Summer has Ended

Summer has ended and school has begun.  Boy does the time fly when having fun.  We did lots of fun things.

We enjoyed the Springville Reservoir until they started charging for parking.  The kids were not excited about being in the water and spent all of their time on the sand.

We went to the Clark Planetarium and had a blast learning lots of science stuff

We saw a super huge moth one Sunday morning.

Henry got a tooth pulled that was damaged.  He was a little scarred but after I told him he can help kids when he is a dentist he was pretty excited.  It solidified in his mind that he wanted to be a dentist.

When Henry found out there was a dentist in our ward he became really obsessed.  The dentist in our ward gave Henry his first dental tool, a little mirror.  Henry loves to "fix" Annette's teeth all of the time.

We dug a hole into our front yard to attach our sprinkler box into the water line.

It was a big project that we are glad is done. 

We saw the hot air balloons for the 4th of July.

We did the splash pad which the kids were not thrilled about.

They hardly got wet and begged to be done.  They had a little fun, but weren't impressed and just wanted to play on the toys.

The Scottish Festival was fun again this year.

The kids loved wadding into the pond at Payson Park where the Scottish Festival is.

We had many super heroes during the summer.

And many silly faces.

We drove the loop from Spanish Fork Canyon to the Springville Canyon.  It was gorgeous!

Charles and Annette went dispersement camping (that is a fancy new word that we learned meaning "camping not at an official campsite") without the kids.  It was super fun and we really loved it.

When we buy bananas they either rot on the counter or they are eaten the moment we get home.  Eating bananas is the kid's preferred method of eating them.

Lizzy is a hoot!

She loves her sun glasses that she wears right over her regular glasses.

The kids finally really discovered Calvin and Hobbes.  Annette spent many hours this summer reading them to the kids.  The kids unfortunately don't get all of the great humor in them yet.  Henry and ElizaBelle love to look at the pictures and do the voices while "reading" them.

We have a bumper crop of sunflowers in our yard.  Annette has been cutting a large amount to make beautiful bouquets with them.

We got lots of free wood in the form of large trees from a friend.  Charles spent countless hours chopping it all.

The kids played pretty well with one another through the summer.

We really did love the bugs.  This was a gigantic grasshopper on our screen door.  There are tons of crickets on the empty home lots and it is fun to watch them jump around like crazy. 

We enjoyed our cousins and had a great water balloon fight.  If you look closely you can see a water balloon about to hit Tara square in the face that Charles threw. 

Charlie got Charles pretty well, too.

We had the kids all line up for a picture after water balloons.

We us adults found our inner child and got the kids pretty good.

Henry told me that he just loved spending time with Noelle.

With summer there are always a plethora of impromptu naps.

We went to the Santaquin Museum and while waiting for Grandma and Grandpa the kids hid under the branches of a tree so they could scare their grandparents.

We went on a hike and since we got there early we took photos in front of a river at the trailhead.

The hike up the Battlecreek Falls was pretty nice and the waterfall was beautiful.

We finished digging out our pond where the waterfall's stream will empty into.  We are pretty sure that we hit the bottom of the Bonneville Lake that used to be in Utah a long time ago.  We hit a layer of plants that sure looked like plants that grow in the bottom of lakes.  And the dirt underneath the plants was so incredibly hard not even our pick could really make a dent in it.

On days when the kids were going crazy we would take a walk. 

We went to see the llamas a few times that are in Elk Ridge.

We went to the Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake.  Only Eliza knows how to smile properly I guess.  The boys are in the stage of trying to look stupid in photos.

Vulture, I think.

The flamingos were so very fun.

A flamingo chick had hatched the day before.  When the kids saw the mom sit on the chick they asked Annette if she sat on them when they were babies.

And there was an egg that still needed to hatch. 

We saw a bird show while there and we learned a lot of cool things.

Our little kids turned into birds!

We fed some birds while at the aviary.

This is Annette's arm and hand because as the mom she was the one taking the pictures.

The kids had a blast and it was a super fun day.

After the aviary we took some bird seed to the duck pond in Springville and fed the ducks.

There was one very brave bird that ate right from Charles and Annette's hand.  He was a very friendly duck.

We had a very great summer!