Hike 2

Thursday night, another family trip to Lagoon. 

Our first time staying until the lights came on. The weather was so pleasant and the lights are fun. Darin and I + the boys (Miriam met a friend there) rode the huge ferris wheel right before it closed, so fun to look over the valley with all the lights on.

Friday morning hike #2

Parrish Canyon,  a shorter hike up to see pictographs.

Then a rush to pack, cut veggies, make salads, and clean so we could leave for the cabin.

Hike part 1

I have been helping teach a group fitness/dance/yoga class at the LDS church on Tuesday mornings for over a year now.  It's been so much fun, and a great motivation to get in a sweat on Tuesdays.  The kids love it too, those K and under crowd run around the gym and jump (sometimes fall) off the stage.  The gym is convenient, works well,  but I think all of us crave a little more time in nature. We added another day to our friend workout schedule - Friday Ladies Hike Day!  We've only done one so far (girls camp and other things getting in the way...) but it was a success!  At church workout kids are welcome but on Ladies Hike they are...shall we say "strongly discouraged" unless they can be strapped to someones back.

No whiners allowed!

The idea is that once we know where the hike is...what it is like...we can bring our families back.

So that is what I did on a HOT Sunday evening.  We had hours of sunlight left, and I just couldn't take another minute of being in the house. I really REALLY have a hard time staying indoors for an entire day, I go stir crazy!  It was too hot for a bike ride or outside play, we needed shade and water would be a bonus. So I took the kids on our Friday hike.

 

It's a popular hike, especially since there is this rope swing near the end.  

We totally lucked out because it was just us, and a few teenagers at the swing.  The teenagers were key because they helped me get the kids on the swing. They were cute and kind local kids who said they come all the time so I trusted them. 

Blurry pictures!! I couldn't get my phone to take a decent shot!

The hike back out is all downhill, so a lot quicker and easier for the kids.

The sun was starting to set so we had beautiful dusk views all the way to the car.

I just love it when things work out!

Chinese Summer

In an effort to get B caught up with the rest of his Chinese immersion class we have had a big Chinese focus this summer.  We have been doing Chinese at home, using all the youtube and local library resources I can find but, I have been scrambling to find some more intense tutoring for B.

The boys together have a once-a-week camp that is mostly just games.  This camp is for grades k-2 but it seems heavy on the  kindergartner side. Byron is lukewarm about it, but Soren loves it. 

We tried out this neighborhood camp for a week and I LOVE it! We hosted on Thursday and the kids had a blast using water games to reinforce language.  It was a stretch for me to host 5 kids I don't know and a teacher I had never met, but once I got over my hosting fears it was great. It's taught by a native Chinese teacher from our school but she works closely with the moms in the group to brainstorm engaging activities.

Unfortunately I think Byron needs more intensive tutoring more often so we will probably drop this group until next year.

The balloon aftermath.  Luckily we as moms are good about making the kids do the clean-up.

Trying out another camp today at 1:00.

Heres to hoping we find the perfect fit!

Girls Camp 2016

Camp Aries, above Kamas.  

I actually really loved the set-up of this camp.  In general, our girls prefer ward camp to stake camp because they don't feel like they have enough free time.  This camp hit a perfect balance of gathering activities, on-going activities if you were bored, and in general letting wards or individual girls do what they wanted. 

Fun memories:

1. Mountain yoga and star gazing

2. Singing...the silly gathering songs and the beautiful nature songs (my favorite part)

3. Crafternoons at the stake bowery.  They had a few different crafts everyday between certain hours...as well as a human rubber band, volleyball, a "beach" (bunch of kiddy pools) and a slack line set up.

4. The Hike...so fun and beautiful.  Wish we had done more than one!

5. Winning the braiding competition by braiding STEADFAST, 4 exclamation points, 2 hearts and a smiley face into the hair of girls of our ward.  Our girls drill walked into the front and had a whole routine of turning around and yelling their letter.  Pretty hilarious.

6. Our ward camp directors.  Our main director got her college age daughter, and another girl in college from our ward to be in charge of all the spiritual and the fun around camp.  These 2 girls were fantastic to get games going, did fun crafts, and shared great experiences about making education and future choices. 

7. Interesting devotional: a bishop from our stake is from Bulgaria and lived under Communist rule until he was a young adult. His life was hard, and scary.  When he finally got out, trying to find a job and live in a neighboring country was so hard he came close to surviving using illegal means.  Really made me think of the refugee crisis.  His history/geography/personal story was so interesting, impactful, and hilarious!

8.  Talks, sweets, and games around the campfire, especially fun game of cups and volleyball

9. Being with Miriam

10. Our weather!! It rained before we got there, and then we had perfect temps the rest of the week! 

What I did not enjoy about camp:

1. staying up so late every night.

