August (end of) Summer Activities

This summer FLEW by. I know, I know people say that all the time - but this summer really felt like it was only getting started and then suddenly it was over. The combination of June being filled with cloudy days/sickness and July being filled with preparing for our two big events(Grandma's Birthday Celebration and the Temple Celebration) made for a different-feeling summer. It was a little slower, a little more home-centered. It was nice, but I needed another solid month of summer before school started! Unfortunately, the world's calendar doesn't revolve around my personal wishes, so we squeezed as much summer as we could into the first two weeks of August and now we are saying goodbye to summer. Hopefully we will still be able to enjoy the warm weather, but it is a little different once our school responsibilities start. 

Manilla Pond

We didn't get as much kayaking done as I had hoped this summer, so we made sure to go one last time. It was a BEAUTIFUL day. The sun was shining, we went with friends and they made elaborate creations in the sand and played really well together, I sat by my friend and we visited for hours. 

It was such a nice afternoon and was really filling up my summer bucket. At one point we saw a news anchor and camera walking around filming some things, and thought that maybe they were doing a news piece about different local pond/lakes. But no - after we got home and looked it up we realized they were doing a piece about THE ECOLI IN THE WATER (and the poor sinage). I felt so foolish. Here we were, having the best day ever, and the whole time our kids were swimming in contaminated water - popping in and out, eating snacks with their wet hands, etc... We have to agree that the sinage was poor because neither of us saw any of the signs (that were posted as 8.5x11 on the back of the signs when you come in). We are definitely in the video clip that they put online and the article says things like, 

"Manila Creek Pond is now one of two ponds in the area not safe to swim in, yet families are still flocking there for summer fun unaware of the dangers. That's because the few signs posted are in hard-to-see spots that most people are passing by without seeing." and "Many parents also had snacks sitting out in their picnic areas, ready for when the kids took breaks in the shade." 

 

I felt foolish, but thankfully none of us got sick. I'm still so grateful for that beautiful day in the sunshine, and extra grateful that our bodies were protected from the illness. Ecoli has been a hard thing this summer, contaminating our irrigation water (used for our lawn and our garden) and contaminating our favorite kayaking spot (Highland glen-which is one reason why we didn't go much this summer). But it has also made us grateful for clean water and the blessing it is to us regularly. 


Primary Ice Cream Truck

Our Primary is so fun, and they do an excellent job at hosting fun activities for the kids and making them feel welcomed and loved. 



Garden

Our sad little garden. After all of our hard work this spring, our garden barely grew at all. The seeds sprouted and haven't grown much since then. The plants haven't died, they just haven't grown, and they haven't produced a single thing - other than our strawberries, which we planted as full plants and have gotten a whole handful of strawberries from. I think something must be a little off with the soil. Even though the garden didn't produce a whole lot, we have loved having it finished (or almost finished). It's such a pretty little spot and next year we will be able to give more attention to helping our things grow. 

*Update: after I took these pictures in August, the garden took off! Within one week, the plants were huge and I had three zucchini, a handful of tomatoes, and two honeydew on the vine. The plants stayed the same size for almost two months, then just started producing like crazy! I feel like we got a bountiful harvest after all, yay!


Swimming with Grandma and Grandpa Peaden

I mentioned to Cal and Sue how much my kids were loving the pool this summer and they said that they would like to come with us one day. We made an event out of it and invited Jacob and Aubrey to come with us, too. Sue stayed in the shade to watch, but Cal came in his swimsuit and swam with the kids for a while. We had a great time together. 






Zachary's Birthday Party

We drove out to West Valley to celebrate Zachary's birthday with him. I haven't blogged much about Michael, Melissa, and Zachary- because mostly it's not our story to tell. But they have had a really rough life over the past 15 years that I have known them. Through all the circumstances, Melissa and I have developed a true friendship and I have appreciated all she has done to keep Zachary connected to us and the Peaden Family. Michael and Melissa got divorced earlier this year, but she still invited us all to his party. Cal, Sue, Amy, Lydia, and I were able to come and it was a nice day celebrating Zachary and we were grateful to be included, and glad we were able to show our love and support. 


End of Summer Library Pool Party

 And now the end, our last summer hurrah! We went as a family to the Lehi Outdoor Pool with the tickets that we earned from doing the summer reading program at the library. This is another of our favorite summer traditions and it was fun to have all the kids old enough to really, really enjoy it (and that all 6 of us were able to come together). Yay summer! 

This summer may have been a little slower than a typical summer might be, but in a lot of ways it was more fun and more free. Our kids are getting older and that brings changes in our schedule and our activities - but I am loving this stage with my family. I love the ages of each of my kids. I love having an 11 year old as the oldest. I love having a 4 year old as the youngest. I love how well they love each other and how we don't need any other people to adventure with (although we often have them), because these kids just love being together, too. It has been a good summer for us, and although we wish we had a few more weeks - time stops for no summer-loving-family. Onward we go! 

Garden Boxes + Shantel's Stubbornness

Last summer we started a Garden Box project in the back yard, partially because we wanted more garden space. Partially because the grass on our upper area had been taken over completely with fescue grass and we wanted to tear the whole thing out. It took us all summer, but we got the grass torn out, the dirt leveled, the boxes installed (with drainage system from roof gutter), and rock/gravel placed.  I knew that if I wanted to have them ready to plant a garden in them this summer I needed to order dirt even though we weren't really prepared. 

I called, ordered 5 cubic yards of dirt, and then told David. He was a little surprised because he's really busy with work right now and was a little worried because he wasn't going to have much time to help over the next couple of weeks. (Including one travel-trip where he would be gone.) But I was determined and I worked hard to move load after load of dirt (before we started our homeschool, after we were done with homeschool, while the kids were eating lunch and while the kids were playing outside, ect... Whatever group of minutes that I had, I worked on it. (Note: I listened to the audiobook of Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, which is a non-fiction book about the start of heavy perscription pain killers and abuse and the family that benefitted from the pain and addiction of people across america. Although it was incredibly long, it was both fascinating and awful.) 

