Nathan Earned His Wood Badge

Last week Nathan received his Wood Badge at a Court of Honor held in our ward.  Wood Badge is advanced leadership training for adults. Nathan attended a two weekend training course and then had to complete "tickets" in order to complete the course and receive his Wood Badge.  You can get more info on Wood Badge from here.

Anyway, so last week he received his certificate, his Wood Badge kerchief, his leather slide, and two wooden beads on a leather strap.

Way to go, honey!

Also that night, 2 of Nathan's boys (they aren't really our boys, but they were Nathan's boys from when he served with the Teacher's Quorum a few years ago) received their Eagle Scout Awards. Nathan was really proud of them.

I snagged a picture of Nathan with Trevor and Bryce after the ceremony. 

Trevor gave Nathan an Eagle Scout Mentor pin.

Such a good night!

Living Joyfully in Troubled Times - Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson

Chapter 4 is titled, Living Joyfully in Troubled Times.  This lesson provides great insight into helping us on our path to becoming happy, hopeful, optimistic people.

There were two quotes that really stuck out to me, both from the 2nd section of the lesson.  The first is this:

"We have no cause to really worry. Live the gospel, keep the commandments. Attend to your prayers night and morning in your home. Maintain the standards of the Church. Try and live calmly and cheerfully. … Happiness must be earned from day to day. But it is worth the effort."

My favorite quote from the lesson is this one:

"Be cheerful in all that you do. Live joyfully. Live happily. Live enthusiastically, knowing that God does not dwell in gloom and melancholy, but in light and love."

I liked it so much I decided to make a wall hanging for it, and I'll use it during my lesson.

If you feel the urge, here is a link to a pdf you can download and print, just click on the below picture.

A Saturday Morning Run - Corner Canyon Trail

This past Saturday morning, a few friends and I decided to run on the Corner Canyon Trail.  We met bright and early and drove to the trail head.

Of course, we had to snap a selfie prior to our run. Too bad it's a little blurry and us front-row people had our sunglasses on. :(

Anyway, I wasn't quite sure what to expect since I had never been trail running before, but I felt prepared with my Brooks Cascadia 9s that I bought on sale on Black Friday.  Also, I need to get a little bit used to trail running as I have signed up to be part of a team for Ragnar Trail Zion in April.

The day was beautiful, not too cold and a little overcast.  There was a little bit of a STRONG head-wind while running up the trail, which sucked, but the downhill was a BLAST!!!

A little stream of cascading water kept us company.

Obviously this photo is a little edited to increase the colors because I was taking pictures with my phone.  But isn't that view amazing!!  That is the Draper UT Temple you can see.

After a while we came to a bridge and I spotted this geocache.  It had plastic vampire teeth in it. How funny!

We took a little break from our running to capture this picture of Lisa and Debbie on the bridge.

Since there are so many trails up the canyon we eventually got separated from our group, but had decided beforehand that we would meet back at the car at a certain time.  Total run was about 5 miles and took about an hour.

Definitely a run I want to do again.

Isaac's Science Experiment - Melting Ice Race

Last week, Isaac had to conduct a science experiment for school.  He decided to see what makes ice melt the fastest.  We got the basic idea for this experiment from here.

He started out by filling plastic cups with water.  Each cup had the same amount of water.

Then he put them in the freezer overnight.

The next day, we labeled a muffin tin with tape #1-6.  He used a muffin tin so that they ice blocks wouldn't touch or affect each other.

Then he got the cups out of the freezer and cut the plastic cup away from the ice block.  Then he measured each ice block to get a starting point.  Each block was 2 3/4 inches tall.

Then on to the experiment.  He added the following to each ice block:

#1 CONTROL - he didn't do anything 

#2 HOT WATER - poured 1 Tbsp hot water over the ice block
#3 SUGAR - poured 1 Tbsp sugar on top of the ice block
#4 SALT - 1 Tbsp salt on the ice block
#5 VINEGAR - 1 Tbsp room temperature vinegar poured on ice block
#6 BAKING SODA - 1 Tbsp baking soda on the ice block

After 20 minutes, he measured the ice blocks.  #2, the hot water block was noticeable smaller than the others.

Another 20 minutes went by and he measured again.

Every 20 minutes he measured the ice blocks until one of them had disappeared.  It took 160 minutes.

Here is the graph that combined the results:

Then he combined his research, his graph and some pictures onto his poster board.  The Mom in me wanted to step in at this point and make the poster a little more organized, but I actually refrained. He was quite pleased with his project and his board.

If you do this experiment, did you get the same results?