2. My body would not nap...at all!!

3. 3:00-6:00 pm when everyone is tired and dragging. 

Thats when feelings are too sensitive, and people are more thoughtless. It's like dinnertime/campfire revive spirits, but so hard for me to stay chipper during those times. See #2.

4. Smelling like campfire, feeling like there was dirt up my nose and under my fingernails all day long.

5. The trek to the bathroom + worry of bears + nighttime 

6. As a leader, the constant worry...is everyone happy? Is everyone being kind? does everyone feel included? 

Miriam's first rite of passage completed!!

Miriam's St. George Trip

June Stuff

Boys week included more snow cones! Lot of playing with friends which I didn't expect would happen,

and a trip to see Jungle Book.

The whole week of Girls Camp was also the Miss Utah Pageant week. Who knew that spanned a week, but lucky us, we got to see Julia, Tatum and Madison before girls camp,  (at the shoe parade...this Miss U stuff is a whole new world) and got to party with Wyler for 2 evenings right after getting back. 

We introduced him to two of our favorite local parks....and....wait for it....our favorite snow cone shack.  Fun fact: we saw Santa Claus at Rainbow Snow.  Not even joking.

Miriam and Byron preformed in their year-end piano recital and received their medals.

Miriam had missed the last 2 piano lessons, and hasn't been near a piano to practice for 2 weeks. She had to kind of scramble to get her songs ready the 2 days after girls camp.  She did it! Byron was so super over prepared he can probably play his songs in his sleep. 

Their very patient and darling piano teacher Molly.  We are so lucky to have her!!

Mom & Boys Week

With Miriam gone, and Dad at work, this week became Mom & Boys Week!

Next week Miriam and I will be roughing it at Girls Camp so it will be Dad & Boys Week, which will most likely be more fun, and that is fine with me.  I love when the kids get one-on-one time with Dad to make memories.

The boys and I kept to the chore/summer school schedule which they complained was so unfair since Miriam wasn't doing them. I was almost swayed but really...2 hours of a 12 hour day doing work is not unreasonable. Miriam actually was doing chores as well because I saw the cleaning chart the family she went to St. George with had made.  It was impressive! 

Tuesday afternoon we ran to Costco for shopping and lunch and then bought a water balloon pump.  Water balloon party for the rest of the day. The boys mastered filling the tying and never got bored of tossing and throwing. Friends came over and were entertained, no one asked for computer games $6 well spent!

Wednesday Byron had tennis from a neighbor boy who is on the high school team.  Byron is loving this class! Then both the boys had their once a week Chinese camp. Afterwards we met friends at Lagoon and just because of what their friends wanted to do we ended up with a day full of new-to-the-boys riding.  Byron fell in love with bumper cars, and braved the rickety white roller coaster, Soren went on the Terror Ride...doesn't love it but can say he did it, everyone went on Flying Dragon, Space Scrambler, and we finally got that Tilt-A-Whirl to whirl like crazy! I got to walk around having fun conversations with a friend and her husband.  

Win/win day! We stopped by Rainbow Snow for another snow cone and ran into a friend so the rest of the day was spent playing with friends.

Thursday was a slow lazy morning.  We didn't finish our stuff until 1:00 and had to be to piano by 2. So we jumped in our swimming gear and stopped by the splash pad near our piano teachers house after lessons.  Tons of water fun (mom tip: bring plastic cups and ziplock bags to splash pads, kids love launching that stuff).

That evening was the Regional Cub Scout Carnival. 

Pack Meeting on steroids! 

We threw, pounded, launched, pulled, pitched, ran 

and played in the bubbles. So fun so see so many school friends and families there.

We managed to get a slice of pizza and the boys got some cotton candy but the snow cone line was sooooo long I offered to take the boys to.....wait for it.....Rainbow Snow!!

and then the park.

Friday we tried out Lagoon-A-Beach.

We met some friends there which was lucky because then Byron got to try a few water slides.  Soren just isn't quite tall enough so I couldn't leave him to take B around.  Both boys were happy to swim in the lazy river for hours but the little kid slide/splash area was kind of boring for Soren and the big pool was cold!  This year, with Soren's height things will be a bit tricky and take some planning.  

I thought through things and here are our rules for LAB:

 1. Only go on super hot afternoons so the chilly big pool is perfect 

2. Make sure Byron and Miriam have each other, or buddies to go on the slides with so that they can do what they want and come check in.  

3. Only go on a weekday, it never got as crowded as Cherry Hill does in the height of summer, but I don't like when the lay river is tube to tube. 

4. Bring our passes and drivers licence but no other cards so that I can leave our stuff on a chair and NOT rent the $8 lockers. 

5. Bring $5.25 so we can rent 2 tubes to share and buy us each a .25 ice water.

We swam our hearts out and then....

