Boyce Thompson Arboretum

Ohmygosh, need I say more?  Let's just put it this way, the only thing I didn't like about the Boyce Thompson Arboretum was the drive out there.  From Peoria, it was 79 miles or something like that.  Nonetheless, it's been on my list of places to go for a few years and now that my littlest doesn't scream for the entire duration of every single car ride she goes on, I was ready for the trip.

The view when we got there....

Just inside the Arboretum, heading down the Main Trail...

First stop was a sign that gives visitors more information about getting the most out of their time at the Arboretum...

Different parts of the Arboretum...

My oldest daughter has always had an appreciation for beauty...

My son's favorite exhibit talked about cacti.  I think I agree with him.  I learned a lot at this stop.  I really want to try the fruit of the prickly pear cactus.

Fall colors are not something we see much of here in the Valley.  So, while we were east, the kids played in all of the fallen leaves.

Jarrod and Jilly played Hide & Seek in the bigger palms...

We finished up our day in the Children's Garden.  VERY creative.  It was a big hit with all three of my kids.

There are different stations in the Children's Garden.  The first is the Sounds of the Garden.  There was a giant wooden toad and the kids rub its back.  It makes croaking sounds.  There is a rain-maker, which was neat.  There were wooden windchimes.

The next station is all about Smells of the Garden.  If you look, you can even see the SKUNK in the picture about that station!

That skunk was there for a reason!

The next station was a maze.  My kids went tearing in, quickly losing themselves amongst the vegetation.  I scrept up on them and went "BOO!"  Leave it to my son to say, "Mom's the Minotaur!"  They all thought that was hilarious.  They would've happily spent another 15-20 minutes playing in the maze.

The next station has a sundial clock.  It was surprisingly accurate...

The Arboretum was a big hit with my nature lovers.  My son wants a garden just like it.  Keep dreaming, kid.

My family has a membership to the Desert Botanical Gardens here in town, so I really wasn't sure whether the trip out to the Arboretum in Superior was going to end up being worth it or not.  On one hand, a plant is a plant and desert vegetation isn't always spectacular.  On the other, the serenity of gardens is alluring.  Bottom line, while I wouldn't make the drive out to Superior on a regular basis, I will go back.  In March, actually.  For one of their Homeschool Days.

Lake Pleasant

Lake Pleasant is the crown jewel of the Maricopa County Parks and Recreation department.  In addition to the lake and all of the activities that water affords, the park also has a Visitor's Center, the Desert Outdoor Center, lots of hiking trails, and holds a variety of classes and special events throughout the year.  Even though we've been in Peoria for almost four years, we've only been up to Lake Pleasant a few times, and we've never been to the Visitor's Center.

My son needed to find ten pieces evidence of wildlife to satisfy a requirement for making Second Class rank in Boy Scouts.  I decided we'd go up to Lake Pleasant, armed with my digital camera, in search of it.  Our first stop was the Visitor's Center.

The inside of the Visitor's Center has a huge wall of mounted fish, a large scale model of the park, items for sale, some wildlife in aquarium style tanks, and other information....

On the back deck of the Visitor's Center, the park has two informational plaques about native plants and native wildlife, a telescope and a place to pan for gold.

The view from the back deck is stunning....

After the Visitor's Center, we drove further back into the park for an easy 1/2 mile hike along the Pipeline Trail, where we were able to find for Jarrod all 10 signs of native wildlife.

Next on my wish list?  A small boat to come up more often and enjoy the lake.

English Rose Tea Room

Today was my oldest daughter's 10th birthday.  It was also the day I chose to do Date #1 from our Secret Keeper Girl "8 Great Dates" book.  Date #1 was attending a formal tea.  The last formal tea that we did together was five years ago at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C. with my mom.  It so happened that my mom and dad are in town visiting us this week, so I asked my mom to join us again.  We went to the English Rose Tea Room in Carefree.

I like Carefree.  A lot.  It's quaint.  When we drove into the village shopping center where the English Rose Tea Room was located, I knew it was going to be something special.  It sat just a few storerooms down from the corner of "Easy Street" and "Ho Hum Road".  That tickled my funny bone enough to make me giggle.  The front of the tea room looked like something out of a Fancy Nancy story. 

On the web site, it says "reservations recommended".  I could see why!  The place was packed with groups of women and young girls, each enjoying a truly unique experience.  The menu offerings seemed like authentic English tea time delicacies.  Definitely not your standard Denny's meal.  The food was delicious.

Not my favorite picture of me by any stretch of the imagination...but today is a memory I think that my mom, my daughter and I will all cherish, and a picture of the three of us together (since my mom is an even bigger picture-phobe than I am) is truly a treasure.  Plus, you can see the food and the inside of the tea room.

They made the luncheon even more special for my Erica by bringing her a candle in her (well, I can't remember the fancy French name for it) chocolate cake.

