Saturday, June 14, 2014

June 14, 2014
















We went to the Kimball Reunion at This is the Place Heritage Park today.  And it was awesome. We met Grandma and Grandpa Anderson and Uncle Craig there for the afternoon.  We had never been there before.  But it was amazing.  Our kids enjoyed an afternoon of riding a train around a faux pioneer village.  Our first stop was Brigham Young's farm house.  Kate love this most, and liked seeing all the artifacts and how they lived and the fact that the house was pink.  I heard her telling our neighbor about it later.  Also we got in free because of the Kimball reunion today and I heard Sam and Kate feeling special telling people at the park how we were special guests.  Love it.  We  rode the train and viewed an old print shop, made old time crafts, saw some Native Americans, blacksmith's rode ponies, and then got back on the train and traveled to a native american village, made native american crafts, played on a pilgram ship and panned for gold- where we actually found gold (fake gold they stock the river with)  So many things to see and do we could have spent an entire day here easily, but babies only last so long in strollers.  Then we went out to dinner again with Grandma Grandpa and Craig.  Another super fun long day.  Between yesterday's aquarium and today's pioneer adventure we feel like we are on a little staycation.  The kids have been talking every since about pioneers and indians and pilgrams and all kinds of things they loved learning about today.

June 13, 2013

























We have instituted Field Trip Friday suddenly.  Which is where Jake stops working at 1pm and we go on a family field trip.   It is summer after all you know!
This Friday's field trip was to the brand new Aquarium in Draper, UT.  It was amazing.  And so  fun.  We saw all kinds of animals, to singing kids skipping down halls of fish and snakes and sharks.  There were happy faces and delighted children.  Even Bethy pointed saying "ish" .  We even got things at the gift shop. Kate's favorite thing of the whole day even was this little magic worm.   There were sharks to be seen in tunnels, sting rays to pet, snakes, turtles, penguins dancing, one of those rare perfect afternoons where nobody whines and everyone is happy.  We went out to dinner and to visit Amy and her kids before heading home.
We are feeling very blessed lately.  It is a magically time when we don't have any super small babies and I am not pregnant. Which makes for the Freeman's out on adventures again. We haven't been this way since before we were pregnant with Marianne.  But Jake, Kate, Sam and I use to be out on adventure all the time.  We are having some of the same fun once again and loving it.

May 26- June 13 2014














































We are having an amazing summer so far.
The hard evidence of that is that I'm not on my computer ever, and such am super behind on the blog.
I'll make a little comment for these pictures but mostly they are pictures of kids playing outside and eating ice cream.  Yup- sounds like summer to me.  We really have been spending so much time outside the kids skin can hardly take it.  They are loving it though and so am I.

1-2.  Sam's water party the week before his school got out.  I arrived early to pick him up and snuck these pictures of him playing.

3-5  Marianne and Bethy outside.  Marianne and I drew together on the sidewalk with chalk.  I am trying to be better about playing on the floor with my kids and this was one of those mornings.  Marianne and I drew sidewalk chalk forever.  She drew octopus and spiders- which looked the same to me, but she would step on the spiders to squish them when she finished coloring them and not the octopus.

6-7.  Sam and Marianne and Bethy and I went to a park in town we don't often go to.  We were the only ones there- and we got ice cream cones too.  It was quiet and perfect.  Until Marianne went to lick her ice cream cone and the entire top fell into the park bark.  There were tears in classic kid drops an ice cream cone scene.  Lucky for her I had got me and Bethany one to share and gave it to her instead Crisis averted.

8-9.  Kate on her way to the last day of first grade.  We all rode our bikes and scooters with her to the bus that morning which we don't always do.  She did amazing in school.  I dug through her backpack still full of stuff a week after the last day to find a report card and a certificate for "Outstanding Student" and a stellar report car.  She didn't even mention or show me. It is no big deal to her I guess because she knows she is awesome!

10.  After the last day of school our neighbor invited tons of friends over for a water party.  There were mass amounts of kids, mom's and Popsicle.

11-12.  Kids in the yard. Eating ice cream.  I told you kids eating ice cream is what this post is about basically.  And the kids playing in our river.  We made a dry creek last year in the yard.  We lined it with excellent weed barrier not planning to really put water in it all the time, but we did it once and the kids LOVED it.  Well of course they did.  It is basically a little splash pad in our backyard.   And those necklaces around our kids necks are part of the Heber unplugged Program.  The Chamber of Commerce sets up all kinds of activities and gets lots of local businesses involved and kids earn "brag tags" or little dog tags they put on their necklace.  The tags are counted at the tourist center and entered to win prizes.  The kids love showing off their brag tags and comparing which tags they have to their friends.  And it is fun to have something we could go do in town everyday that is mostly free.

13-21  Free fishing day. We went to Free Fishing Day again.  We went last year and didn't catch anything and broke a bunch of old poles.  This year be bought all new poles for the occasion and bait and were ready.  We set off early.  And we ended up catching one small fish.  We were in a great place too- the men near us were catching one every few minutes. We just have no idea what we are doing.  Sam reeled the fish in though it was a joint effort.  I actually spent more time in the car driving around Bethany who is a monster between the hours of 9-12 if she isn't asleep.

22-  Kid playing in the playhouse.  What is most fun, is how much Bethany suddenly loves to play in these, and how in doing so she seems all grown up.

23-24. Our garden is still so beautiful.  We took a picture of it to earn our "Grow a Tomato Brag Tag"  We took our picture to a cafe in town where they handed us our tag, and surprised us with free gelato.  Bethany sitting eating her ice cream with the kids made her seem so grown up as well.  There was dropped ice cream at this kids eating ice cream event as well.  But they were kind enough and gave us another.

25-33. More kids playing in the yard.  We finished the last corner of the yard. It had been sitting a pile of weeds and rocks. We finally finished it with weed barrier, tons of sand gravel, a climber dome, and a little bridge to cross over the river to get to it all.    I actually hired a babysitter for the day because I wanted to finish it and we never have more than a few minutes to work on a project with kids to care for.  It worked great and we were able to finish that day. The playhouses are sitting there as well.  We put soap on the tramp and a bunch of water to make a sud pool which was fun, but the kids were quickly back in the river splashing away pretending it was a tide pool and panning for gold.  We often have a gathering of neighbor kids all over the place in our fun new place.  Last week I sat in the grass watching the kids splash and play and run all over their new made river beach.  I was so content watching them all be so happy and care free, I felt like it was a piece of heaven.  Or a minute that I was meant to live.

34-35  Two last picture from my phone of my dear Bethany.