Summer Activities

We had a fabulous summer! David and I were discussing how this summer compared to the incomparable "Summer of Dreams" in 2018.  Honestly, that summer had a significant influence on all of the following summers and this summer was a continued version of that vision from six years ago. To quote from that summer: "This summer has been filling my cup in ways I didn't even know that I needed, and has given me such great insight into what I want our lives to be like in the future. It's been a summer of slowness and some introspection and I'm learning that I have the power to make to create the kind of life that I want for my family. I want things to be slower paced, filled with goodness and light. Memories of love and laughter, not just rushing around from place to place. " That summer was filled with lake days and pool days, family and fun. We tapped into the goodness of our family and it's just getting better. 

This summer was also filled with lake days and pool days; of days at home and days with family. After discussing it, I decided that I would call it either "Big Kid Summer" or "Summer of Cousins". I loved this summer so much, partly because this is the start of our toddler-free summers. Having all big kids is fun and we got to do a lot of really great things this summer. 

Truth be told, I constantly need to be reminded to slow down and not rush through our days, but it's such a tricky balance when there are so many fun things to do! 

Here is an incomplete list of many things we've done this summer:

First Family Swim of the Season - Provo Rec Center

We started our summer strong with our favorite pool. We love that there is an inside and and outside and that the waterslides are so fun! Lucy is still small enough to need an adult to ride the slides with her, but the other kids are confident and capable of going off on their own! We met up with some friends here and had a great day.

(not pictured; the Perkins and Shields Family)

We had lots more pool days through the summer. Austin wanted us to hit 30 pool days through the summer (about 3 a week). I'm not sure we hit that, but including our lake days in the number, we were definitely over 20!  

Market Day 

We have the best neighborhood and one of our favorite summer things is our summer "Market Day". Every other Monday at 2 pm all of the kids on the street come out and set up a market stand where they get to sell things to each other. It's so great because all the kids are outside so there are people going to each stand and also because they basically just shuffle the money around between each other. This year we did crepes, popcorn, popsicles, jello popcorn, and other assorted things that we could come up with. 

We spent many days at the lake with our Kayaks and Paddleboards. Last summer we only went like one time the whole summer but this summer we really got our use out of the kayaks. We went with friends most of the times. Among those: the Wards, Amy & Amelia, and Bethany and her family.  We also went to lots of different places: Tibble Fork, Highland Glen, Blackridge Reservoir. (We also went with the Middletons to Red Fleet State Park, which was a highlight -but will get it's own post.) 

We didn't get as many hikes in, but we did do a couple. Our favorite was Cascade Springs with the Wards. 

Splash Summit

The Wards were such good friends to our kids this summer. The 7 of them spent every extra hour they had together. They spent a lot of time bouncing back and forth between our houses, plus Leah and I swapped 3 hours a week hosting all of the kids so we could each have some time every week. (On top of our monthly date swap, which we love). These kids aren't all the same ages - but that makes it even better because they all play so nicely together. The big four (Lydia, 12; Audrey, 10; Austin, 9; Ellie, 8) play together and are basically inseparable - and the little three take turns playing with each other (either Lucy or Caleb playing with Anderson). I wrote in 2018 how grateful we are that the Wards were our neighbors and I'm even more grateful now for such good people to live by us. 

We called July Cousin Month because we spent the majority of our time with Cousins! (Especially if you include the end of June when we spent 2 weeks with our extended Peaden Family). It was our turn to host "Cousin Weekend" and we were excited that Jenna and Kevin got to go to Nauvoo, where we had just come back from, while we had all the kids. Matt and Brooklyn had a big trip planned to go to Portugal! They were gone for 21 days and we had Juniper and Sylvie for all of those days (Plus the Haderlies for 7 of those days). It was a busy and wonderful month. We hung out at home, went to Thanksgiving point, went to the pool, caught TWO parades together, spent time in Wyoming at the Ranch and overall just had a great summer. I only pulled a couple of pictures in here, because I'm planning to write another post about this - but I wanted to document it! 

Parades

We missed the Lehi Roundup Parade, which is our favorite of the Summer. I was worried that we weren't going to make it to ANY parades, which would be sad - but we managed to fit in TWO parades and I felt super happy about that. We went to the Ogden 24th of July Parade and then the next weekend we went to the Lyman 24th parade and celebration. David also took Lydia, Austin, Camille, and Jason to the Days of 47 parade preview and they got to see all of the floats up close. It was the perfect amount of parading for this summer. 

We went the movie "IF" in the theaters because I found this cheap and fun movie theater and really wanted to go. It wasn't my favorite movie ever - but we had a good time. Jenna also took the kids to Wonka and Kung Fu Panda 4 with their family in Perry. 

Summer Range

The summer range got it's own post -but I just wanted to include a few pictures here because we loved it so much! We love the Summer tradition of spending a week/weekend here. 

We also spent a LOT of time in Wyoming. My parents are prepping to move here full-time, even though my dad is already basically living here and they are just splitting their time between Lyman and Morgan. We've helped them tear our the kitchen cabinets, repaint the bathroom cabinet, prep for the rest of the renovation! It's been a lot of work, but it's going to look so beautiful and I'm really happy for them.   

End of Summer Bowling and Mini Golf

We aren't quite ready for summer to end and we've been squeezing in every last thing that we can. The Wards invited us to go to Fat Cats on the day before school started. It was really fun and a great end-of-summer bash. 

Except we had one more summer adventure up our sleeves - on the very last day of August we finally used our Summer Reading Program pool passes for the Lehi Outdoor Pool. We were waiting for David to be able to come with us and it was worth the wait. We loved soaking up the sun and truly felt that we had squeezed every last bit of summer out of the season. 

Goodbye Summer 2024, we will miss you!