The summer has flown by and we are now on the thresh hold of the month of August. This last month we have done more good stuff worthy of mention.
- Hike up to Lake Mary- or Another Knee Bites the Dust. We have a great little Falcon Guidebook that is entitled The Best Easy Day Hikes- Salt Lake City. It said Lake Mary was a great hike for families with lots of wildflowers to see and a pretty lake to visit. The Lake was very pretty. Here is what I will say about the hike: Not particularly great for young families. I took my friend Amy and her three younguns along and we had to practically drag all 7 kids UP THE MOUNTAIN. I had Davis on my back, Amy had her baby Ruby on her front and we had to rest frequently to get air to our oxygen deprived brains as we climbed higher and higher up, up, up, the mountain. Let me just say UP was the word of the day. And since what goes up must come down, we definitely experienced some steep downs of the day too. Each of us in my family slipped on the steep trail and we had lots of patching up to do at the bottom when we got back to the first aid kit in the car. All of us shed blood this hike. I now have matching skinned knees- hence the title “another knee bites the dust.” 10 days after the incident I an still wearing a bandage on the latest scraped up knee. The hike killed me and I could not exercise for a few days afterwards. Somehow, I remember the day fondly though.
- Visit from the Barney Family- These friends from our old neighborhood in Washington needed a place to stay for a night while they passed through and I am so glad they came to us. We met them in Temple Square and took them to see the Salt Lake City Cemetery and we had a great time with them at our home. I hope they come again!
- More Seven Peaks- We finally have suntans. Oh yes, we are no longer pasty white. Visiting this place has changed that. I have been diligent with the sunscreen, but the boys at least are turning into brown little critters as they run around in the sun at the pools at Seven Peaks. I myself am just barely looking less than pasty white, but I will gloat about whatever color I get! Micah has now gone on all of the slides you ride with the inflated tubes. It took us 8 visits to the water park for us to get him to finally go on them all. It took us 7 visits to get him to go on one of those slides at all! Reece still refuses to go down a tube slide. Reece has however finally decided that the slide at the rec center pool is no longer scary and he frequents it when we go swimming there.
- My Downton Abbey obsession- This month I found the show Downton Abbey that many of my friends have been raving about. I watched season 1 on Netflix streaming in 2 days straight. I loved it. I found season 2 was only on disc from Netflix and I had a hard time waiting for each disc in the mail, so I went to the trouble of signing up for Hulu+ only because they have season 2 streaming. I loved season 2 as well. I just heard that season 3 will start in January of 2013. Can. Not. Wait.
- The Stay-cation: We have been so busy with scout camps, work engineering summits, and track that I was forbidden to talk with Bryan about a vacation of our own until the stress of the aforementioned stuff was out of the way. The last camp was finished July 11th, track ended the 14th, and the engineering summit ended the 19th… Whew, we now had 3 free weeks in which to vacation…At this point it was late notice for anyone we may have visited. In fact, we were asked by my family not to visit when we finally had time to leave town because they did not have time to spend with us then. So we opted to go camping here in the Uintas instead for a short vacation near home. Well, the time came to pack up for a camp out and everyone had runny noses and sore throats and we were dang tired from the other summer stuff we have been up to so we decided to stay-cation instead.
Day 0: We bought fishing poles, a fishing license and Bryan taught the boys how to fish in the backyard. They practiced casting and other skills in the shade of the backyard.
Day 1: Pioneer Day! Love Pioneer day here in our little town. We have a neighborhood Fantastic Flapjack Fling and Sausage Sizzle in the morning. Then the great parade in the afternoon which is practically on our street. Followed by the carnival in the park with concerts and Fireworks at the very end. We usually light a few fireworks of our own in the street but this year with all of the fires, we stuck to watching the big show only. I think I watched Downton Abbey after everyone was in bed.
Day 2: We went to a park with a pond here in town (Willow Pond in Murray) and the boys had their first experience fishing. Not one bite from a fish was had. The ducks and geese really liked Davis and his goldfish crackers. Davis thought it was so cool that they liked his crackers that he kept trying to feed more to the birds. Since the birds were in the way of the fishermen I cut off his supply of crackers. I finally told him he could not have any crackers unless he ate them and I had to put them directly into his mouth if he really wanted one. Well, he is too dang smart. He opened his mouth, said “AWWWW” to indicate he wanted a fishy cracker, I put a cracker in, he closed his mouth, walked away a few steps, took the cracker out, and fed the darn thing to the birds. He knows how to outsmart me! I took him and Micah off to the playground shortly thereafter and they had the best time playing in the fountain there.
