Taking Utah with a Pinch of Salt

It's been another jam packed day at the Gatchel's (wouldn't have it any other way!) and I'll give you a brief run down, but let's face it, cute pictures of the kids are so much better than my long-winded (probably much unread) posts anyway :-p  I do post for me mostly (because I do enjoy it) but every once in awhile I wonder if anyone else out there (besides my Mom.  Love ya Mama, totally think you should refer to your office as the beehive!) reads my ramblings.  Struggling with the 'whys' of life in general right now, don't mind me.  But I said I wasn't going to ramble, so...

Kayla and I had MOPS this morning, back for a quick lunch, then off to PTA Board.  Grabbed NJ, the kiddos did their coloring pages (still one of my favorite things every state week), and we feasted on a dinner of Frito Pie.  I don't know if this is really Utah cuisine, but I wanted to use up the leftover chili from Saturday and it's Southwestern, right?  I made these amazingly simple and yummy Utah's Old Time Cinnamon Jumbles for dessert which we munched on while doing three different salt water experiments in honor of the Great Salt Lake.  (If you want to try these at home, check them out here, here and here)  This was a great project for tonight and even I learned some things about salt water!

Still trying to figure out tomorrow and the rest of the weekend, so not sure what it looks like!  But you can bet I'll be back posting (even if I am the only one reading it, lol), so until then...

Utah Fun Fact of the Day:  The Great Salt Lake is 3 to 5 times saltier than the ocean. Fish free, the lake's largest aquatic critters are brine shrimp. 

These fun little cookies were a hit here tonight

They're cute!  And poofy!

Mikayla's Utah complete with the Great Salt 

My artist hard at work

Noah's Utah - that's him sitting under one of the Arches, the transcontinental railroad in teh middle and the Great Salt Lake at the top

Made some homemade tortilla chips

Frito Pie

Another yummy Utah inspired dinner

Ready to learn all about salt water

Adding some colored ice cubes to the fresh water

And the salt water

And watching to see what happens

Cool - huh?

They loved it

I was explaining to him why the fresh water glass was all one temperature but the one with salt water was colder at the top where the food coloring was

Floating eggs

And then floating food coloring in ice water

Fresh water

Salt Water

We even stirred up the salt water

Super cool!