early June

We started summer vacay from school on June 5th with a foosball Home Depot project.

We had to rush back to our neighborhood for a primary activity.  It was a service carnival!  I helped out at the cotton candy machine (excessively hot and sticky job, by the way) while the kiddos went around to the different stations.  They had to perform however many acts of service that they could for the two weeks prior.  I checked off a list what each child accomplished, then they got that number of carnival tickets.  My kids beelined for the facepainting very first.  Christian got not only a Spiderman symbol,

but Batman, too.

Some cute Young Women and their leader ran this booth.

Faith opted for a bunny.

They had the most inovative homemade dunk tank (or more correctly, dump tank) and the kids absolutely loved it.  It was a medium sized plastic garbage can with the bottom cut out and a spaghetti strainer rigged on.  Inside it had a bucket that hooked up to the hose, and had some sort of float system which let the bucket fil up, but not overfill.  This whole system was held up by the net of the basketball hoop.  A pop bottle full of beans attached to a cord sat on the little ladder.  Whoever wanted to get wet just sat on the chair and let the other kids throw bean bags at the pop bottle.  When it got knocked off, it pulled the cord, tipping the bucket inside, and dumped all the water, aerated by the strainer, on their head.  Genius!

They also had throwing games, fishing pond, rubber ducks, and some others I forgot.  There were hot dogs, cans of soda, popcorn from a theater style popper, and cotton candy.  Our primary presidency put so much work into this carnival and it was such an awesome activity!  There was a great turnout, too.

We've been very careful to take good care of our garden.  We'd gotten several tomatoes by this point!

On the 5th the kids and I met up with Joy & girls, mom, and dad at the South Ogden splash pad.  It wasn't too hot, but the kids still had a lot of fun and loved that their grandparents treated us all to Micky D's afterward.

On the 14th we headed up to Park City to stay at the condo and swim.  Tony came up on the evening of the 16th for just a quick sleepover with us (darn work schedule!).  Some of the highlights were:  the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday's (how can croutons be sooooo amazing?), the kids' treks to 7-eleven with grampa, the farmer's market and especially the fresh peas and rustic bread we got there (Faith picked out the spinach and artichoke loaf! It was delicious), the shopping, and, of course, the POOL!  Here are Sierra and Lily,

and a rare moment that Buddy left the steps and ventured out with Faith (the Kiddie pool was closed for repairs).

Instead of heading straight home on the 17th, Joy treated the kids and I to the zoo.  The weather was absolutely perfect, which accounted for the completely full parking lot!  We loved watching the baby elephant, Zuri, and the kids posed on the statue that sprays people.

We got to see them feed the penguins!  Every time we see them at the zoo they are all just sitting under the shaded area, so it was nice to see them walking around and swimming.  They didn't act too enthused about the entrée, though.  They only ate the fish that didn't hit the bottom of their pool.  Maybe they'll go back for the rest as their evening snack.

We tried to get all the kids measuring their arms with the gorilla's span at the same time, but Christian wanted to do it by himself and started to throw a fit.

Finally got him happied up, and the girls had gotten too bored with it.  Oh, well!  Lily was the main one throwing fits that day, but it was still a ton of fun!

We had a little bird make a nest in our satellite dish bracket last year, but this year it was a pair of bigger birds with yellow tummies.  They spent two weeks building up the old nest and packing the top full of feathers, cottonwood fluff, and dryer lint.  We were so excited when the female laid these three darling eggs!  She got mad at us every time we went outside, she even chewed us out when we were in the garden which is on the other corner of our large yard.    

Unfortunately, this tale has a very sad end. One day we went to see if the eggs had hatched yet and found the entire top of the nest on the ground and the egg shells. Two were in pieces, but one was still whole but looked like it had been pecked in and the insides eaten out. We were devastated, but Faith (who, more often than not, is the voice of reason around here) commented that maybe the bird who ate the eggs had babies at home herself and really needed the food. I saved the nest top and little egg shell, but later that day I found that Christian had pulverized the shell to dust! To make me feel better, Faith made paper eggs and birds which she glued to toothpicks and arranged in the nest.     .  

Buddy still loves playing in the water and finds every handwashing an opportunity to make a sink full of bubbles to play in!