The End of Summer

The last few weeks of summer we did so much that there wasn't enough time to post here about it.  I'll just recap the highlights.   We had a cousin exchange sleep over the second week in August.  We had a Smalley kid here and some of our kids at the Smalleys and then we switched after a day or two.  It was very exciting to have cousins over.  The little kids decided to go swimming at the Draper pool.  The big kids decided to go see The Lorax again.

Then we headed up to Bear Lake to visit Grandmother Renee.  As always, it was a weekend filled with lots of fun, good company, and delicious food.  We visited the ice caves, slept in the cottage with Renee (all 18 of us), rented a jet ski at the lake, and went to Bloomington Lake to swing off the rope swing.  The jet ski is always exciting, but this year was especially exciting for me.  I took Hannah and Allie out, and they both wanted to drive.  This would have been great, except that they both threw me off the jet ski when it was their turn.  After getting dunked twice, I told Aaron he was in charge of teaching Hannah to drive a car.

The sun setting over Bear Lake.  It was super smoky because of a fire,
but it made for beautiful pictures

Allie and Hannah and Me after the traumatic jet ski ride.  

That's one handsome guy!

Aaron and I also celebrated our 40th birthdays in August.  I was excited to reach this milestone.  Every time I get down on the floor to read scriptures with the kids, I creak and groan--"I'm getting old," I would say. The kids always respond, "No, Mom, you're not old until you're 40."  Now, at last, I can creak and groan to my heart's content.  For our birthday party, I made an Asian food buffet.  It was super delicious.  Then for Aaron's birthday, which we celebrated at Bear Lake, I made a chocolate hazelnut cake and put 40 candles on it.  It made an impressive fire.  We also celebrated by going to a Real soccer game.

Aaron's birthday cake forest fire.  

Our last days of summer were spent getting Hannah ready to attend the local middle school.  We spent a day getting to know the school, opening her locker and meeting teachers.  We also had to get school supplies, a backpack, and a lunch box.  She was excited and nervous to go to school.  And, despite the early mornings, she has really been enjoying her classes.  Maggie and Sophie are having to do a lot of their school on their own this year, because I am working so much with Caleb.  And Katrina is doing quite a few workbooks and a preschool with our cousin Lia in preparation for Kindergarten next year.

Here we all are in front of our pioneer house on the last day of volunteering.  

A "Green" Camping Trip

We went camping this last week with my family.  We went down to the Fremont Indian State Park which is a little north of Cedar City.  Our campsite had some great hills to climb and a little pond for the kids to explore.  We got there rather late on Wednesday and just had time to get the tents up and eat a quick dinner before it started raining.  It only rained for about half an hour, just long enough to make things humid and cool.  On Thursday we went to the Fremont Indian museum.  The Fremont Indians lived in pit houses, so there were several in the museum.  The most fun one was the one in the kid's section that you could go into and climb all around in.  They also had dress-ups made with real leather.  We took a small hike that went past several petroglyphs.  Then we went on a hike to a cave called Hundred Hands Cave.  As we were hiking there, we walked under the freeway and someone had gotten mud on their hands and made handprints on the underpass wall.  We did the same thing.  That was lots of muddy fun.

 Friday morning we went to Cove Fort Days.  Cove Fort is a Mormon pioneer settlement about 20 minutes from our camp site.  They have a fort with rooms around the perimeter decorated as they would have been in pioneer times.  It was used as a way station for travelers.  During Cove Fort Days they had quite a few people demonstrating pioneer skills and pioneer games to play.  I was surprised when we drove up that not only is it a free event, but they also provide free hot dogs and drinks.  

Caleb cards wool with a wool carding machine.

Maggie does some weaving on a loom.

Sophie hand quilting.  

Katrina on the wagon ride.  

Katrina got my camera on the wagon ride and started taking pictures.  Here is a sampling.

Silly picture of my Dad.  Notice the feather in his hat--now that's macaroni. 

View of the countryside.  This is why green is in quotes in the title of my blog.
The color of this trip should actually be sage.  

Katrina's foot.  

When we got back to our campsite, my Mom, my niece, Hannah and Aaron came.  Hannah had been at girl's camp, and my Mom had stayed home with my sister and her new baby.  The evening was rather eventful, because my niece was trying to sit in one of our camp chairs, when it fell over, dumping her hand into the fire pit full of cooling charcoal.  She got second degree burns on her arm and fingers.  My parents ended up taking her back home and to the emergency room. Luckily, the doctor said the burns weren't too bad and would heal up just fine.  

Saturday morning we packed up camp.  My sister decided to drive down to Bryce Canyon.  We went back to the Fremont Indian museum to show Hannah and Aaron the fun stuff there.  I spent most of the time in the kid's section with Katrina reading an interesting book called Code Talker about the Navajo code talkers during WWII.  I'm assured by the Smalleys that it is very good, so I have it on order at the library to finish reading next week at Bear Lake.  

