Last Hurrahs of Summer

Summer decided to end with a bang (100 degrees on Saturday, August 30th) and like the curtain going down, it was suddenly cold and rainy on September 1st. Okay, I guess it's fall now. It's lovely today, though, and I could stand many months of cool afternoons in the 70's.

We tried to have a few end-of-summer celebrations last week. The first came (I can't believe this) one week ago yesterday - it was a million degrees that day. TL and I decided to take our kids up to Pineview Reservoir in Ogden for the day. She does this every year, and last year we tried to go but it never worked out. It was actually a lovely day, though toasty. It's amazing how kids just instinctively know what to do at the beach: throw rocks, write in the sand with sticks, build sand piles, dig, hop in the water and even swim a little. I think TL and I went through an entire bottle of sunscreen that day, it was such a cooker. That's got to be an annual event, though. What a beautiful reservoir.



A highlight for me was finding a sitter for the kids last Saturday afternoon and going to "Rapunzel's Roundup" - a book signing at the Foothill Branch library. Shannon Hale's new graphic novel, Rapunzel's Revenge was just released, and she was there, along with her co-author and husband, Dean, and the illustrator of the book, also a Hale (Nathan, though unrelated to Shannon & Co.), as well as a whole panel of Utah authors of young adult novels. I have to admit, that I get rather starry eyed when I go to these things. I guess the fact that I go to them at all (by myself, no young adults in tow) shows you that I'm a little passionate about these books. I think I just love the young adult genre and I think I have a secret (well, not anymore, I guess now that I'm writing this) desire to try my hand at a little writing myself. It was really fun to hear what the authors had to say and get a little part of Rapunzel acted out for us by the authors/illustrator:


I guess I need to make my writing more of a priority and spend a little time on it every day. I don't really hope to publish a book or anything like that, but to do some writing I'm proud of would feel good.

The really big last hurrah of the summer was taking the kids out for crab legs. Stomper has been begging for crab legs ever since he saw them on ice at Costco. I don't get this kid. He generally won't eat pizza. Pizza, I tell you. The favorite food of kids everywhere. It has red sauce on it, you see. But the boy begs me for seafood. Pretty much anything on which you can still see body parts - eyes, fins, shells - anything will suffice. He wants to eat it. I bet I could get him to eat octopus, no problem. I think it's his inner biologist. Anyway, I heard that Joe's Crab Shack out in Sandy had a kid's play place and a kid's crab leg meal, so that's where we headed. I had planned on letting Bitty have a date with her daddy while Stomper and I went, but I decided that it was more important for us to get one step closer to having a toilet in our house so Bitty came with, thus freeing up Troy to keep on working. And I'm so glad she came. Oh my gosh, those kids went nuts. They chowed down on thier food, and were begging me for more at the end. Talk about champagne taste on a beer budget...crab meat? Well, I love it too, I have to confess...




So that's it! Summer's over! The truth is, between the bathroom project (coming along nicely, thanks) and the heat, we didn't end up doing much over the past month. I'm looking forward to some beautiful fall afternoons for doing all the stuff I didn't do over the summer. We'll keep you posted.