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.