I got started loading dirt into the garden boxes and I realized that if I wanted to add a trellis into my garden boxes, I needed to add it before I put the dirt in. Thus started the second stage of Shantel's stubborness. I called my dad to talk through how I could get a 4'x16' pig-panel home from the local Tractor Supply company to use for my trellis. (I had looked at dozens of trellises online and nothing was both in my price range and what I was looking for. I had determined that this fencing panel would be the best thing.) We talked through how to attach it to the top of my van and even watched several youtube videos about how to bring a fence panel home with a minivan. But it all seemed like a lot of work. When I asked, "But do you think I could fit it in my van - the answer was a hesitant NO. But me, knowing my van as well as I do, I thought it was possible. I convinced David to just TRY (determined that it would fit, out of force of will). We snuck out that very night after bedtime (leaving Lydia in charge) and ran over to Tractor Supply. We spent a good amount of time analyzing the panel, David unbeliving, and me insisting that it would fit. Finally, we asked if we could take one to our car and just try to fit it before purchasing it. A worker helped us unlock the panels and helped carry it over to our car. With an impressive amount of bending, it SLID RIGHT IN. There were less than 2 inches to spare. I was so excited I was hopping up and down with joy! We bought the panel, marco poloed my dad on the way home, and celebrated by letting the kids come and see. It looks like a dog cage or something, but it's my trellis! Yay. This is the thing about me being stubborn. Sometimes it's a problem and the thing that I want just dosn't work out and causes me a significant amount of extra effort and frustration. BUT SOMETIMES, that stubborness pays off and is the only way that situation would have worked out. This is one of those times that my stubbornness paid off! 

Finally the dirt was all in the boxes, and we were ready to plant our garden. We took the kids to the store and let them each pick something to plant. We ended up with pumpkins (Lydia), carrots (Austin), Honeydew (Caleb), Watermelon (Lucy), plus tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, strawberries, and blueberries. A real garden this year! I am so so happy about it.  

(Look at that tiny pile of dirt. I was SO happy when I moved the very last load of dirt!) 

Homeschool Adventures

Some more adventures we've been on as we've been up to this homeschooling thing: 

(This is the best life I can possibly imagine.) 

Alice in Wonderland at Kingsbury Hall (University of Utah). 

This is our fourth theater adventure this year. (1-Annie Get Your Gun, 2-Frozen, 3-Velveteen Rabbit, 4-Alice) We went with our little neighbor Lilly who lives next door to us and is also homeschooled. I'm so glad that Lydia has friends who have chosen the same educational path and that there are so many resources and opportunities available - like this production specifically targeted to school-aged kids! So many neat things we can be involved in. 

Spring Break Day! 

So, we didn't take a very legit Spring Break this year. Technically Spring Break was the week that the Haderlies were in Morgan when we went to stay and spend time with them - but I still had Lydia do a good portion of her school work, only taking a day or so off. I kind of felt like we didn't need a Spring Break and I was happy to keep working through our stuff. But towards the end of the month, I decided that we DID need a break so when the kids woke up I surprised them with a Spring Break Day! We headed to the mountains to go on a hike. We didn't make it all the way to the top because ... I realized about halfway that I'm 31 weeks pregnant and carrying a two year old up a shouldn't-have-been-classified-as-an-easy-spring-hike-becauseitwasactually-really-steep wasn't really on my game-plan for the day. Even though we didn't make it to the top, we made it to this beautiful river with a fun bridge. We ate a little picnic lunch right by the river and then headed back down. It was beautiful!

Spring Break Day Part 2

After our hike through the mountains we stopped at the store and picked a box of fun popcicles and took them to a fun park in Sandy that we'd never been to before. There were 12 popcicles in the box and I let them eat them until they were all gone. We played at this park for 3-4 hours. I just sat and watched while they climbed and played and laughed. We played hide and seek together and I pushed them on the swings. I wasn't expecting to stay so long, but I wasn't in a rush. It was exactly the spring break day that we needed. As the grand finale, we picked up a Little Caesars pizza on the way home and their lives were made. So glad my kids are easy to impress!

Onion Research Project

This may be one of my favorite projects that we've done all year. Lydia found an onion that had sprouted in our basement, left over from last September when we picked onions at the USU extension in Kaysville. (When I say sprouted, I mean, it had 18 inches worth of growth.) Lydia thought it was so cool and asked to learn about onions. I found a couple of YouTube videos and a website about onions (plus a couple of fun songs about onions) and we learned all about onions together. Then we spent about an hour cutting up the onion. We counted the layers and just explored the vegetable with no particular end goal in mind. At the end I had Lydia write a page about what she had learned. It was a huge homeschool success. Totally unprompted but ended up being engaging and interesting!

Reading

That's all this girl does these days. 

Planting Seeds

We did a unit on seeds and prepared to plant a garden. We planted peas, carrots, watermelon, zucchini, and corn. Lydia bought a strawberry plant with her family economy money (and I bought a tomato that I'm hoping survives until I can plant it outside). We learned about lots of different kinds of seeds and what things seeds need to grow. We will watch them grow inside until it's warm enough to transplant them outside. I have grand plans for a garden this summer with pictures of me happily weeding while the kids play outside and my baby sleeps in her bouncer next to me. I know it probably won't be so dreamy and already I'm thinking my garden eyes were bigger than my garden stomach (meaning I bought all the things but maybe should have just focused on a few things). But it's been so fun to watch our peas sprout and know that the rest of the seeds aren't far behind.