The Last Week of Summer Magic

A snow cone shack opened in our town this summer, and we made the trip to the lake to get one for family home evening on Monday. Yummy, yes, but oh, my goodness, look at this view. We really live in such a lovely place. This summer I've been thinking about how lucky we are. Not only are there wonderful people in our neighborhood, our little town is really a little community. When I went to swimming lessons this summer, I not only knew people from our ward, but from school, soccer, other years of swimming . . . I love it.

Lissy discovered getting piggy back rides from Josh is pretty fun.

Our grandest adventure of the week was on Tuesday, when he headed down to Lehi to hang out with our friends. We met up at the dinosaur museum, ate lunch at their house, then hit up a few rides at Trafalga? Do I need to say the kids loved it? Every second. So did I. Getting together with them always makes me want to move or make them move back so we can let the kids have fun while we solve the world's problems more often. Grand adventure of a day.

Evidence we went to the dinosaur museum

Even had fun in the elevator

These two were best buds ever since they were babies, and still love to play when they get together.

Proof we went to Trafalga - these two loved this ride.

Gary and I got the chance to go to the Bountiful temple that evening. I highly recommend it. We ran ourselves silly trying to get to the 5:30 session, but when we got to the waiting room, there were 2 rows of people who didn't get in, either, because it was full. We were told the next on was at 6:30 - I was disappointed, we couldn't wait that long because of the kids. Just as we were about to walk away from the door and do something else, a worker walked out of the room the session was in and said, "They can take 7 more people." We weren't going to just go ahead of the others who were ahead of us, so we hesitated. "Go!" she said. Okay, thanks! What a huge blessing, since we wouldn't have had the chance to do a session for another month if she hadn't helped us.

The kids and I took our last trip to the community pool for the season. We'd had plans to go with another family, but they got sick. Bummer. However, when we showed up, there were other people we knew already there. I love our town! So fun to catch up with friends. Also, playing with Lissy and Andrew in the little pool while watching Josh and Noah do their fancy tricks off the diving board is one of my favorite things to do. Contentment.

Josh and Noah were part of a little book club some friends and I put together this summer. We had 4 moms each take a week doing activities related to a Magic Treehouse book. The kids LOVED it. Josh said it was his favorite thing of the summer, which is really huge considering our summer and the fact I wouldn't let him attend unless he read the book, which he has to be forced to do. We met at our house the last week, and centered things around the Space Fact Tracker from the series. I was amazed at how much stuff those kids knew! All of them are whip smart. Josh remembered all sorts of things from the book I couldn't believe, but absolutely could not focus on finishing his writing activity if anything else was going on around him. I hope this isn't a problem for school, I'm a bit nervous. After the writing and quiz game, we made some moon art, and then split into groups and put together a play about some space missions. The boys did Apollo 11 (very loosely adapted), and the girls wanted to do the first pets in space. They were all too cute, I wish I had pictures, but that was in my "dead camera" portion of life. The girls put bike helmets on stuffed animals to be pet astronauts and the boys used the swingset as the space ship, the trampoline to do some type of blasting, and the climber as the moon. Oh, yeah, did you know there was a 3rd guy with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin who didn't walk on the moon because he flew the ship? The kids felt sorry for him.

I got a random but very interesting opportunity to be part of a legal research study where I was on a mock jury for an actual pending case. I guess both parties want to know how their arguments play to a real jury, and they picked people from various age/ethnic groups across Utah to watch and listen to the case on our computers, then participate in a conference call to deliberate. I can't say what the case was since it's for real, but it was very sad. The deliberations portion was very interesting - when I heard everyone's initial thoughts, I got worried that people don't think sanely, but after a calm and logical discussion, things went really well. I wonder if a case that charged would be more awkward in real life? At any rate, it was great to be at a stage where I could run around doing this and that with my kids while participating - I only had to send Lissy and Andrew to a friend's for 2 hours, and then with naps, playing outside, Josh's burrito-warming skills, and TV, it was covered.

That weekend was our town's "Days." As part of it, on Friday night there was a lighted boat promenade on the lake. Gary bought ice cream sandwiches for us to eat as we watched. It turned out there weren't many boats this year, but wow, look at the view. Of course a camera phone is never going to capture how it really was, especially since the best part was our family being there and enjoying it.

The kids had lots of fun rolling down the hill.

On Saturday night, there were fireworks over the lake. The kids all got glow sticks, and had a great time running around until the show started. You should have heard Lissy's high little voice saying, "Hi-ya!" It was such a beautiful night, and the sunset over the lake was gorgeous. As soon as the first firework went off, Lissy came running to me in a panic, but then sat down and really loved the show. I'm not kidding when I say it was one of the best I've ever seen - the last few seconds had me holding my breath. Andrew said the fireworks were "unsploding."

I'd ask the kids to pose for a picture and they would have to do something awesome rather than stand still. It cracks me up, so I'm saving them.

Right at the beginning - then it's better to just watch. :)

Gary took a picture of me with the kids after the fireworks, and I love this procession of photos - these kids are so much fun. Oh, yes, and I'm wearing a dress because it was the adult session of stake conference.

And this is Captain Underpants and his excited sister.