RAINBOW SNOW again!

The last photo you will see of shaggy haired Soren.

We ended the evening with mom haircuts!

Adventure

Looks like Miriam is doing fine without us this week!

Off on a friend vacation in Southern Utah.

It's always hard to have a child away...worry creeps in, but then I get photos texted to me like the one above.  Then I realize that adventure is adventure...it's hard, it's fun, it's mind expanding, it's terrifying, but I think it's what makes life fun.  She has called us every evening besides the night they saw Peter Pan at Tuachan. She is tired for sure (she doesn't sleep in but keeps up with the late night games) she probably will get home and collapse from exhaustion.  

Good thing she is young....Girls Camp next week!

The Very Last Hurrah

Miriam's first boy/girl party.  This wasn't as ooh la la as it seems since it was all the kids from her Spectrum class (not everyone is pictured...parents were picking up).  These kids have been together since 3rd grade and Miriam thinks of them as her "class family".  They have critiqued each other, performed together, competed against and with each other, teased and flirted, adored and at times hated each other! They have as a group put up with the other 6th grade classes calling them "Spekies" and being kicked out of tag games or banned from certain lunchroom tables.  When these things got hard I would tell Miriam to just be kind.  If she knew in her heart she was kind, accepting, and gracious, then she could rest assured that the bad behavior of others had nothing to do with her, and probably had to more to do with the insecurity of others. So true that what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger because the "Spekies" bond grew, their determination grew, and Miriam for one wouldn't have had it any other way! She said with tears streaming down her face "I am even going to miss _______ (boy who teases her the most)!!" I try hard to have my kids embrace the fact that they are bright, and sensitive.  I LOVE socially conscience nerds who care with their whole hearts. I have no affinity for cool, or aloof...and popularity will come or it won't but, it's not worth striving for if you can't be yourself.

But back to this amazing party put on by one of those super fun overly energetic couples who manage to have 6 kids but somehow not get beaten down by life and stays energetic enough to entertain 28, 12 year olds till 10 pm. They had a huge spread of pizza veggies and fruit, a bungee tramp, basketball, and night games to play. Miriam currently holds the girls record for bungee tramp backflips at 50, she was disappointed when a boy in her class did 54. His determination came with a price and I don't think his stomach ever fully recovered.

Such a fun way to say good bye for the last time.  Miriam will see some of these kids in jr high but they will never again be the Centerville Elementary "Spekies" together.
Chapter closed.

Last Day

I didn't volunteer for Field Day this year.  I still feel a tad guilty about it, but I got the report from all three kids that it was a roaring success at both schools. It all went well without me.

Miriam's last day of school talent show, 

the ballroom club performed the Cha Cha and she was paired with our neighbor Ty.

Miriam's friends call Ty "the adorable 5th grader" but M refuses to join in because he is in our ward.

He really is pretty adorable.

Then the Student Council did that funny movie theatre skit where the kids pretend to be on a date

it was hilarious to watch these kids! 

They didn't really have to act too much, the awkwardness was real.

Then there was a barrage of tears at the closing flag ceremony. 

I wasn't there but I got the report as well as these photos from other moms.

I was at the boys school, which was so good because it was my last chance to take a photo of B and his teacher Mrs. Huff.  I don't know why we haven't taken a picture before now, she was a God send this year.  Byron was in such a vulnerable situation being new, and he tends to shut down when he feels insecure. Byron doesn't act up when he feels this way, he quietly sits, and endures and feels sad inside, so if a teacher isn't sensitive they could easily let this good quiet kid just slide by. Mrs. Huff understood B from the very beginning. She completely won his trust and made him feel secure enough to try hard.  He made such giant leaps in his academics this year but it's not those scores that made me happy, it's all the times he would ask me to take photos of things to text to his teacher....his rain gutter regatta boat, a birthday gift, something he had made.  She asked him to share with the class his coin collection, and rocks he had found.  You could tell he had told her things about his life...shared with her things that were important to him and she validated all of it. Once again I am left without being able to truly repay someone for the huge impact they have made in the life of my child.  Thank you and a Menchie's gift card just don't seem to do it, but thats all I got...

We did have a nice conversation in the hall, where we both teared up a bit. Luckily, she is moving to 1st grade so she will be Soren's teacher next year! I told her it will be a whole different ball game with S-man.

Cheers to a very hard, but successful year for these boys!

We then hit a neighborhood end of school party.

Miriam and her pals were pretty mellow....all that crying had done Miriam in.

Since she had her ballet recital that evening, the boys did the bungy trampoline, had a few snow cones and then we came home so M could regroup.

  Our lovely dancer did fantastic with her ballet friends.

We celebrated with gelato and Fizz.