Saturday, June 26, 2021

Summer so Far

Here we are at the end of June - 50 days until school starts again… But who’s counting?

Me.

I’m counting.

But for now, I’m ok. I’ve adjusted to having the kids home. Sure, I about lose my mind on the daily while they fight and ask for electronics every minute, but I deal. 

June has been quite busy. Here are some of the things we’ve been up to:

We started our summer off by hiking to Timpanogos Cave. Scotty and I had never been, which is kind of unusual for having grown up so close to the attraction. It’s in the National Parks passport books, so our kids were able to get their stamps and cancellations.

The view from the trail

I splurged on an annual pass to Thanksgiving Point so we would have somewhere to go through the summer. I let my kids take turns inviting friends. We’ve been to Ashton Gardens once, the Butterfly Biosphere twice, and the Museum of Natural Curiosity twice.

Kids feeding the koi

Geese in the pond at Ashton Gardens

The koi. Ew! 

Thanksgiving Point is about 45 minutes away from where we live, so I try to make a day of it. We pack lunches and try to hit a couple of places with each visit.

Daisy at the Butterfly Biosphere 

I was invited to speak at a girls camp for a ward from West Jordan. While I was there, I realized that the last time I went to girls camp was about 16 years ago. It was kind of funny to put a number to it! I feel like I’ve always been in Young Women, and yet, I haven’t served in YW since I was pregnant with Nicky. Maybe I feel that way because I’ve served all the current young women in primary and Sunday school. 

That was the first time I’ve spoken since before COVID, and I found it very intimidating. The whole world changed since the last time I spoke! No pressure…

We’ve had some record-breaking heat this month, which is always so draining for me. I just don’t function in the heat. It zaps my energy like nothing else.

Despite the heat, we’ve managed to keep up on our garden. It’s doing well, but time will tell if we have a good harvest. We completely re-did our garden this year. We are having some curbing installed around the new area, but we’ve had some difficulty getting it scheduled. The contractor is crazy busy. We initially planned to lay some sod as well, but we decided to hold off on that due to the drought. So we have a lovely dirt patch just hanging out for the summer.

Our first corn box

Daisy got braces right before school got out. Then Nicky got braces about a week ago. It’s amazing to see how quickly teeth can move. Nicky’s teeth already look completely different.

I feel like we live at the dentist and orthodontist. 

Zoe joined a cheerleading team, and she’ll be doing conditioning and tumbling all summer. I hope she can keep up with it. It’s something she’s been wanting to do for a very long time, but the time commitment is intense, so I’m not sure how it will go. 

I gave my kids the choice to do summer piano lessons or not, and they all chose to do summer lessons. I used to “make” them, and last year was the first time I ever gave them the choice. It’s funny how they whine and complain about piano lessons, and when I give them the chance to bail, they don’t (which is secretly what I hope for anyway). 

We went camping over Father’s Day weekend. This accidentally became a tradition, and this was our fifth year. 

Kids in the hammock

Right after we got back from camping, we left on an extended family vacation (posts to come).

Teaser

Now I’m hoping for a few quiet, lazy days before things get crazy again.

Update: Well, those are famous last words. Things just got crazy. 


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