Outing #4: Table Mountain!

 We thought a good outing for April would be to see some wildflowers in bloom in a new place to visit.  On Friday the 21st we found a great spot called North Table Mountain Ecological Reserve.  The "mountain" is a few miles north of the city of Oroville about 2 hours from home.

"Created by ancient lava (basalt) flows, the approximately 3,300 acre North Table Mountain Ecological Reserve is an elevated basalt mesa."  We heard there were beautiful wildflowers up on top.  Here are some photos from our drive to get up there.

We saw huge pieces of basalt.  What is basalt?

Basalt is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava)

And now you know!

Here is some of what we saw on the top of Table Mountain:

Lots of basaltic rock amidst the flowers

And even snow capped mountains in the distance!

A crazy photographer!

We also found this covered bridge.

And we saw lots of cattle grazing.

It was a beautiful, peaceful spot.

(There were a lot of cars and people there but they were all very respectful.)

A shared smoothie tasted good!

It was very windy on top of Table Mountain..

...but we had lots of fun!

Trip to Kansas!

We had a great trip to Kansas!  

This painting is called "Rain on a Soft Evening in Kansas" and we saw it at the Wichita Art Museum with Jeff's and Suzie's family.

Here are a few of the other interesting things we saw.

This is called "Wichita Art Museum's Summer Birthday Bash 2021"

If  you look closely you can see that color was added to various sized plastic plates, bowls and cups using permanent markers.  The pieces were then melted by local artists using a blow torch as participants watched.

This one is called "Confetti Chandelier" made in 2003 and is hand-blown glass and steel.

This one by Toots Zynsky is called "Vellutino."  It was made by layering thousands of multicolored glass threads on a round plate and then was fused together inside a kiln.  As a final touch, Zynsky reached into the kiln wearing special heat-resistant gloves and squeezed the glass into this unique undulating form.  It was beautiful!

Here's one by a painter I am familiar with, Mary Cassatt.  She was the only American who exhibited with the Impressionist painters in Paris.

It is called "Mother and Child" and painted about 1890.

This one caught my eye because it was by a man born in Sweden, Birger Sandzen.  He immigrated to Lindsborg, Kansas, a place I have visited.

It's called "Smoky River."

"The Junction" painted in 1932 by Edmund L. Davison

Fun story: This is downtown Wichita back in the day.  The artist gathered his materials every morning and went to paint for weeks.  He struck up a friendship with a homeless man and brought him food every day.  In return the man kept him company by telling him stories.  In tribute to his friend, Davison included the man in the painting fishing from the riverbank.

Later Peter showed us some yo-yo tricks including his being able to do tricks with a No String Yo Yo!

It was amazing and hopefully he will demonstrate at our next family reunion!

In between the Saturday sessions of Conference, Peter built himself a computer!

We were able to see the finished product!

Fun outside in the beautiful weather!

Suzie takes quilting classes and this is one she just completed.

Coloring Easter eggs!

Easter egg hunt!

Painting at ceramics!

The finished products one week later!

Sarah was working on an AP History project with info and quotes from the Founding Fathers.  She prepared it like a newspaper and I'm sure it was a big success!

Camille made this cake for our Easter dinner!

Easter Sunday!

We attended a wonderful Sacrament meeting with Heidi playing the organ, Suzie leading the music, the girls participating in the special musical number, Peter blessing the Sacrament, and Jeff conducting the meeting and giving very special remarks at the end of the meeting.  It was a good day for parents and grandparents to be there!

We loved celebrating Easter in Kansas!

Suzie has already framed these Names of Christ.

One last thing: We LOVED this T-shirt Camille got from her piano teacher.

We love the many talented bench-warmers in our family!

This and That in April, Part 1!

It turns out that April is a busy month.

Had to get started on some Easter puzzles.

General Conference.  Sam and his companion get to watch in comfort.

Perrys did their General Conference pancakes.  That's a water bottle...

...and this is a backpack.  

We had a snack for each session as well as a spiritual feast at each session!

Kathryn and Darryl got to attend two sessions as part of Kathryn's senior trip.

John, Sara, Aubrey and Bethany got to go to Universal Studios and Disneyland during their spring break!

Eleanor had a choir concert. 

And Camille made pizza in her cooking class.  These two photos feature her on the school Instagram.

Kathryn made her decision about school next year: BYU!

On April 14th we had dinner at the Perrys.

Fridays are Make Your Own Deli Sandwich night!

Lily showed us how fun Pop Tubes can be!

Jacob looking pretty cool!

They found this game at the library and thought Grandpa would like to play it.  

But we didn't have enough time.

David played the piano for us.  

He is so good that he is the ward choir accompanist!

We got to watch a video of Joshua's Drum Line performance!

And then the grand finale of the evening was attending a performance of Hannah's play!

No surprise to us that she did a great job on her several parts.  It was hard to get pictures.  They  moved so fast and there were some big heads in front of me, but here are a couple of shots.

It has been fun watching Hannah perform over the years!

She is very talented--just like all of our grandchildren!