This is the last week of the Badges of Fun.  The theme is Get Active.  They suggest 1. Take a hike--go on a nature hike.  2. Hop on your bike--make a bike obstacle course and do it with your friends. 3. Play in your yard--turn your back yard into a bean bag basketball court.  Hannah and Maggie are going to Allie's for a sleep over and will be participating in her ward's youth boating trip.  Sabrina is coming here and we are going to the swimming pool.  

I won't be blogging this next week, I have Aaron and my birthday celebration this weekend and then we're going to Bear Lake.  I'll blog after that.  Then you can expect a long silence as we start school.  

S'winter and Tea Time

When I talked with my kids about S'winter, Maggie had a truly awesome idea.  She suggested we go ice blocking.  So on Saturday we went ice blocking with my sister's family.  We went to our favorite sledding hill.  It was a fun afternoon.  And luckily, it didn't rain on us, though the wind blew and it threatened several times.

Maggie goes down the hill.

Katrina looks a little scared.

Caleb tries to run over Jake.

Now Katrina goes with Hannah.

Watch out for Sophie.

For our next week's activity, we had dinner together with family.  First, we celebrated Pioneer Day with the Smalleys, Beckners, and my parents.  We had bacon wrapped hot dogs and other cook out food.  I have been wanting to try bacon wrapped hot dogs ever since I saw them on Man vs. Food.  I was hoping they would be crispier.  But they were delicious anyway.  To cap off the evening we saw a fireworks show thanks to the Beckners and made s'mores.  

Then we celebrated the Olympics with a tea party.  Having food from the host country is becoming a family tradition.  For the last summer games in Beijing, we had Chinese food.  My dad suggested we have Fejuada (I'm sure I spelled that wrong.  Sorry.), a Brazilian dish of beans and pork, for the next Summer Olympics in Rio where he served his mission.  Anyway, Hannah came up with a great menu for a high tea.  We had sandwiches with meat and cheese, cucumbers, or strawberries.  Then I made scones and clotted cream.  (I'm sure the clotted cream was no where near the real thing, but it was delicious.)  Emily researched and then made crumpets.  They were amazing.  And for dessert we had raspberry bars, brown butter sea salt shortbread cookies, truffles, and birthday cake.  (It was my nephew's birthday the next day.)  Of course we had herbal teas.  I got out my tea cups and saucers, my tiny tea spoons from my Oma and borrowed some tea pots.  It was a fun meal.  And we really enjoyed watching the opening ceremonies outside on the patio thanks to my Dad and Aaron.  

The tea table all ready to go.  

 

My nephew's awesome Avengers birthday cake.
 My sister made the faces of all the Avengers  to go around the cake.

This next weeks Badge of Fun is Go Green.  They suggest 1. Play with green power--make a lemon powered clock, 2. Make gardening more fun--make a frame to frame a flower in the garden, or 3. Learn to upcycle--turn old magazines in to glossy flowers.  We are going camping this week and I think we will just be enjoying nature.  We have plans for some hikes and I'm sure if we encounter a creek, we will get very wet and muddy.  Hope you have a green week!

Until then

Okay, so this last week was crazy.  I helped my parents fix my back patio, that took up 3 days.  I got all the school books for this coming year, so I had to organize my school room.  I had to send one of my computers back to the school (not enough kids enrolled).  And, it was our town's Pioneer Day celebration.  So, with everything, I haven't had time to download pictures for this blog.  I will work on it and hopefully have it up this week.

But, for those of you playing along, this week's Badge of Fun is Eat Dinner Together.  Here are their suggestions:  1. Play with your food--They suggest squid dogs or other funny food items, like meat loaf cupcakes.  2. Break up the rut--They suggest playing the "Clear-out-the-fridge-game" or an indoor picnic.  3.  After dinner games--They suggest "Might I bite?" It's a game where you tape the name of an animal on someone else's forehead with out showing them.  Then you ask questions to determine what kind of animal you are.

We are going to have high tea for dinner on Friday in honor of the Olympics and watch the opening ceremony.  Hannah has already made an extensive menu for this occasion.  It should be delicious!

New Traditions

I'm not sure how much fun the kids had with this weeks theme, but I got the "Christmas" letter done, so I was happy.  The envelopes are addressed, the letter written, all we're waiting for now is pictures to be printed.  Hopefully, I'll be able to send them out this week.  I think the kids did have fun coming up with ideas for our letter.  Our library's reading program this summer is entitled "Dream Big."  It seemed like a good theme, so I had the kids tell what their big dreams were.  Some of them were serious, some were silly.  Hannah and Maggie were eating cookies while they were doing theirs.  But we did do some other fun things.  We went to the Smalleys to play in their pool.  The kids were in the pool from the time we drove up to the house, until dark.  I had a hard time getting them to come out for dinner.  We ate a delicious pizza dinner with a yummy cake with strawberries for dessert.  Then the two older girls, Tim, Aaron and I went to a production of Fiddler on the Roof that some of the Smalleys are in this summer.  (Thanks to Emily for watching the younger kids!)  It's a fun musical.  Lots of good songs, which I have been singing all week.  That was on Monday, by Friday the kids were pretty sure that we had never done anything fun ever.  This next week promises to be more fun.

