Summer Adventures - June

June has been an interesting month - it's been SO cold. More like spring than summer. Lots of cloudy, rainy, overcast days, and temperatures ranging from 66-75 degrees for most of the month. In addition, we were sick most of the month. Not incredibly sick, and not all at one time, but for most of the month one or two people in the family just didn't feel particularly well - and the weather and sickness combined led us to have a slow, home-centered, month. It is different than our regular summer schedule of going all the places and doing all the things, but it's just been SO nice to be home without many other obligations. 

However, we did manage a handful of adventures: 

Our favorite thing is to take Swimming Lessons in the Spring before summer hits, but we didn't make it happen this year. Thankfully we were able to catch some early-summer swim lessons and the kids all did great! Swimming is such an important skill and my kids all love to swim, so it's important to me that they learn to swim well enough to be safe. I have dreams of them being on a swim team, but until that happens, we are grateful for swim lessons at the Lehi Legacy Center

(Lydia) 

(Caleb) 

(Austin, left - Lucy, right)


Then we put those swimming lessons to good use by hitting up our neighborhood pool as often as we could! Lucy loves the water, maybe the most of any of the kids, and she swims HARD. Jumping, swimming from the wall to me and back again, over and over and over. But at about one hour- she is done. She is cold and tired and happy to get out of the pool, wrap up in a towel and eat snacks. The other kids keep playing for longer, but she is at 100% energy for 60 minutes and then she is done. Caleb usually joins her quickly after and I let Lydia and Austin play until we really have to leave. I love having this neighborhood pool. It's one of the best things about living here. 

We spent time playing in the front yard on bikes and scooters. 





We went to our favorite Lehi parades! The mini float parade will always be our favorite and we have started getting Lehi Bakery donuts every time we go. We were lucky enough to meet up with the Renchers and Kevin for the Grand parade this year and that was fun. 

Ali Middleton hosted a summer book club. We read "Charlottes Web" then had a book club party where we talked about the book and had some carnival activities. It was a wonderful day. Caleb won the watermelon eating contest for his age bracket and was so proud! 

We had Juniper come and play for a couple of days. I love that she and Lucy look like twins. Also, these are my favorite sunglasses of Lucy's right now. I love them and I love her. Summer can be hardest for Lucy because of her eyes and skin but she is handling things like a champion. 

Lydia and Austin got to go to Camp Tracy boy scout camp for a Primary Activity Day Camp and they loved that. Plus more bike riding at home. Lucy is doing so well on her bike and it makes me so happy. 





The Ashton Gardens has an exhibit there right now with giant mechanical dinosaurs so we made sure to go check it out. We are so lucky to have such beautiful areas so close to our house. 






We went to the Library Summer Kickoff program with our neighbors, the Wards. I'm grateful for a supportive local library who hosts so many neat things for the kids. 



It's been a great June, and although I am looking forward to the warmer weather coming - I'm grateful for the good summer we've had so far. 

Starting the year off right.

One of my very favorite weeks of the whole year is the week following the holidays before David has to go back to work. Sometimes its a short week between Christmas and New Years, but this week we were busy with family stuff all the way through New Years and David was able to take some extra time off before having to go back to work, so we had the whole first week of January to rest and enjoy each other's company without having to jump back into our regular routines/regular life just yet. I loved this week. It was the best part of Hygge. Slow, cozy, filled with just our family. 

We had some slow mornings with book reading and making pancakes with chocolate chips. I think the picture of Caleb and Lydia shows them eating a cookie. Because what's a week of hygge without a giant cookie to stick in your mouth.?

Brooklyn and Matthew stopped by for a quick visit with Juniper. When we first met little Juni, she and Lucy looked SO different size wise (2 weeks vs 2 months is a HUGE difference) but now they are getting close to the same. I hope that these two will be great friends as they grow older! 

Our biggest highlight of the week was heading to the Hogle Zoo for their Zoo lights event. Sue (and Cal) gave us a season pass to the Zoo this year for Christmas and we are SO excited to be able to use it. We loaded up and it was brisk outside, but really not very cold. But because of the weather the lions were RIGHT by the big windows and it was AWESOME to see them up so close! I mean, you know lions are big, but I was amazed to see how big they really are.  (My mama instincts definitely kept telling me that I shouldn't let my babies so close to these big cats. Even though I knew we were safe, I had to laugh at those subliminal instincts.) 

One of my personal favorite nights of this week was when David and I finished our Logan UT puzzle that we've been working on for... well... for the past year. I think we started it last New Years Eve-ish? We'd pull it out every once in a while for a movie/date night and really enjoyed it. It doesn't matter what I'm doing, as long as I'm doing it with David, it's my favorite thing to do. 

But if that this is watching While You Were Sleeping (my favorite New Years Movie) and doing a puzzle while eating snacks together- then it REALLY is my favorite thing to do!