Summertime!

Yay, it's summertime! Finally! I am enjoying kids being out of school and Ellie is enjoying having her brother around. Devon can't wait to start 2nd grade! He's so excited that he gets to be in a new grade when he goes back to school. Too bad he's got to wait until August.

It's only been a couple of weeks of summer for us and it's been busy. First there was the super fun 4th of July weekend. We had two baby blessings down in the Provo area we got to attend. Those were followed by hanging out with family, talking, laughing and even some deep conversations. Then the next day we got the fireworks show. The kids were looking forward to it! Ellie lasted about 5 minutes before she couldn't sit still anymore. Devon did really well this year. He sat through the whole 30 minute show! Sadly the 4th was on a Monday this year and Jared had to go back to work early Tuesday morning, exhausted! But it was a fun weekend.

Then, this past weekend, we hiked up Adams Canyon again with Adam and Leslie. The river was flowing faster than last time we went and the rocks at the top had been washed away some from the fast flowing waterfall. We had to wade through some fast moving water that was a few inches deep to get to the other side. I love that hike. It's always worth all the work and muscle burn to get up there! This time, I got under the falls! It was FREEZING so I could only handle a few seconds of it. Jared and Adam got under a few times. Those two are crazy. Amazingly, you warmed up pretty fast. I was surprised that my clothes weren't dry by the end. Of course, we stopped and played in the river on the way down too. We were careful about where we played, with the fast moving water, you don't want the kids getting caught up in it.

Yesterday, I took a bike ride with the kids as it was nice weather. We've had many off and on thunderstorms this summer. Today is one of those cloudy days and it's already rained at least once. I don't mind summer rain (love to play in it and dance around) but when it comes to lightning I don't think it's best to take the kids out in that.

The rest of the summer we are trying to plan out as we can. Jared is still going to school full-time so it's more challenging to just do things. We are also paying off debt as fast as we can so next year, when Jared is finished with school and debt is gone, we can buy a tent trailer and have our fun! (Hopefully Jared has the same job...the hours are just too good)

This weekend is the annual Antelope Moonlight Bike Ride. It's a 22 mile bike ride out on Antelope Island at 10pm. You get to ride by the light of the full moon (and your required headlight). Right now Jared is all signed up for it and we're working on the sitter situation so I can go. Should be fun!! We want to go hiking more this summer and hopefully camping sometime but gas prices aren't so friendly for travelling right now. At the end of summer we are hoping to take a vacation home, but we'll have to see what works out. We might even get to do something for our 10 year anniversary this year...we don't really know. With school and tight finances, you do what you can. Right now we are just hoping for a hike, a picnic and a take-out dinner after the kids go to bed. We'll see what we can get worked out.

All in all, it's going to be a busy summer! We have a lot going on and lots of fun things around. Hopefully the weather clears up and the kids can have fun. I'm also trying to find things to keep them busy! So hard! I'll have to look up some free activities.