Summer Lovin'

It's summer!  Some days my kids drive me crazy, but most days we have a great time!  Here is some of what we have been up to since school got out!

We went to the zoo and we are so glad the train is back open (we've actually been twice in the last 2 weeks and have had fun).

We had a West Fest Fireworks Party!  Grandma Judy made us all go to get milkshakes at the new Arctic Circle in Magna.  It was new, but was still . . . .  the Arctic Circle in Magna.  After, we went to the church park by my mom and dad's house to watch the West Fest fireworks.  It was fun!

We've played at our neighborhood park a couple of times.  Molly is pretty brave at the playground.  Jack wants to do whatever she does (and a little bit of his own thing, too).  On our second trip to the park, Molly lost her grip climbing up a mountain to the slide.  She fell and had a scrape on her side.  In true Molly fashion, she was quite a wreck for at least and hour.  She was scared, but luckily not too hurt.

James put up a flagpole in our front yard!  It true James fashion, I don't think that pole is going anywhere.  Who knows how deep the hole is.  He dug to China for a whole Saturday.  Once the sleeve was in place, he put rebar and mortar inside the pole.  It should be arctic tundra wind resistant.  In addition, he didn't like the initial solar lights he put up, so he rewired (and dug a pretty long trench) to hardwire in a spotlight.  It is now steadfast, immovable, and bright.  I quite like the flagpole!  I am grateful that James has sweet skills to fix, repair, and make just about anything happen in our house and yard (even if it takes him until 2:00 a.m. on a Monday night digging a trench to do it)!

By the way, this first flag was the Lithuanian flag.  Several neighbors wondered what it was and just assumed it was a World Cup thing.  We since have replaced it with an American Flag to celebrate the 4th of July!

The kids have been taking swimming lessons.  Last year Molly cried or tried to run away from the pool most lessons.  She is still super nervous and needs some coaxing to be fully cooperative, but there have been no tears and no running away (except for the one lesson when she had to go to the bathroom), so I call this session a success!

Jack, is a maniac.  He and I have been doing a class together.  It's a good thing I decided to do this because I don't think there is anyway I could keep him out of the water during Molly's class.  We are looking forward to a second session starting next week.

We have lots of fun playing outside nearly every day.  On Saturday Jack was sleeping so I let Molly play outside with Asher, the neighbor boy.  They decided to draw all over their faces with chalk.  It's ok.  It washes off.  They had fun.

Jack loves to ride his bike and if he throws a fit, it is usually because he wants to go outside and play and we won't let him OR we are trying to get him inside from playing.  He just loves to be outside.

On Monday, we went on a last minute grand adventure with Parker and Meranda.  

We drove to Little America, rode Trax to City Creek, walked to the D.U.P. Museum (which was a bit longer of a walk than I had imagined it in my head), walked back to City Creek for lunch, visited Aunt Cindy at her office, rode the train back to Little America, and crashed at home.  Phew!  It was quite a day.  Jack did great.  Molly had a couple of meltdowns and her legs were broken, but also had moments of being really good.  Parker, Meranda, and I were very well-behaved too!  They were very helpful and great company.  Meranda has a new job working as a dietician for LDS Hospital.  She has to work every other Sunday, but gets other random days off.  We will have to take advantage of some of her days off to go on more adventures.  We've really missed Uncle Willie the last couple of weeks, but that's ok.  We're glad we still have Parker and now have Meranda back to hang out with in the summer.