So 6 weeks ago the kids got out of school for the ’summer’.  Then we began to run around the country like crazy people to stuff as much fun into our 5 week summer as we could.  I think we succeeded.  This may not chronicle everything- but it will get everything that I’ve got downloaded from the camera so far.

First some stuff from before school was over.
Ashley studied the State of Utah in 4th grade. They had a program, some huge projects and a ‘pioneer day’ where they shared their projects and played pioneer games and ended at our back gate for scones. This is one of the benefits of living by the school- I could ‘help out’ by feeding kids out my back gate. It was pretty fun. I don’t have any actual pictures of feeding them because they were like a swarm of bees and I couldn’t make the scones fast enough.

Here they are playing some game to get over to me:

Here is my sweet set up:

Mmmmm, scones:

Mother’s day weekend Steve’s grandma was in town so we headed down to his aunt’s house to say hello.
Ashley and Grandma Haynes

Cori and Great Grandma

Megan and Annika with Great Grandma

Because we’re in a year round school and a lot of other schools are traditional schedule I was able to invite myself to some other mom’s summer fun. We managed to crash a hiking group one Wednesday morning (thanks for the invite Bonnie!) Annika and Cori did great!
This was my view most of the way

Annika was a great hiker though

Cori not so much- but she did walk the whole way

We got to the top and there was water!

brrr

They were pretty proud of themselves

Hi Bonnie! (I’ve got more pictures of your kids I need to send you)

I adore that dimple (even if she’s a whiner)

We enjoyed the water a bit….

on the way down we stopped to smell the uh, weeds?

My favorite picture was of these boys who were clearly ‘too old’ for ‘fun’.

School got out on July 2nd. Which actually was a day off for Steve. July 3rd we decided to take our kids on a ‘easy’ hike. Steve had great confidence in our kid’s hiking ability since they’d done so well the week before.  So we decided to try a bit longer hike that Steve and his scouts had done in an hour the week before.  Let this be a lesson to you all- a 12-14 year old boys one hour hike is not equal to easy.

There were ‘about 5 minutes of desert switchbacks’ before we should be in the canyon and in the shade.

45 minutes later and several tantrums we made it.

Also- the girls had spent the night at my mom’s the night before and we picked them up and went straight to the hike- we got out and realized the youngest three were all in flip flops. We should have turned back then.

Here they are looking a lot more excited then they were acting at the time

Fast forward 3 hours and we made it to the ‘lower falls’. Steve insisted that the ‘upper falls’ and the top were ‘only 20 minutes more’- but we were done. Plus I knew those ‘20 minutes’ would take us 90 minutes.

They look adventurous right?

to be continued….