After the park we went to Costco for lunch and got the world famous hand dipped chocolate ice cream bars and churros for dessert. Yum.
After nap time we went to see Brave at the movie theater with our 3 younger boys and two neighbor girls. Good flick.
After the boys were in bed I am pretty sure we watched an episode of Downton Abbey.
Day 3: We took Bryan with us to Seven Peaks. The season passes allow us to go to Pass holder hours only from 9:30 to 12 so there are hardly any lines at the slides which is awesome. Also, it was a chillier day- like only 90 instead of 100 degrees so there just weren’t too many people there. We stayed all morning and had fun. I told Micah that he had to ride every tube slide once or ride the Orange slide TEN times or he would lose screen time for the rest of the day. He was a good boy and tried them all once and loved them. We stayed until lunch time and had a good time with Dad there this time instead of Krysti the babysitter.
Bryan and Davis napped for a few hours in the afternoon while I took time to go shopping for some new clothes for myself that fit me better. I went to Old Navy hoping I could buy some of those cute, cheap, graphic t-shirts to wear around and amazingly I could! It has been a long time since I could fit into stuff from Old Navy that they carry in the store (drat all that pregnancy weight). But Woohoo! I have been losing weight! I can really buy stuff there now! I was so happy! Replenishing my wardrobe as I grow too small for stuff has just gotten cheaper. I now love Old Navy again.
In the evening we watched the Olympics opening ceremony while having a picnic dinner on a blanket in front of the TV. Gotta say, I liked the show. Very clever. I love Mr. Bean. The boys even loved Mr. Bean. We will be getting Mr. Bean flicks now to watch every weekend for family movie night.
After everyone was in bed, I watched the last episode of Downton Abbey… I will miss it. Such a good show.
Day 4: We finally made it to the Uintas. We really wanted to camp, but the allergy snuffles made us wimpy so we took a day trip with the fishing poles and the beloved raft and sack lunches instead of doing the overnighter there. Again, no fish were caught, but it was fun. We floated around the lake and fished until the skies rained us out. Reece laments still that he could not ride in the raft because it started raining and thundering right as he was about to take his turn. We drove around site-seeing while listening to an audio book and the boys were happy and dry at least. We drove into Murdock Basin in the Uintas- purely because it is named after us. It was pretty cool. People take their ATVs in that Basin. Due to the fact that our minivan is not an ATV, we did not explore too much, but we have dreams of going back in something more rugged some day. (Bryan is researching Toyota Land Cruisers as I write this. Not that we will buy one any day soon, but when we do- in like 7 years, he will know all about it)
Today/ Sunday- went to church today and amazingly saw one of Bryan’s friends from childhood there with his family. Alan Madsen is his name and he lived near Bryan in his first home in Kennewick. Funny, but Alan and his wife and kids lived in our current ward for a few years and moved away to Kennewick just before we moved in here and he and his family came back to visit this Sunday. Cute family. Wish they still lived here! We could use some more young families! The best thing about the Madsen family is that they too have 4 boys. I tell you, there must be a club for families with 4 boys.
Thus ends the story of the Stay-cation of 2012. Back to the grind for Bryan tomorrow.
Many of you will think I am dumb for saying this, but the saddest part of my summer is that Davis keeps showing signs of readiness for potty training. This means my baby is growing up. Sniffle, Sniffle. And that life will get more hectic because freshly potty trained kids are tricky to take out of the house and not easy to transport places for visits. I never thought I would say this but I will miss diapers for the convenience of them. Also, I will miss having a baby around. We will be moving on to the next stage- again. We were at THAT stage with our family before Davis came along. But now we are really for certain moving on and not turning back. Sniffle Sniffle again. I guess they all have to grow up some day. And yes, part of me is SOOO GLAD to move on, but it is “so hard to say good bye to yesterday.”
Enough nostalgic stuff. Here are the rest of the pics.
