arbor day

Tyler used to tell me about arbor day up in his small north-Idaho hometown.  He and the forestry club would volunteer to hand out free trees.  I was excited to see a sign for a local arbor day event, so we made plans to go!

Earlier that week, TJ and I had sprouted some pumpkin seeds from our carved pumpkins.  Right now they are (hopefully!) growing in a little pot on the window sill.  Pumpkin plants are big and invasive, so we'll have to toss them eventually, but it's a start on the whole growing cycle.  With that in mind, I was really excited to bring home a little tree sapling to continue teaching with!

 We showed up right when it started at 2:00.  We wanted to make sure the kids got to do all the fun activities, and in Utah, free stuff is always a mob scene.  However, we were the first people there and it barely got busy at all! 

The kids did some crafts - they got to make their own button with a button clamp, do some stamping, and they each painted a wood cutting tree ornament.  Then we had to go the the bounce house.  It was too fun to resist!

 TJ was crazy about it.  He was so happy!  Eli was pretty freaked out.  He smiled and was excited about it but did NOT want to get on!  So we just watched.

 Eventually we pulled TJ away to do a few more activities - painting rocks, looking at the live birds (they brought owls and eagles!).  Each boy got a native plant to take home, and we also got a little tree sapling.  We'll probably plant it in a bucket and try to keep it alive as long as we can, and when it gets too big we'll go find a forested area to plant it.  We also got a few envelopes of flower seeds, which will be fun to cultivate with the boys!

 After we got our plants, we went back to the bounce house.  Several other kids were jumping and TJ was so happy about it!  It was windy but also really sunny - I could feel my face burning, so we sat in the shade until we were ready to go home. 

It was a perfect Saturday afternoon activity!  I wish we had registered to do the fun run.  If we are still in this part of Dallas next year, we'll definitely go again!