Death Valley Wildflower SUPERBLOOM!!!!

Do you know what a serious First World Problem is?  When you find out from your sister that there's such thing as a Death Valley SUPERBLOOM, and you talk your in-laws into going for a weekend with you, and you spend hours planning, and they bend over backwards scheduling rooms and rescheduling rooms and talking to the National Parks Service to make it happen, but then you get there and think, "Well.... I guess that's cool...."  

These little baby flower seeds baked in 130° heat for a decade, soaked in an El Niño deluge, pushed their delicate little roots down and their brave leaves out and bloomed!  And do you know what I said when I saw them?  "Huh.  I guess I expected a little more..."  If those flowers could, they would throw a Death Valley Boulder at my face.  

Colby & Uncle Dan drove down late Friday night so they could spend the day biking.  Amber & I drove down Saturday morning right after the Girl Scout Discovery Museum Sleepover of 2016 so we could not spend the day biking.  If you ever get the chance to drive through rural Nevada, don't.  I don't recommend it.  Unless you're driving 395 down through Bishop and Lone Pine.  Those are lovely little towns.  The ones we drove through?  Yeah....  notsomuch.  I was cheered by the youths I saw at our inevitable McDonalds lunch time stop.  They were cute and fashionable and didn't seem like they hated their lives.  Which is what I assume of everyone who lives a different life than me.  (Of course, they were hanging out at McDonalds at lunch time.  But I don't judge.)  (Yes I do.)

My kids have stopped letting me pose them for pictures.  Good thing we have cousin Lucy!  I love you Lucy! (She hates me.  The only reason she lets me stay around is because I bring her beloved Ella & Gretchen to her.  Mostly Ella.  And because I take pictures of her.  She's really good at posing for pictures.  I am personally affronted by this.  Does she even know how popular I am at the girl's elementary school?  Does she even know that, like, 10 kids say, "Hi Miss Apryl" every time I walk on the campus?  I AM SERIOUSLY A BIG DEAL.  Come on, Lucy!  Kids love me!  EVERY KID BUT YOU!  And you are my NIECE!  You know I only see this as a challenge.  You will love me, kid.  I will be your favorite.) (Behind Auntie Krista, of course.  No one competes with Auntie Krista.  Let's be reasonable.)

It looks like she loves me in this picture, but she's only happy because she's with Ella.  And because I'm taking her picture.

Ella wanted to bring this natural salt crud home with us.  I said, "Yeah, no sweetie.  No.  No.  And No."  So this picture was our compromise.

This here is the lowest point in the Northern Hemisphere.  So of course they had to take their shoes off to feel the lowest earth under their feet (400' below sea level???)  Amber's lowest point was just prior to this when Lucy had a meltdown in the stinkiest PortAPotty in the Northern Hemishphere.  I remember those days (that's me pretending we don't still have those days).  Ella tried yelling over the concrete divider, "It's ok, Lucy!  Just put your arm over your mouth and try not to breath!"  Also, there was a line of people waiting to use the Stinkiest Port A Potty because a million people came to Death Valley to see the SUPERBLOOM.  I love having meltdowns in public with spectators.  When I'm old, I'm going to do it to my girls and hopefully be self aware enough enjoy the irony.

Love this shot.  (Also, she still hates me.)

This was a cool natural bridge.  The girls stood in front of it...

...and then laid under it.  Gretchen kept saying, "Yeah, I really don't think this is safe.  Mom, I really don't think we should be laying here like this..."  (as she's laying on the ground under it, pointing out the cracks...)

Awww, cousin Alex HAAAAAAAAAAAATED Death Valley.  Like how Gretchen HAAAAATES Girl Scouts and homework.  But the wind wasn't as bad in this little canyon, so he brought his face out from under the blanket.  Temporarily.

The artist's canyon changes colors every time it rains.  That is amazing.  Gretchen walked off to enjoy it by herself.  She wants to enjoy everything by herself.  The crowds were very bothersome for Gretchen.  She also has lots of first world problems (awww, just like me sweetie!)

Possible felony here with the plucked wild flowers.  We put the kibosh on that pretty quickly, but this was when we first got out of the car.  And they were already picked, and if she was holding contraband, she'd let me take her picture.  So they didn't die in vain.

We got home at 11pm.  We were exhausted.  And we still had a full week of work and school ahead of us (including work for Colby, two deadlines for me, plus getting print files prepped for Grandpa Beck's games).  But we made it.  We're on the other side now.  And I can now say that IT WAS WORTH IT!

