farmers market

On July 30th, we decided to check out the Kaysville farmers market. The kids got cute balloon animals and made an egg carton flower craft,


and I bought a apricots, raspberries, corn, tomatoes, and zuchini!
The kids tore into that fresh produce right away.








They got so crazy in their gluttony that they shared this tomato.


Then they helped me make my favorite zuchini side dish. Here, Christian's using my new Slice Wizard that we got on sale at the kitchen store in Park City.



Just put a layer of sliced zuchini, top with a sprinkle of salt Kraft powdered parmesan cheese,




then repeat to fill a square baking dish. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 6-7 minutes. Delicious!




My kids can't get enough corn on the cob this summer. Our favorite corn comes from Day farms in Layton, but this was good, too.

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Next, we made fresh salsa with the vegetable chopper (similar to the Vidalia Chop Wizard, but seemed a little sturdier) that we also got in Park City. We just chopped some tomatoes and onions with it, then added fresh cilantro, a bit of lemon juice and garlic, a few pinches of kosher salt and just a tiny bit of chopped jalapeño.




Everyone loved it! (Although Tony added nearly the rest of the can of jalapeño to his portion.)

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Friday the 30th I took the kids to eat at McDonald's because I had coupons for a free premium salad and two free apple dippers that expired the next day. The kids have been obsessed with the beanie babies that came in the happy meals for June & July! They love the little stuffed animals and also how you can play online games with them.






I love this picture, you can almost taste the joy!

Tony actually got home a little earlier than normal that night, but it was hard pulling the kids away from the playland.

The next morning we did the woodworking project at Home Depot.

Christian had his tongue out-in full concentration most of the time he was putting in the screws!

This project was the cutest yet, they're little memo boards with a white board side and a cork side.

After that, we drove to Day Farms to get even more produce. Faith's snapping beans in this picture. I was surprised how much my kids loved them.

And here are the little monkeys demonstrating how fun and dangerous my bed is. They're always treating it like a playland/monkey bars/fort!

The G Week Games

On July 29th, Joy invited us to participate in their Letter G Games which they were holding for G week.
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(Is Christian getting into the spirit of G week by being "gross"?)

We started off with Golf, since Joy had forgotten to make it a sign (the slacker).



Faith won the gold medal for that one!
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Then we stated with number 1, Got Goals. (Isn't it so cute that Joy went all out for this? What a great mom!)

The kids took turns kicking a ball over to the swingset "goal".

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Second was the Gliding Goop Game where they had to chase each other around and keep the goop on their spoons while trying to knock everyone else's off.

They were lucky that the goop was a bit dried out and rubbery and stayed on the spoons pretty well. Even at that, the littler ones had trouble!

For the Geological Gemstone Grab the kids had to dig through a bucket of rocks to find a shiny "gem".

It took them awhile and they finally had to empty some of the rocks onto the grass to find one. (Have fun mowing the grass right there Jordan!)

. . . . . . . Sierra got one first!

Then Go Grasshopper, Go! They had to hop to the finish line.

For Goat Galloping to the Gong, the kids were in a relay where they ran to get a toy goat, then galloped back to the slide and hit the gong.

You can see that Faith takes any kind of race very seriously.

Look at her go!

Faith is demonstrating how to play the Goose Game, but Buddy doesn't look too thrilled to be gotten. It was basically just freeze tag, but you had to goose someone to tag them!

Joy couldn't help getting into the fun!

But you know that sports with any kind of bum pinching or spanking is my family's forte, and Faith excelled at it.

In Gunshot the kids got to shoot a nerf gun

which they were aiming at a "G" on the window. We decided that it was time for a break and saved getting wet for last.

For their gold medals, the kids got Rollos which were wrapped in gold foil. (I meant to get the individually wrapped ones, but forgot that they weren't in the rolls anymore--just the bags.)

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We then had a snack with Goldfish crackers, grapes, graham crackers, and grasshopper cookies.