This week's Badge of Fun is Winter Fun.  I've been singing the "S'Winter" song from Phineas and Ferb all week knowing this was coming up. (When I'm not singing Fiddler on the Roof, that is.)

Fall-less snow on the ground,
There are sleigh bells all around,
But the sun's beating down, because it's S'winter.
It's ski and snowball fight time,
And also fly a kite time,
Cold and sunny,
Yes, that's right,
I'm talkin' 'bout S'winter.
It's a S'winter S'wonderland,
Unusual and grand,
You can freeze while you get tan,
Because it's S'winter.
Talkin' 'bout S'winter.
It's S'winter.

Besides watching the "S'Winter" episode of Phineas and Ferb, here are the suggestions:  1.  Make an ice sun catcher with multi-colored ice cubes or a homemade igloo themed game.  2.  Play outside.  I'm pretty sure they wanted you to play in the snow, but as that's thin on the ground right now, you might try ice cubes in the swimming pool, or a contest to see who can put on a frozen t-shirt.  3.  Make a wintry treat.  Theirs is snowmen made out of bananas and apples.  I thought you could also make them out of marshmallows and then roast them.  I also thought of making ice cream.  And keeping with the theme of doing things that make you cold, I thought of going to the movies--a place I'm always cold.  I would love to hear what you decide to do.  Have a wonderfully cool week!!!

S

Preserve Family Memories

Cute baby Katrina

For each of my kids I kept a first year calendar and made a scrapbook/photo album of pictures from their first year.  I usually try to complete the photo album before the next baby is born.  Poor Katrina, there was no baby coming along to push me into actually doing it.  So, now that she's four, when the other kids pull out their albums, and she doesn't have one, she complains about it and the other kids complain about it too.  So, for the Badge of Fun this week, I took a day a put together her album.  I don't know how much fun that was for the kids, except for the fact that I let them do whatever they wanted all day and didn't make them do their summer school work.  It was the day after the 4th, and it rained all day, so the kids played outside in the rain, collecting snails and getting wet and playing with umbrellas.  It was a good day.  Putting together the album probably would have taken me a lot less time if my computer hadn't died on me every half hour or so and it would take another half an hour before it would come back up again.  You really can't blame it, it's 6 years old.  What is that, like 110, in computer years?  But, despite the annoying computer, I got the album put together and Katrina has looked at it every day since.

This week's Badge of Fun is Start a New Tradition.  You remember that these came from a whole year of Family Fun.  This one is from the Dec/Jan issue.  Here are their suggestions: do something kind for others, write a time capsule letter, or make edible holiday decorations.  You know thinking of the holidays puts me in the mood for fudge.  Maybe an un-holiday fudge making is in order.  I have planned to mail out our Christmas cards this week.  I know, they're 6 months over due, but I think I'm going to start a new tradition of sending them out in the summer, when I'm not so crazy busy with school and holiday fun.

Family Night Fun

We actually did several "Family Night" things this week.  First off, we had FHE.  Always a good place to start.  I helped Katrina give the lesson.  It was a rehash of her primary lesson the day before.  Good thing I'm her teacher.  Then on Tuesday we decided to go see a dollar movie.  We went to The Lorax.  I hadn't wanted to see it much because I never liked the book, but the Smalleys highly recommended it, so we went. It was actually better than the book.  The songs were fun, and the kids liked it.  On Friday we played night games.  The kids had been wanting to ever since our backyard camp out.  We started at twilight with "Sleeping Pirate" and progressed through "Firefly" and flashlight limbo.  Caleb was disappointed that we didn't play "Ghost in the Graveyard."  I told him we could do it on the 4th when we would be staying up super late again.  It was really a lot of fun to play together.

This next week's Badge of Fun is Preserve Family Memories.  They suggest organizing mementos into a display, collecting family stories, or making a display of treasured photos.  (Check the display of treasured photos online.  It's a super cool tree display.)  For each of my kids I kept a calendar of what they did their first year and made a scrapbook/photo book of their first year.  I bought a book a few years ago for Katrina, but have never printed off any pictures to fill it up. (Darn those digital photos.  It's just too easy to let them sit on my computer.)  The kids have been after me to get it finished.  I think that will be our project this week.  Have a happy 4th!