In Like a Lion

I know this phrase is often used in reference to the onset of Spring, but this year I'm choosing to apply it to summer. Spring was more like..."In like a psychotic hamster." At least that's how I felt about these last few somewhat bipolar months. Anyway, this week was officially our first week of summer as far as being out of school and stuff. We totally took it by storm. As I have mentioned in the past I find the heat of summer plus the schedule-less days to be rather oppressive, and my best defense is to plan a bus-load of fun and kind of grab the season by the horns. I guess I got a little over enthusiastic because this week was a wee bit over the top.

I'll give you the run down, in case you care, which you probably don't, but I want to get this down for posterity.

Monday - the start of swimming lessons, immediately followed by meeting my mom downtown at the Church Museum of History and Art (she's a docent there) for a special day of activities and crafts. Swimming went pretty well, except that Bitty's tot-class teacher is totally an old school lady, who kind of just grabs your kids (from out of your arms!) and brings them in the water with her whether they're crying or not. Bitty had been excited until another child in the class started screaming, and then of course Bitty started screaming too. It was a little upsetting at first, and I was thinking of complaining or something. But by the end of the class Bitty was in heaven (and screaming because I was getting her out of the water) and the next day the other little screamer only spent half of the class crying, so I think Linda wasn't so bad after all. It's not like she's mean - she's sweet with the kids. It's just that she doesn't try to get the kids to warm up to her at all. After the museum and picnic lunch we spent the rest of the afternoon playing with friends and getting muddy.

Tuesday was round two of swimming, then lunch at The Becky's, followed by hours of play, and then dashing off to the gym. Basically the kids were away from the house for like 10 hours.

Wednesday was a miserably cold swimming lesson, followed by a marathon zoo trip with the Grovers and Grundvigs. I don't think I've ever spent five hours straight at the zoo before but that's what we did. The kids had so much fun, and then we played on my friend Ruth's front yard for an hour or so.

Thursday we skipped swimming due to more chilly air, and instead trekked up to Ogden to the Dino park with the Mayfields, plus of course we had to play at their house for a while when we returned.

Friday my mom took the kids to the park and the library, then we had friends over for the rest of the day. Plus I was totally manly and helped Troy lug a literal truck load of dirt out of the basement. Wish I had taken a picture of that one!

Saturday we traded babysitting with the Grovers, shopped for Father's Day, cleaned out tons of boxes from the basement, then went to a BBQ at our friends' home in Woods Cross. That was also so so fun. Troy and I were both very happy to just sit still on lawn chairs, eat a yummy dinner and watch the kids frolic.

Today we kind of went to church (don't ask) and then had all the parents plus my sister and her girls over for a BBQ. I was so happy. In that group are one vegetarian, one, uh, meat-arian? and some dieters. Not a good combo to cook for so I just said forget it and we did burgers (some of the meat variety and some of the not meat variety) and hot dogs and salads and fruit and basically it was totally awesome. I haven't enjoyed a big old hamburger for such a long time! One piece of advice: No matter how much your nose is running, do not take Benadryl before guests come over. About half-way through the meal I felt like I hit a brick wall and could barely keep my eyes open. I was pretty much drooling and slurring my speech and not completing sentences. It was awesome.

So now it's Sunday night, 9:30, somehow the kids are still awake (but lying down in bed in a dark room so that shouldn't last too long) (actually it's now 10:30 and it did last a long time...) and I can finally get a little down time! Tomorrow it seems we're starting the fun at break-neck speed again as we head back to swim lessons, and are planning dinner at the Mayan, a trip to the aquarium and Stomper's summer school this week. I can hardly complain because I have too much fun stuff to do. I don't know if I can keep it up all summer, though. We do need a few lazy days in the sun, I think.

I just had to include this little video from the museum on Monday. One of the stations was about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and they tried to teach the kids a few things about music. It was pretty much totally over Stomper's head, but then at the end when they had all the kids get up and pretend to audition for the choir I was laughing like crazy. He just looked so intent, so serious. He looked a little upset even, but when it was done, he was so proud of himself. He wore his little badge for the rest of the day.



Here's a little slide show with the highlights of the week. Whew! Long entry, long week!