Summer Happenings

What a pace! The summer is flying by. I'm so proud of myself for enjoying the summer and filling our days with outings and plans. As a result, time is in warp speed and suddenly CTP starts school next week. I'm in shock. I didn't realize that the school where his Pre-K class is is a year-round school. Frankly, I'm not ready for summer to come to a close just yet. I know we have plenty of heat left, just not the empty care-free days. I know this will probably be a good thing that I'll get used to, but for the moment I'm very sad to be losing my buddy for three hours a day, four days a week.

Anyway, time is rushing so fast that I haven't gotten a chance to keep up with the many events of July...

Event I: Grandpa's 70th Birthday
Grandpa Morris (Troy's dad) had quite the shin-dig in his back yard for his 70th. We brought our inflatable pool, and the grandkids had a ball (see photo of leaping nephew Curtis). There were six kids leaping in and out of that thing for two hours. After dinner I looked in a the water and decided that a swamp had sprung up - I've never seen such filthy water. In my mind filth is a sign of good times. Morris and Carol's neighbors, the Canfields, who I might have to adopt, hauled over a grill and made some seriously great steaks. Morris got an RC airplane from his wife - good job, Carol!

Event II: Pioneer Day

Again, Becky saved the day by providing the holiday activity for us. We enjoyed the afternoon at her house eating good food and watching the annual Butlerville Days Parade - it's a pretty good one. Although, I have to wonder why the police cars and fire engines feel it's a good idea to honk their super loud horns while the street is packed with young children. I also enjoyed being pelted with salt-water taffy - some of those kids on the floats had pretty good arms and pretty good aim. Ouch. I had to laugh as I watched myself push my kids to pick up as much candy as possible out of the gutters where it had landed. Isn't this usually something I would discourage? But there we all were, urging our kids to scoop it up. And eat it.

Event III: Harry Potter

Who am I kidding? It should be event #1, don't you think? I gobbled this book up in two days fearing that someone would read it faster and then spoil the ending for me. It turned out that everyone else I knew took at least a couple more days than I did to finish and I was in agony with no one to discuss it with. I won't say more, but if you'd like to discuss, call me. Sigh. I love that Harry Potter. What I'm happy about is that CTP is starting to listen to me read chapter books. This is a joy to my heart. I have the fondest memories of my mother reading books to us at bedtime or in the car on trips, and I've been waiting my whole life to start reading to my own child. This month we've read Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat and Fantastic Mr. Fox by Rhoad Dahl. It's so fun to hear him be as excited about these stories as I was. We're probably not ready for Harry just yet....

Event IV: Zoo After Dark
Last Monday we had this HUGE day - a trip to the library in the morning, a boisterous lunch with friends at Laird Park, swimming with cousin Smith and Oma...you'd think that would be enough, right? But of course the stars were all aligned perfectly for everything to happen on the same day, and it was the night that I had registered for us to attend a "Zoo After Dark" tour. I guess I thought that it was kind of free wandering around for three hours, but it was actually a specially guided tour. And as luck would have it, only one other family signed up for that night. So there were two darling zoo keepers, Katie and Maggie, who gave us a very personal tour complete with some animal interaction. I think three hours was perhaps a bit long for us (luckily RAP had taken a nap - 20 minutes seem to be enough to keep her going until midnight - no kidding) but we really enjoyed the cool quiet zoo.

This picture is hard to see - it's the cougar looking very longingly at Chase. I think I might have seen it lick its lips, even...

Event(s) V: Hooray for Friends!

Hooray for our friend Steve, who delivered his own baby on their bathroom floor last week - and hooray for his wife Mary who had to be the laboring deliveree... Hooray for my friend Kathryn Hart, cousin and dear friend from my mission who I visited today after a couple years. I love those friends that you can see only periodically and yet you are so yourself with them, and always have been, that it makes no difference how often you see them. Our boys played so well - they just took off and heartily played. The didn't surface for hours. Success! Our girls, who are so similar in temperament it's almost scary, also did pretty well. They even said their pouty little "no!"s in exactly the same way, sometimes at exactly the same time. And hooray for the Durhams who came to see me for an hour even though their time was tight as they were visiting in SLC. Thanks friends. I could use a little more time with you - only a month or so - would that be okay?