Just before we left, we did the last activity: Guns & Grenades. Joy couldn't find her grenade looking water balloons at the last minute (they still have quite a few things packed), but the kids enjoyed the heck out of the water guns. We sure had a great time and love that Joy & kids had us over for the Letter G Games!!
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When we got home, the kids and I made butter as a late pioneer day activity. We had done it at our party with Ann & Natalie a week and a half earlier, and were craving some more. We put it on Aspen Mills cinnamon swirl bread and it was delicious!

Tony's vacation, part 2

The morning of July 22nd, we packed up and drove up to the Uintahs. Tony had gotten the kids fishing poles and they were dying to use them!

We first got our tent set up at the Butterfly Lake campground and then hiked the short distance down to the water.
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Christian says "Butterfwy Wake" so cute!:





Tony and I took turns casting for Christian, but Faith learned pretty quickly to do it for herself.

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Here's one I got on video:



Tony let Buddy reel this fish in and he was so excited! He even had to pet the little thing. Faith told him that we were going to eat it and Christian said, "I not want my fish to died!"

When Christian got tired of fishing, I wandered around with him for awhile. I took this picture sitting at a picnic table in an empty campground. I wish we had noticed this one! Then we could have actually rolled out of bed and down to the lake in the morning :)









Buddy was also very excited about finding this "doggy foot print."



After awhile, Christian got pretty tired and was laying on a rock. His sweet sister came to his rescue and let him relax on her lap for awhile.






Faith reeled in this little beauty of Tony's.


I don't know what Tony was in the middle of saying or doing in this photo, but I don't think I've seen that particular expression on him before!



When we got back to camp, we roasted hot dogs for dinner and then, of course, did marshmallows, too.


We slept pretty well that night in our tent even though the hard ground wreaked a bit of havok with the bodies of us old people. It didn't get cold at all and, as you can see, Tony & Christian slept in pretty late.





I made a camp breakfast feast of eggs, bacon, sausage, orange juice, milk and hot chocolate. I heated the water in a kettle and the kids had never seen or heard one before! I had to stop everything for a minute and teach them the "I'm a little teapot" song!

The kids loved everything about camping. Even making "waterfalls" with the dirt!

Christian never figured out how to cast, but he sure loved reeling it in by himself.

Even though Tony let Faith reel in a fish of his day before and two that day, she decided that she absolutely had to catch a fish all by herself on a line she'd cast out. It was getting late and I was worried that it might not happen, when she finally got one! Not long after that, she caught another!! What a great little fisherwoman, especially for her first try. Tony said that she's already caught more fish and can cast out farther than Tammy, who was drug along camping and fishing her entire young life ;)

However, she wasn't quite perfect at it. In fact, she had so many flub casts that hit the rocks and broke so many water bulbs that we ran out! Tony thought that the new 10-pack he bought would last us for two days, but now we know that we should buy double or triple that for next time.

After pulling Faith away from her new favorite sport, we headed back to Kaysville. We got home and spent just over an hour showering, unpacking and repacking the car and headed right out to the condo at Park City!

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We met up with my parents, sisters and their families and had fun eating out and doing lots of swimming.

We did just a little bit of shopping this time. Mom bought Faith this for next year

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and the sweater for school. Celeste got the same one and Alaura and Sierra got the same style in different colors. We're going to dress them up to match for Thanksgiving!

We hadn't been 0n the Alpine Slide for a few years, so we thought we'd take the kids. Here we are riding up the mountain on the ski lift,

and the kids at the bottom of the slide. Christian's not happy because he wanted to go "dust one more time?!!!"

They also had an outside inflatable fun area that we paid for the kids to participate in.

We had such a fun time! The kids keep begging to go back on the Alpine slide and I told them that we would try to make it a yearly tradition.

Before we left the condo and headed home, Joy broke out some bandanas and made them into pioneer handkerchief dolls. She meant to do the activity on Friday for pioneer day, but we just didn't get to it. They turned out so cute!

Late that afternoon, we finally got home to stay. Tony lit off a few "daylight" fireworks before Christian passed out for a late, but completely overdue, nap (and the rest of us totally vegged out). They were fun little parachute guys and these colorful streamer "spiders" that the kids loved to watch falling from the sky and ran to catch.

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We sure did fit a lot of fun with friends, family, and ourselves into Tony's summer vacay!