Today, it's panning for gold and riding a bike with a friend.

At the end of last summer I took Davis to a local shop and we bought two gold pans, a scoop, a book on panning for gold and a tiny, tiny glass jar to put any gold that we found. Then we went up to Spanish Fork Canyon and went to a river (that is not known for gold) and panned for gold.
Of course, we didn't find any. But look how beautiful it was and we had fun trying. He was hooked and wanted to try more and more. See here for his previous obsession.
So we decided the next day to go to American Fork Canyon (because it is known for finding gold). We think we found tiny, tiny flakes (the eye can hardly see) of gold and put them in our tiny, tiny glass jar. Davis was hooked further and we took Jeff and Grandpa the next day and took a picnic to roast hot dogs.
The first picture is from American Fork. The other three are Spanish Fork. Well, we have gone almost a whole winter without hearing much about panning for gold. The last few weeks have been a daily bombardment of ideas, things he learned from the Internet, when can we go panning for gold, and can we make this to help us find gold? He made a modified sluice box out of things he found in our garage and proceeded to try to find gold in our yard, with our hose and just the dirt that he dug up. He talks about it every day. Our first gold panning trip of this year will be on the 22nd. He has a field trip that day but he hates going to amusement parks (it is near torture for him with the noise, the crowds, and the jerky rides). I told him I will take him to pan for gold that day instead. I told him we will schedule many days throughout the summer so that he can pan for gold but we will do other things too. He is a teenager on a mission. He had me find and print up a map of American Fork Canyon to give to the bus aide. He talks with most anyone that will listen, about finding gold. We have tried to instill in him that we most likely won't find enough gold to make money and that it's the experience together and beautiful surroundings that we can enjoy.
He still writes words to songs almost everyday. He now also draws pictures of his inventions to help improve ways of finding gold. He rides bikes with his friends or on his own. He still will play with his hacky-sack that is never far away from him, but he isn't talking about it most of the day, everyday.
Here's one of his recent poems:

Who are you that what I see
Come unto me on shining sea
Don't loose control, that you can't
Be alone. Do things that are right
Go and strive to live and learn.