streamers that we borrowed from the Scouts.)

Last Saturday we loaded up the truck with a small hunk of humanity (all of “us”) and headed down to the 2008 Utah County Fair. We had thought to see the Demolition Derby — ’cause what kid doesn’t enjoy a good demolition derby? — but the lines were pretty long … and we <ahem> failed to get tickets beforehand.

So we just wandered around to see what we could see. There was a building with vendors, but the only one that interested me was the lady selling board and card games. She was very nice, had some good suggestions, and sells them out of her home in Highland. She had already run out of business cards, so she wrote down her name and website address on a slip of paper. (She’s not real happy with the folks that did her site, so she’s having it redone. If it doesn’t look too good, it’s probably still the old site. Give her a call or send an email instead.)

Next we wandered through where all the sheep and young steers were. Two words: pheeew, that’s strong! And to my city-slicker-ified eye, one shorn sheep looks very much like the next. Not terribly exciting. (Sorry, all you shorn-sheep show-ers.)

The last building contained the 4H displays: all the home-canned preserves, hand-made dresses, home-baked goods, home-grown vegetables, student paintings and photos … and a very large, very fun Lego® display done by ULUG.

For just a bunch of kids making, baking, painting, and growing stuff, they sure did a nice job. I don’t remember anything spectacular, but the fact that the kids are learning how to do this stuff was very pleasing to my heart. Way to go, 4H Groups!

The County Sheriff’s Office had several displays setup. I chatted briefly with the SAR guys. Then we wandered over to the SWAT Team to see their gear and have a look at their SWAT transport vehicle. (I forgot to get a picture. ) I asked if we could get the nickel tour, and he gladly took us inside and let us look around. Not as much gear as is in the MICC, but then the MICC is meant for communications and Incident Command, not hauling a bunch of guys in riot gear to take down a drug house.

The kids even got a chance to shoot pellet guns at targets in a little hunter safety trailer. (We had a hard time pulling them away, actually. Even the little ones made sure they got their turn. Twice.)

We took one last look at the line into the derby, briefly glanced around at the fair’s culinary offerings … and decided that it had been too long since we’d visited Lotus Garden.

On the way out, the found Beanies. I was doomed. Oh well, it wasn’t too bad; the folks selling them had reduced the price for the last day of the fair. We speculated that these were collectors, who had realized that there were too many Beanie Babies on the market to make collecting viable.

Next to the Beanie sellers was a lady with Alpacas. Very cute critters, very soft wool. (Do you call the stuff sheared from Alpacas wool?) They live down in the south end of the county and just have fun raising their Alpacas, and even make a bit of money doing it, by selling the wool to people to make sweaters and socks from. Very nice and friendly — both the lady, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, and her critters.

The boys were quite interested in these cute animals. Mr. Independent walked right over, hunkered down and they watched each other quite contentedly.

Lotus Garden, in Provo, is one of our favorite Chinese restaurants. We used to go every three or four weeks, and the folks there got to know us well enough that they would bring our drinks out without having to ask what everyone wanted, and would immediately start another batch of gyoza because we’d clean out whatever was there at the buffet; by the time we were finished, we would have had five or six each. Even though we don’t get down there but once a year now, they still greet us warmly and make gentle noises of amazement at how much our kids have grown and how large our family has become.

Thanks for a loverly dinner, Lotus Garden family!

The End. {contented sigh and smile as we headed home}

Our almost 10 year old and our 4 year old

Our 7 and 2 year old.

Our 11 year old

Our 8 year old and if you knew her you would not be surprised by this outfit (don’t forget to check out the feet).

Our little bambino, he’s 6 months old now.

[And if you're counting heads, you might know why this site is called The Quiver. -Kraut]

This is just a quick something to start our family blog. The picture is of the Gamer and Dad (Kraut) on his Timp Cave field trip. (The boy in the middle is his don’t-get-lost field-trip buddy.)