Discovery Museum Sleepover!

Gosh, we had quite the time last weekend.  We had TWO amazing activities planned.  This is the story of the first one....  

Friday night we started out with a Girl Scout Slumber Party at the Children's Discovery Museum.  They started out this excellent activity so that kids who live in rural areas could come to the Discovery Museum and stay for more than just a few hours.  We don't live in a rural area.  We actually could probably have walked to the Discovery Museum.  But we hopped right on board that train, cause it was a train headed for awesomeness.  

Last year, the girl's Girl Scout Troops decided to split into two groups.  The older girls going into 6th grade "bridged" up to the "Cadette" level.  Since they're so mature and grown up (see photo above), they broke off from the younger group to do mature, grown up things (see all other photos ever of Ella)(also see: sarcasm).  It's been a little hard having two troops at the same time.  Then we found out that the younger troop was not going to continue after this year.  And really, that's ok.  Especially what Gretchen inevitably does before every meeting:  OHMYGOSH, WHY do we HAVE to go to GIRL SCOUTS!  I HAAAAAATE GIRL SCOUTS!  I don't even want to BE a GIRL SCOUT!  Why do we have to do this?  Because you tell me to?  FINE.  It's like you don't even CARE about me!  UGHHHHH!!!!  (and that is why I didn't volunteer to be a Girl Scout Leader this year.)  Of course this is after I asked her if she wanted to continue with scouting (she'd said yes, for sure.  At the time), and when she found out that the troop was ending, she decided she was upset about it.  Until I told her we'd do other fun stuff.  Promise.  Come on, I love having fun.  Fun is my favorite!

So we're ending the troop, and we have a ton of blood-sweat-and-tears Girl Scout Cookie Money we need to spend in the next 2.5 months.  So we are GOING BIG.  Hence the fabulous sleepover at the Discovery Museum.  If you life in town & can get a group of 50 people together, YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO THIS.  It was so great!  They provided all the food, they had staff on hand the whole night, they had a RIDICULOUS amount of activities!  It was so cool! 

The evening started off with the girls sewing fleece Monster Fish stuffed animals on sewing machines like a cool little crafting sweat shop of creativity.  That's what Ella is throwing in the above picture.  Then they had a game that taught stuff about habitats and fish (There's an excellent National Geographic Monster Fish exhibit there now, hence the theme....)  But I was tired, so I didn't pay attention or play.  Because I'm the worst.  Then they had a giant slingshot set up in the foyer.  See?  We may have accidentally knocked the cover off the security camera.  Sorryboutthat.

Then we dissected a real dead fish.  That really smelled.

And looked at all the fish guts.

And took pieces to an electronic microscope and projected them so we could all go "Oh GROSS" together.

And looked off in the distance while smiling and shrugging our shoulders (can you even believe we're doing this?  I know!)

And then disrespected ANOTHER fish corpse by covered it in black ink and making traditional fish prints or Gyotaku (Japanese 魚拓, from gyo "fish" + taku "rubbing") (so cool!)  (I don't know how to make Japanese characters, I totally copied and pasted that from my BFF, Wikipedia.  Thanks Wiki!)

Wait, there's still more nasty guts in there!

Is this a heart or a lung?

We got to pick any room in the museum to set up "camp", so we picked the "Camping" room downstairs.  There's a neat little cave down there, and a tent already set up, and fake stars in the sky.  I had anxiety dreams the whole time that kids were playing in the museum, but in my dream I kept thinking, "But I'm sooooooooo tired!  I'll get up in a minute!"  So I dreamed I was tired.  That sucks.  Also, can someone please invent a sleeping back that doesn't make a "whooshing" sound every time fidgety little legs move in their sleeping bags?  That'd be so awesome, thankssomuch.

Besides anxiety dreams about wild children and sleeping bag swoosh noises, it was a 100% GOOD TIME!  We are going to miss Girl Scouts.  But we're going to cram as much fun into this Spring as humanly possible.

Because Ella's troop is also ending.  They're all growing up and coming up with their own minds about what they want to do!  Sniff!!!!

END OF AN ERA!!!!!!

(OHMYGOSH, I'll have SO MUCH more free time!  I'm going to fill it up so fast, but I'm going to pretend that's not going to happen and that I'm really going to just sit in the hammock all weekend.)