Holsum Bakery

Today's field trip was to the Holsum Bakery.  Per their factory rules, this field trip was for ages 8 and above.  Once we got there, I saw why!

We started the tour in a large meeting room.  Again, per factory rules, everyone was dressed in long pants and closed-toe shoes.  Everyone was given a hair net before we went into the factory.

The kids all thought the hair nets were pretty funny.  They all had some sort of joke to make about looking like the lunch lady or something.

Two managers split our group into two smaller groups, and each led one group through the plant.  It was hot and loud in there!  There were areas where the floor was wet and slick.  There were beams and tubes hanging low overhead that would be easy to walk right into.  During our tour, we saw where the dough was made, where it got put into pans, where it rose, where it baked, where it cooled (a MILE of track to cool from 200 degrees down to a lower temperature of around 100 so that it didn't melt the bag it's put into), where it was bagged, etc.  Holsum makes all of the store-brand bread for many of the local stores, some premium brand breads, and buns for lots of the fast food restaurants in town.  Holsum makes about, I think, 230,000 loaves of bread every week.  On our way home, my kids and their friends were busy working the math to figure out how many sandwiches that would be!

We finished off the tour with a Q&A session.  As always, my kids peppered the manager with questions.  Each child got to leave with a free loaf of bread.

This was a GREAT tour for older children, teens and adults!

Hall of Flame Firefighter's Museum

Today's field trip was to the Hall of Flame Firefighter's Museum.  It has been four years since the last time I took my kids, and I think it was every bit as much fun for them this time as last!  We had a large group of homeschoolers with us.  The kids participating ranged in age from 2 all the way to 16!  I love that about homeschooled kids - how they learn and experience life with such a diversity of ages.  The kids were broken up into two groups - under 7 and 8 and over.

The little kids started their trip with a story.

After their fireman's story, the little kids got to climb on a real fire truck.

Meanwhile, the older kids got a guided tour of the museum.

Both groups met up in the theater for a movie (that I'm pretty sure I saw when I was a kid doing fire safety at school!).

We concluded our field trip with the highlight of the day for most kids - the water activities!  They got to play a relay bucket game.

The wet part was as much fun for my kids back in 2007...

And finally, each kid got a chance to hold and spray a fireman's hose, which was also still as much fun four years later as it was when they were both littler!

This was a REALLY fun outing!  My youngest is 2 right now.  I will undoubtedly put this back on our to-do list in another two or three years.

Date Creek Ranch

My family took a day trip out to Date Creek Ranch today for their grassfed-beef BBQ and apple picking.  Date Creek Ranch is located about 15 miles north of Wickenburg.

We started the day off with lunch.  The portions were huge!  We had left-overs.  And, YUM.  It was delicious.

 We then headed out to the orchards, with a wheelbarrow and some apple pickers.  I'd never used an apple picker before!  The day was HOT, so it wasn't as comfortable or as much fun as it could've been, but you've got to pick when the fruit is ripe! 

My kids had so much fun with those apple pickers!  They loved the "hunt" for the perfect apple.  Date Creek lets you snack on apples while you're out picking, too.  Be aware that the bees like snacking on fallen apples too!  There were lots of bees, so we did watch our footing, but none of them bothered us at all.  Many of the apples are hard and small, but I think they'll make perfect apple pie filling and I'm going to try my hand at homemade canned applesauce too.  At $1 per pound for organic apples, you just couldn't go wrong!

Besides the orchards, Date Creek also has cattle and pigs.  My littlest liked the pigs!  She wanted to play with them, but they were snoozing.

I'm sure my kids will talk about apple picking for months, and will be asking us when we can go back and do it again!

Desert Botanical Gardens

I took my kids to the members' preview of the Big Bugs Exhibit at the Desert Botanical Gardens last night.  The weather could've have been better - occasional lightening flashes, cooler than normal, a storm looked like it was coming in but it didn't rain on us at all.  The gardens were serene and beautiful.  The kids loved having flashlights to explore.  Here are two of the Big Bugs...

There were "Discovery Stations" set up all over the Gardens with information (and some live critters) on bugs, snakes, frogs, bats and cacti.

They had a craft area set up, where kids could make their own bugs.

They had folks giving kids bug tattoos.

They had a small band (who had an uncanny ability to make bug-like noises!) playing.  My kids got their groove on...

And, we made some wonderful discoveries - a nest in a cactus, a frog in the pond, a toad hopping on land...

This field trip got rave reviews from all of my kids!