The Pollard Place: January 2025

We spent New Year's Eve at the cabin, and then stayed for about another week after that. This time we did something new though, and we tried out a different sledding place. Up until now we've just been doing it on the lot in front of us or on the road (even though you're not supposed to) but we found out about the golf course having some good places. We went to try it out and the sledding was amazing! The weather was a little less amazing; it was pretty bitterly cold. Rusty ended up taking Amelia home early because the older kids weren't done yet, and then they came back for us with some hot chocolate. While we were hanging out waiting for them to come back we saw an owl fly out of the tree right above us! I love owls, and I've never seen one so close in the wild. It was absolutely incredible to see it fly by right above us but not hear any sound at all. They are silent! Then we looked around under the tree and found some owl pellets. Pretty cool because we studied birds earlier!

Owl pellet!

Little skull

We called Gigi, Grandma Phyllis and Grandma and Papa to show them the owl pellets!

We got the Super Nintendo hooked up at the cabin for the first time and it was really fun! Henry really got into it and it was so fun to play with him.

Amelia accidentally dropped the toilet paper and it rolled out away from her haha

We made sure to get home from the cabin in time to make it bowling with our homeschool group! I can't remember the last time we took the kids bowling, and they had a great time.

Emilie came to visit us! We love her!

Rusty was looking at dirt bikes for Henry's birthday, and for the girls to have a next size up. The kids had fun going around with him to look at all of the bikes!

We went skiing a whole bunch of times this month! Skiing was new for me this year, and for Amelia, but I will say that she definitely was braver and more fearless. Henry and Della are getting stinking good and Henry is ready to rip down some big runs! He says he's ready for some black diamonds, but I am nervous for that. I'm not sure which month it was but sometime this season I did accidentally take the whole family down a black... Rusty and I got off track and ended up taking a different run down. It was a high stress situation haha, but everyone made it alive!

Getting some school work in during lunch break!

Amelia and I playing so Rusty can have some good time with the bigger kiddos

Tired kiddos

One of the Deer Creek Co-ops was to go to Carolyn's house and do watercolor. She gave the kids step by step instructions, and they had a great time! It was cool for them because it was kind of abstract and they loved being able to play with crazy colors.

Ayla couldn't come because she was sick, so Della made her art into a card for her.

The bank had some cool tickets to a hockey game in a box, so Rusty and I went. It was fun"ish" but I just don't think the ERC crew is my crowd. I really love Chandler and his family and Shane and his family though!

For Spanish, we were working on clothing vocabulary. So we played a fun game where the kids (and then Rusty and I) got dressed and put layers and layers of different clothes on. They thought it was so hilarious!

Carissa found out about a printing press tour that was available in Lehi, and invited us to come along with them. It was so cool! We hadn't been studying anything like that at all, but we did just start our year of studying Doctrine and Covenants so it was really cool to go over some of these things. There was a section on the bottom floor that was all about the printing press that was used for the Book of Mormon, with some cool recreations. Half of our group was not LDS, so we kept it secular and just talked about the printing presses of the time. There was a printing press upstairs that was a replica of the one created by Guttenberg in 1450, and the tour guide explained a lot of the process and the social situation during that time. Then we went on to another replica of a printing press that would have been owned by Benjamin Franklin, starting his business in 1728. The tour guide shared so many interesting stories about him and how his business got started.

This time we went skiing Amelia was really ticked. I don't even remember why (I'm writing this months later) but I can tell you that she was really upset about something and nothing I could offer her was going to make her any less upset.

Hidden Bear is Lia's favorite run!

We did something fun and got the kids ice skating lessons this month! They loved it, and because we were there so often I got some good practice too! They did homeschool hours and Sharon was so nice she didn't have us pay to go to the homeschool stuff because we were doing classes for the kids. We went sooo many times this month! It started because we were skating with all of the kids and Amelia just laid down and started throwing a fit because she didn't want to do it. Sharon was doing a class for kids her age, and Rusty skated over to her and asked her if she would take another kid in her class. Right then. And she said yes so we sent Amelia over to be her problem haha, and Amelia did great! Della really loved it at first, Henry was not a huge fan but he kept practicing and got better and better! Della had a natural talent for it.

Della got to be the first one on the ice one morning!

She loved it!

Melynne took this picture of us at a homeschool day!

This is the day we ditched Amelia for the class haha

Look how tiny her skates are!

Helping Knoxley ice skate

One time we went skiing with the Bartons! It was pretty blustery and kind of hard to see for part of it, but the kids had a great time getting to ski with their friends and we always love hanging out with Kyle and Bryndee!

Another day of skiing! Amelia is really getting the hang of it, and I'm feeling less terrified too! It is really fun to have an activity that the whole family does together!

We went to the zoo with the Cowleys! I actually really like going in the winter because nobody else is there and it's a great way to spend some time outside but you're distracted enough the kids don't get too cold. This time we went into the Utah area for the first time, and we watched a snake eating a mouse! The kids were completely enthralled by it and just sat and watched it for a long time.

Carousel ride!!

For science this month we studied weather and the water cycle. We did some pretty cool experiments, and we even had Bill and Nancy Pekny (I met her at my emotional resistance class) come and talk to us about his experiences. He was one of the crazy people that rides into hurricanes on a jet to measure and track weather patterns. I honestly was not that excited about teaching about weather; it's not something that I've really thought would be interesting. But Henry and Della were really excited about it so we went forward with it and I ended up learning a lot! Homeschooling is funny that way.

Bill's weather station in Midway

Henry and Della are still working hard in jiu jitsu! Amelia gets bored sitting on the stairs watching, but she does pretty good. It's a small area to sit still in.

It had been a while since we visited the duck pond, so we headed over there with the Bartons. Originally we were going to go snowshoeing, but the kids were having so much fun they decided to just stay and play by the pond. I told Henry not to go out on the ice, but he said "everybody else was doing it" so he went out too. He ended up falling through the ice and it was so deep he couldn't touch the bottom; luckily Brayden was there and pulled him back up. Sheesh.

Henry's Highlights:

While watching The Wizard of Oz he said, "How are they not distressed?!" when it showed the people floating by in the tornado
We were at a museum about printing presses and the tour guide was talking about how Benjamin Franklin wanted to get married but he already had a child so that made things more complicated for him. Henry raised his hand and asked, "What happened to his first wife?" The tour guide looked confused and said that he didn't have a first wife, and then Henry said, "Well then how did he have a baby?" The lady just looked at me and I said, "I'll take that question at home buddy." He's already had "the talk" so I was so confused how he forgot everything. Driving home he asked me how Benjamin Franklin had a baby and I said, "Henry do you remember that talk we had about how babies are made?" He said, "yes." I said, "That." and his eyes got big and he said, "OH!"

Adeline's Adventures:

"Here we only got one rule! Never ever let it cool!"
"That meat is so good! I'm falling in love with it."
Amelia whispering "I want to play family" and Della feeling like she has to or Amelia won't listen to me and Della wants me to be happy so she just does whatever Amelia says

Amelia's Updates:

Tried to sing a song about snowflakes but accidentally sang the whole song about Jesus (video)
Fell while ice skating and refused to get up until after she had made some "ice angels"
Amelia was taking too long to poop while we were somewhere and so I said, "Amelia you're taking too long to poop." She said, "We'll figure this out!!"

Extra Pictures: