June Activities

It was so busy, but with bigger things, not as many small ones, but here are the fillers:

-Swim Lessons are going really well. Girls all leveled up while I was in DC, but they don't have openings right now so we have to keep them in their current until it's open. But I'm okay with that because I feel Gwen and Cara could get more practice before going onto the fancy learning stuff. Lucy is still too nervous about putting her face into the water, so hopefully she'll get comfortable with that soon. Love having them on Sundays!

-The girls ALL have a missing front tooth all together and I just HAD to get a picture to commemorate it.

-Kids got to do a campout with Dad in the backyard on the 6th since it's finally getting warm enough at night to test out how they'd do. He made it even more fun by letting the kids stay up to play Minecraft for a while (he let me just go to bed) and then, after putting Pierce to bed inside, he took them out to the tent when it started to get dark. They ended up staying up really late (he said they went out when it got dark, but stayed up looking at stars and didn't fall asleep till 11), then woke up around 2-3 with Cara's snorting, and then up for good at 5 AM. I was surprised they didn't wake me up since I like to keep our window open. But overall, I was glad I got some good sleep, Larry was DRAGGING! (don't blame him though)

-We definitely made sure to hit up Chevron for Free Frazil Fridays, of course! It's funny to think last Summer Larry was taking them to get them since he didn't work last Summer.

-Lucy's 1:1s, She went with Dad on the 11th to get some Froyo (of course. Then on the 16th with me, I took her to Wal Mart to get her a new outfit (she kind of needed one so I thought that would be good for her need gift) and then I let her pick out a watch, instead of getting a treat (since she just went with Larry and we knew we had a ton of candy leftover from her birthday and party). She almost picked swim suit instead of watch, but once she saw the watches, she really liked those. Now the other girls want one just like it, of course!

-Summer means lots of activities for kids (so they don't get sick of being at home...plus I need to do SOMETHING on my breaks, might as well make them fun) - 6/6 splash pad; 6/23 painting

Splash pad adventures!

Letting the kids have fun with painting

-My favorite pics of the kids this month:

Ultimate Memory Maker: Lagoon!

Lagoon is one of those places I remember going every Summer when I was growing up. It's a place I looked forward to taking my family to when they were big enough to ride the rides. Then I saw how expensive it had become and I no longer had that dream, haha. I also am one of those that doesn't love that they have the animals in cement cages and didn't want to give them my money if it wouldn't help that.

Well, I had been thinking about taking them this year as a one time thing. I was hoping to get a Get Out Pass that would've been a decent discount and I could convince myself that the money just went to the other venues, and not Lagoon. THEN a story came out saying they were going to re-home the animals elsewhere and I felt MUCH better about getting the tickets. I still don't love how much they cost, but figured we'd be using our usual vacation funds towards it so it didn't feel like we were spending anything extra on it. I even decided we'd do it on a Wednesday so that the crowds were light and we'd get more bang for our buck. I talked Larry into taking the day off with us so I can ride some big rides as well, he was hesitant at first, but we made it work.

It ended up being such a fun day! We got there bright and early and stayed until we couldn't do anymore. the lines were really short (I think our longest wait was Primordial, but I think that one just kept breaking down while we waited, which made it take longer). We even packed a bunch of snacks so we didn't need to spend money on the food (although looking at the food prices, they really aren't as bad as they used to be).

I was really happy I could do the spinning rides, the last time we went I tried to do them and got so sick and hated that I couldn't do too many rides if we did go. This time, though, I found that if I didn't look outside the ride too much I could handle it just fine. Cara and Gwen were so brave and did some of the bigger rides and seemed to like them. Cara said Wicked was scary, but that she wanted to do it again, haha. Pierce became obsessed with the haunted house rides, he just wanted to do those over and over and would have a melt down if we told him to wait (even though he did like the other ones we had him try). Poor Lucy was asking all day long to ride the Ferris Wheel, and I told her (over and over) that we would when we were in that area. Then when we got there, we saw it was shut down because they were waiting on some parts. So that was a bit of a bummer. She did let me rock her on the Roll-O-Planes ride though, so I'm glad she was brave there. Gwen always wanted to ride with me so on the bigger rides Cara had to ride solo (since Larry was with the smaller two). However, on the rides we could do as a family (which were actually quite a bit), Cara and Gwen would ride together while Larry and I took Lucy or Pierce. 

One of my favorite pictures!

One thing I was excited to take them on was Rattlesnake Rapids, they all loved getting wet (although I did have to protect Lucy since she's our little sensitive one). When we got off the ride, we sat out in the sun to dry off (and re-apply sunscreen) and the kids loved being at the fence/gate area watching the people on the ride about to go under the waterfall and warning them by yelling out "be prepared to get wet!" haha.

They really wanted to do the waterpark, but, unfortunately, we didn't end up having a lot of extra time for that. That was a bit of a bummer, but it's okay, we can go to other waterparks/pools through the rest of the summer.

I also loved that we got a chance to try the new rides (two in Pioneer Village that were really fun and Primordial). Primordial probably would've been more fun for me, but I lost my hat right at the beginning (right as the actual coaster part starts). I was so bummed because even though it was just a random hat, and I have a million others that work just as well, that one is my absolute favorite and is my go-to hat anytime we leave and I need one. BUT I got really lucky and as we were leaving the ride area and going through the gift shop (I was going to head over to the lost and found to see if they could call me if it's found and I'd come back to grab it) when I heard Cara say "look! It's Mom's hat!" I thought she meant she found one that looked like it in the gift shop, but then I saw her holding my actual hat (it's from Universal Studios so it's not one you'd find in a gift shop at Lagoon). Apparently, it was on the ground right outside it! What are the odds? I felt VERY lucky haha (and happy that it was found and I could take it home).

The day was going SO well I even was talking to Larry about maybe getting a season pass for next year (I've heard Black Friday has great deals on them and if we go one Sunday a month it would be MORE than worth it and I wouldn't stress about lines or wait times). I'm not sure if that'll happen, but we'll check it out. Of course, Larry was only like "eh" about that because he was DONE by the 2nd half of the day. He was over the heat and lines and everything, poor guy. 

The only bummer part for me was I started getting a headache. I noticed it was REALLY bad when I took the girls on bigger rides. I had noticed that Samurai had a very short line and that's my favorite ride, so after planning to take Cara on some bigger rides (that Gwen wasn't big enough for) I told Larry I was going to do that one last and then we could leave. Well then I took Cara on Cannibal and I got pretty anxious about her falling out and my head was feeling like it was about to explode. So when we got back to Larry, I told him let's call it and I was ready to go get ice cream and head home.

When we got to Pioneer Village, we noticed some friendly Peacocks that were hanging around. They weren't even remotely scared of the people walking around, so we got to get pretty close to them. And by the time we got our ice cream and sat down to watch them more, I noticed my headache was completely gone. So I assume it was more a stress headache with the kids on the big rides than anything. 

Overall, a great day as a family and it made me realize, you don't need to do big vacations, just going somewhere new and/or fun should be enough. We're not sure if we'll be able to do vacations next year (something big is in the works so we'll see), but if we can't, at least we know we can have a lot of fun staying close to home! AND I'll plan to make up for missed vacations in the years after that haha.

Memory Maker: Bees Baseball Game

Well...our first Family baseball game didn't exactly go as planned. I had been so excited to take the family to this for a long time. I had planned to do more sporting events this year and this was our first one. As a bonus, the team was playing at their new, fancy stadium in the Daybreak area (a very nice area) AND it was a drone night, so they were going to be doing a drone show after the game that I thought the kids would really love seeing.

You can see Lucy's excitement haha

Because it was a late night game and our seats were in the shade, I made sure the kids brought jackets (but that's all I told them to bring). When we got there we felt a little bit of a breeze, so I thought that'll be nice in this heat. Unfortunately, the breeze never stopped the whole time. At first it was a little wind, but then it hit, and it hit HARD! 

We got to feeling cold very quickly. Even though we were cold, I was determined to stay and watch the drones. The team wasn't playing the greatest so the kids weren't too excited to watch it, but I told them it'll be worth it in the end. We were pretty miserable. I didn't plan on getting snacks since we ate before we left, but the kids kept asking and I wanted them to enjoy this so I ended up getting some small snacks, but it didn't fully help with the cold. Pierce refused to wear his jacket, I took Larry's and gave mine to the girls to use as a blanket (because they were in short or dresses), so poor Larry was extra freezing. 

We had made it to the 9th inning, which turned out to be the longest inning EVER, the score was SO off and we just wanted them to call it so we could get to the drone show. Then, just as the visiting team finished their turn, they made an announcement that the drones were cancelled because of the wind and we were so upset. We left immediately because we were not staying to see them lose and keep freezing. It was such a bummer, we couldn't feel our toes, we lost the game, and we had to walk forever to get back to our car (or so it felt like).

The good part is, they did announce that they'd offer 50% off new tickets to make up for this, so once I get that email I'll plan to order ones for the next Drone night. Mom said her and Will would like to come with, so that'll be nice. I hope the kids like that one, I'd hate to have them not have fun and not want to go to another game. Maybe next time we'll plan to eat dinner there to make it more exciting for them. Fingers crossed it works out!

Home Summer Beach Party

One thing I love to do is check out event calendars for places around us or places we go to often, just to see if there's something fun we could do that we didn't know about. I aim to look more down South since I'd love to explore more South than we usually do. I was looking at the Shops at Riverwood and saw they were doing a Beach Party this week. Even though it would be on our usual Family Movie Night, I thought it sounded fun (plus we just saw a movie yesterday). I asked the kids if they'd be interested in going over a movie and they said sure, it sounded fun. 

Unfortunately, this week our neighbor reached out to Larry to say he had something come up and the mom was out of town so he wondered if we'd be around in case their boys needed anything. He didn't say they needed to be at our house, but he just wanted to know someone was nearby just in case. Larry told him we'd be here and then I reminded him we had the Beach Party plans. We were going to go back to our movie night plans, but the kids were just so excited about this party, that I thought "what if we just bring the Beach Party to our home?"

After doing our Free Frazil Friday run, we came home and inflated our pool and filled it up so that the water could heat up a little in the afternoon sun. I also remembered we got a shaved ice maker for Christmas so why not also make those? 

After dinner we got everything set up. We plugged in our splash pad things, had our leftover popcorn from the movie we went to yesterday, and even made some s'mores. One neighbor boy came over to play, the other one only came over for dinner and then decided to go back home. We played some music and just had a lot of fun outside. 

The kids had an absolute blast! In fact, they said they'd be okay if we gave up more movie nights for something like that, haha. I'm just glad it was such a hit (the neighbor boy didn't want to leave). I love our movie nights, but I think it's fun to do something different every once in a while.

An Unexpected Family Fun Day

Oh man did we have the most fun day off today! I knew I had the day off so I had plans to take the kids out, but then Larry mentioned he also had the day off and I knew I had to rearrange things so we could make it a fun family day.

We started our day off at the zoo. Since it's getting warmer, I figured a morning trip to the zoo would be the best. I had the Connect Pass to use for me and the girls so we just had to pay for Larry and Pierce. The girls were obsessed with getting as many pictures of things throughout and posing with the statues haha. We also let the kids play in the splash pad for a while. We also liked that they let you bring your own food so we could bring our own snacks and eat that all day to keep the kids happy.

After we were done there, we went to Fat Cats to see How to Train Your Dragons (the live action one) in theaters. This was our first movie as a whole family (and Pierce's first movie in theaters), we made sure to have snacks and bring blankets to make it cozy. The movie was SO cute, I highly recommend it. It's almost a shot for shot remake of the animated version, which I love. Pierce did get a little bored and wiggly, but if dragons were on the screen, he was all about it. Luckily, they had a lot of dragons on the screen to keep him entertained.

It may not sound like much, but I just love when we get to do things as a family. And first movies as a family was a huge moment I looked forward to for so long. I'm just glad it was a good movie, it made it that much better!

Memory Maker: Imaginaria

Thanksgiving Point has opened up one of the most fun experiences they have had. They'd been advertising for this Imaginaria thing they were planning for the Summer so we knew, with our membership, we HAD to check it out. We weren't sure what to expect with it, but when we finally got time to go check it out we were so surprised! There's so much more to do than I realized. We saw the list of things to do and decided to get the kids each a 10-punch pass, thinking we'd get more later once we finished the first card. 

I almost felt overwhelmed with how much it looked like there was to do. However, turns out half the stuff is free, so even though we were there for 2 hours, we didn't use even half the punches we got. I'm so glad we got the membership, because that gets you into the gardens for free and then the punches are for the extras.

While there, we got to go in bounce houses (they had one that had two entries/tracks so the girls were racing each other and then I raced Lucy). The girls got to make fairy wings, do a self-watering plant (of lettuce), got a dinosaur dig kit, Lucy got her face painted, they did a treasure hunt, made a beaded bubble wand, and made glitter play dough. Pierce just had fun playing on the bounce pads, digging in the sand, and he absolutely loved the bubble area. 

Our plan is to go back when it's not as hot. Even though they do have many tents with misting fans throughout it. This is definitely a fun one we get to look forward to this Summer!

Father's Day 2025

For Father's Day this year, I really tried to make it fun for Larry. He had mentioned going to Malad, but then I mentioned we were going to my mom's for dinner so I wasn't sure we'd have time. I think he was a little bummed about that.

However, for his day, I did my best to make sure he didn't have to lift a finger too much. I let him sleep in until he wanted to wake up (which is a pretty rare occurrence these days), I took the kids grocery shopping all by myself. I took them ALL with me to swimming lessons (which is NOT easy with Pierce when he can't go swimming, but he really wants to. Or when I have to clean the girls off and keep an eye on him, but we made it work). 

In the afternoon, we headed to Mom's for a BBQ and Will ended up having some fun targets set up for the kids to practice shooting. Cara LOVED doing that and kept grabbing the guns to shoot. Gwen also had some fun with it, but she would do other things every once in a while. Lucy tried, but then stopped. Pierce was way too nervous when he heard the first shot go off. 

Pierce holding Cara's finger while napping

For Will's gifts it was pretty funny because a couple months ago I mentioned what I wanted to get him to Andy and he said that he wanted to go half on it and sent me a Venmo for it. Well then we show up to the house and Andy pulls up and I noticed he's holding some books. I asked what they were and he said it was Will's gifts. So I mentioned he already sent me money for the gift I brought and he completely forgot! So I we all had a good laugh at that. Will liked all of them, though.

For Larry, he said he's sick of owning stuff and would rather have back rub coupons or spa massage gift cards. So I decided to make him some like how I make the kids' Christmas coupons. He was happy I listened to him, but I think he'd rather have a gift card so I'll remember that for Christmas (since I already know what I want to get him for his birthday and so he'll just have to deal with that stuff haha).

Anyways, happy father's day to all the playful, involved, and supportive dad's out there! It may not seem as important to be there for your kids, but it means more to them than you realize!

Lucy is Five!

We've had a lot of fun celebrating our Lulu this year (I still cannot believe she's 5!). I, of course, had to get her table put together the night before and realized I probably got her too much candy (in my defense I didn't realize what I ordered came in such large quantities...I'll read the details better next time). She chose donuts for breakfast and Arctic Circle for dinner the day of. We did our usual "what we love about her" and measured her on our growth chart ruler. Although, I feel so bad I didn't realize we missed the measuring thing until the next morning so we hurried and did it then (I've NEVER missed it so the mom guilt is hitting SO hard). 

I also had some extra PTO and so I took half the day off so we could go play at the pool (she just loves swimming around), which turned out to be a lot of fun.

For the day of her party, we started the day at the Gardner Village Tea Party in the morning and the girls all had so much fun doing the dancing and figuring out their fairy names. The food was good, the sparkling lemonade was delicious (I tried their mango tea and mom did blueberry, but I'm just not a huge tea person). The setup was so adorable with the tea cups, plates, and dessert trays. It was pretty similar to the Easter Bunny Breakfast, but I think I liked this one a bit better, maybe because it was outside. Luckily, even Pierce liked joining in on the fun haha.

For her party, today, we went to Uptown Jungle. I really love that we figured out we could send out invites the last week of school to give people enough time to plan to come (Summer parties can be tricky, Larry has informed me of that). Unfortunately, only one friend of hers came, but they were an hour late so we didn't think anyone was coming for most of the time. However, Cindy came with Olivia and Abby so they helped make it fun. 

After we played, did some cake and pizza, and opened friend presents, we came home to do our party with the grandparents. We did a Costco sandwich platter for that one and had some more cake and added ice cream. She got lots of good toys and extra goodie bags from the first party to bring home. I think she had a good time, overall. 

To my Little Lucy Lou!

I cannot believe you are a whole hand in age now! You are still my littlest cutie pie and you're so timid and petite it doesn't feel like you are that old yet. I love that you love to cuddle and hold my hand all the time. I love your adorable smile and cute little freckles on your nose. I love how much you are obsessed with having your hair in braids all the time and how cute you were when you did your ballet classes.

I know you get nervous about a lot of new things, but I also know you'll do such great things in life. You are such a good friend to others and are such a sweetheart. I know you make a lasting impact on those you encounter.

One thing I've been so amazed at lately is your ability to read. You can read words I don't expect you to be able to, but you do and you're so confident with it. You're also sweet when I can you having fun playing with your Bluey toys and creating little stories with the figures. Or when you put on little dance performances with your ballet costumes on and it makes me smile so much when you put one of your own shows on.

You are a little spitfire and you have such sass that's so fun to listen to. You have little comments you say throughout the day that make you seem older than you are. You also are so expressive with your face, I love watching you just talk (which you like to do a lot haha). 

I had such fun celebrating your big birthday this year and I look forward to many, many more birthdays for you in the future. I love you to the edge of the universe and back!!

Memory Maker: Tracy Aviary and Liberty Amusements

Today was a day I had been looking forward to for a long time. Every time we go to Tracy Aviary and I see the rides I always wish I had planned doing that since they look like fun. So I knew it was something I had to plan this year. We go to the Aviary early enough to walk around. We wanted to hit up the bird show, but didn't see the sign saying it was moved to the indoor area until the show was about to begin and by then the place was filled and they didn't have any open seats. I was bummed, but I feel like the show isn't as exciting if it's inside and we just went to it last year so it's not like we haven't seen it. 

However, walking around the park is so peaceful. I love seeing it all and it wasn't too busy. We planned to eat lunch there, but the food place didn't have a ton of options. I got a couple things of mac n cheese for the kids and a sandwich for me. Larry didn't want anything, but I did order their 3 different Dole Whip options they had for us to share, which were good. I didn't realize (and wish I had known) that the amusements area had food, and much better (and more) options than the Aviary.

After that, we went over to the amusement rides, you have to get tickets and each ride is 1 ticket per rider. So we got about 16 tickets and we all got to ride the train and ferris wheel together. The train was a much longer ride than I was expecting so that was a nice surprise. The ferris wheel we went around a lot longer than I expected and was a lot of fun. After that we had enough tickets to let the kids pick another ride. Cara and Gwen wanted to do the swings so we had them do that, which they seemed to like. Pierce was throwing a monster fit because he wanted to do the ferris wheel again (but he couldn't do it on his own and we didn't want to buy more tickets or use up Lucy's ticket) so we convinced Lucy to try this spinning airplane ride and tried to convince Pierce to try it, but he wouldn't. 

Once Lucy finished up her last ride we decided to check out the paddle boats. I thought that would be really fun, but then saw you could only do 2 to a boat and that meant Cara and Gwen would have to be on their own. I didn't love that idea so we decided to skip that one this time around.

While it was a very sunny and warm day, we had so much fun doing this. I'm not sure I'd do it again because it doesn't appear to change much. However, when the kids are older I might want to do the paddle boats, that would be fun! We also saw there was a splash pad, great areas for picnics, and a pool at the park we might try on another day (the splash pad was another reason Pierce was having a meltdown, he just wanted to go do that instead of little rides). 

Memory Maker: Gardner Village

After going to the Breakfast with the Easter Bunny and them mentioning that their petting zoo at their Ricochet Canyon area does $2 Tuesdays, I thought it would be a fun activity to take the kids to and planned it for the first Tuesday into their Summer break. Let me just say how much of a dead town this place is on Tuesdays (or was this Tuesday) so I can see why they are making a deal to get people to come. It was also much smaller than I realized it would be. I couldn't find a worker for the longest time, and when I finally did it took a minute to figure out how this place worked (it's a punch card system...I didn't know that and wasn't sure how many punches I needed). Luckily, the guy helped me figure out what would be good for us to use. 

We started with the petting zoo area, which was sweet, but Lucy was a little nervous so she stayed out. Cara and Gwen totally went into any animal area they could. We all did do the goats, Lucy was okay with them, and they were silly. We tried to do the bunnies, but the one they brought out wasn't feeling friendly so we decided not to stress them out more. We were pretty quick and then decided we should ride the rides. They have a few different "rides". The more coaster ones are pretty fun, in fact there's a bigger one that was really fun, I could've done that one over and over. Lucy was too nervous for the graveyard one so we had her sit on the train that was outside it while we rode it.

After we finished the rides we felt like that went by too quickly so I decided we should go to the Chocolate Wagon to get some treats, but convinced the girls we should do the fairy scavenger hunt first. We found all the cute little fairies and checked out the whole area (I LOVE Gardner Village) and then got our treats. Cara and Gwen picked a chocolate dragon egg you break open and it has candies inside it. Lucy chose the unicorn horn cotton candy (I got one for Pierce too, but we called his a sword cotton candy). I just got a chocolate and caramel covered marshmallow that was shaped like a cowboy, yummy!

It was a fun afternoon spent there, but I wish there had been a little more or we would've taken our time with the petting zoo part, but it's fine. Everyone said they had a good time, so I'll take it.