For women looking for a fun, different outing with friends or with daughters, for moms looking for a unique birthday party for a girly-girl daughter...the English Rose Tea Room was exceptional.

Farmyard (Urban Garden)

I first heard about Farmyard when a friend mentioned that she'd gone on their urban farm tour.  Being the fledgling - and well, let's be honest here...struggling and somewhat inept - gardener that I am, I really wanted to see how it's done here in the desert by someone who has planned and cultivated a thriving garden.  I also thought it would be awesome to take a group of homeschooled kids along so they could see a community garden.  Rebecca Kidwell's Farmyard property feeds 15 families through their co-op.  Absolutely amazing.  Anyway, I contacted Rebecca and asked about having a tour for Just Field Trips.  As someone who whole-heartedly supports community gardening, she was enthusiastic about it.  We ended up bringing 30 people onto her Phoenix property.

My mind was simply boggled by the amount of food she is able to grow on her property!  Rebecca led the group around her homestead garden, showed us the different types of vegetables she was growing, and talked about what they do.

In addition to the plants they grow, Farmyard also has chickens and goats!  We got to see the big coop, the pen and the colored eggs the chickens lay.  Rebecca even brought one of the chickens out for the kids to pet.

We concluded our morning at Farmyard with planting either lettuce or peas of our very own.

After I saw what was indeed possible here in the Valley, I began thinking about my pathetic little yard at home.  I have one square-foot garden, which currently has nothing in it.  Last year's yield was, um, meager.  My corn froze to death, but the freezing temperatures that killed my corn (which had COBS that we didn't get to eat! sob) also made my broccoli grow like crazy.  Nothing ever came of my beets or my garlic.  My potato leaves were gorgeous, but I never got any tubers.  My berries all fried to death in the sun this summer.  I have a grapefruit tree and a lemon tree in my front yard.  Both are young trees, definitely not very big.  They are bearing fruit, though.  Beyond that, my yard is all dirt.  I want my yard to look like hers!  I got such tremendous satisfaction from the things that my kids and I planted together that actually grew.  So, since Farmyard does consultations, urban garden planning, and other services, I will be taking advantage of a consultation in the very near future.

The Musical Instruments Museum

I haven't been as pleasantly surprised by the quality of the field trip and by how much I enjoyed a field trip at the Musical Instrument Museum since last winter's trip to the Japanese Gardens in Phoenix.  Yes, I'd heard some rave reviews of the MIM from other people.  I just still wasn't quite sure what to expect, and let me tell you: my expectations were blown away.  This museum was awesome.

Our group met in the lobby, where they had a piano.  Right away, the music is there.  My daughter and her friend couldn't resist playing a few tunes...

Now, if you go on your own, at this point, you receive a self-guided headset.  What happens with these headsets is that they are automatically programmed to respond with the appropriate music or talk in front of each exhibit that features video.  VERY cool.  Being a guided tour, though, we had a docent and no headsets at that point.

The MIM is huge.  It's spacious.  It's also laid out incredibly well.  They have "galleries" - one for each continent, one for artists, one for music in photography, one for hands-on play, and well, you get the gist.  Each gallery has its own focus.  Our docent was a terrific guide, and regaled us with all sorts of information, stories and trivia.

Here are some exhibits up close:

In the center of the museum, there is a beautifully crafted world map in-laid on the floor.  Once we'd finished our tour of the continent galleries, our docent had a child stand on each continent that we'd "visited"...

Here are a few of my favorite exhibits, or pieces of exhibits:

That was the fiddle used in the final installment of the Harry Potter movies.

That is a rattle/shaker that is designed to be worn around the waist.  It's made of goat hooves.  It's in the Middle East exhibit.

That's Toby Keith's exhibit in the Artists' Gallery.  My kids recognized a blurb from one of his featured songs from the intro to the Sean Hannity show!  lol  Anyway, I listened to both of his songs, and I read the information about him.  I love his voice!

That was also in the Artists' Gallery.  It's a drum that was used in the ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics.  In the video screen, you can watch as something like 2000 synchronized drummers performed.  Pretty incredible! 

There's also a huge Elvis Presley exhibit in the Artists' Gallery.  My kids and I really enjoyed that one. 

We got to spend some time in the hands-on gallery.  They have a variety of instruments featured throughout the museum that people can play.  This was a huge hit with all of the kids!



Directly across from that gallery, you can see where the museum does restoration....

My big kids and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and cannot wait to go back.  This is one museum that I actually believe would be worth a full-price admission.  You could spend all day there and still not see everything!  (For those who do choose to stay all day, they also have an on-site restaurant.)  That being said, this is not a museum for little kids.  Little kids just don't have the attention span to stand in front of exhibit after exhibit and listen to the narration and the music.  I don't think I'd take the average child under about 8-years-old.