July Activities

Another month with big things, so there aren't a lot of smaller updates, but here's what we got:

-Decided to do a fun Tie-Dye craft with the kids. One that was easy and not quite as messy. Wipes, rubber bands, and markers was a hit:

-I also tried another tastier craft, marshmallows with food coloring and water. Too much food coloring wasn't great, but the rest were fun to eat:

-This month was full of fun crafts. We also did some building with cut up pool noodles and whipped cream (in case anyone tried licking their fingers). It was another fun one:

-We could NOT miss out on the usual 7/11 Free Slurpee Day. The line this year wasn't nearly as long and we got some yummy flavors (it helped that we just went after our day at the Lindon Pool so we knew which were good flavors we wanted to try again). I love that we always walk to the location up the street, on the corner and enjoyed a nice sunny slurpee day.

-I took the girls to an art day event at this studio down in Springville on the 12th. This one was a fun glow in the dark explosion painting that we even got to bring home black light flashlights to light it up at home. Cara and Gwen did really good at following directions, Lucy did halfway and then just did her own thing after that (but she said it was wonderful so I'll let her be as artistic as she wants to be). I really love finding things like this for them to help inspire creativity.

-I did take the kids to the Discovery Museum on the 23rd. I had it as part of my Connect Pass so I thought it would be fun. I honestly can say I don't think we'd need to go back to this place. This one, The Museum of Natural Curiosity, and Treehouse Museum (up in Ogden) are all basically the same thing. This one just felt dirtier and like it would be more fun for smaller kids. But the girls still had fun with it, so that's all that matters.

-We attempted another Bees baseball game on the 26th, to make up for missing the Drone show last month. But, unfortunately, it didn't fully work out. Attempt 3 coming up in August, so check that one out for the details about this one. 

-Swimming lessons update: so we initially planned to keep the kids in lessons for 6 months. However,, I've noticed the girls are super confident in the water now. Cara loves to dive in the deep end for diving rings. Gwen loves to jump into the pool and being underwater as much as possible. Lucy, though, seems to hate putting her face in and is too nervous. She keeps saying she'll put her face in the water when she's 7 or maybe 10. We decided to let them finish out this month. The plan is to put Lucy back in when Pierce is old enough to start and see if that helps. We're very happy with the skills they've learned and feel this has been VERY helpful to teach them more than they'd learned before. We're just going to switch to our own pool on Sundays instead. I know I'm going to miss the chlorine smell of swim lessons though haha.

-And, as always, some of my favorite pics of the kids from this month:

All the Swimming!

With all the swimming lessons we've had the kids in, I've been excited to test out what they are learning. We've made many trips to our neighborhood pool, which has been fun. I also took some half days off work to take the kids to some rec center pools as well.

On the 9th, Stace came to town so we met up for lunch (at some yummy bbq place) and then headed to the Lindon Pool. I'd heard a lot of good things about this place, we tried to go as a family a couple years ago, but it was so packed, we decided to go somewhere else. I was glad Stace and I were able to make it work this time. Unfortunately, I realized when we got there that I forgot the sunscreen, luckily Stace had some she was willing to share (she even had the deodorant/roller type that I had wanted to try. We used that on our faces). 

We stayed there for 3 1/2 hours and had SO much fun. The workers were a bit picky about the slide height for no reason, but I do feel like I did great with taking all 4 kids by myself. The girls did the lazy river on their own a lot, haha. Stace's boys LOVED trying to get Pierce to go down the little slides, he was nervous because there was water shooting at you as you got on them, they were only successful a couple times. It was actually really fun to see him interact with the boys! Lucy tried to swim without floaties for a bit, but got a bit of a scare in the lazy river. 

Unfortunately, Lucy ended up getting burnt on her face, luckily only in the spots the deodorant type wasn't rolled onto, so we know that does work, you just have to really cover up with it. Cara got burnt on her arms a bit and I got it ALL over my back (I forgot to put sunscreen there). Pierce and  Gwen just got extra tan, haha. We really got lucky though, Cara's burn faded by the next day, but mine was pretty painful for a bit. On the way home we decided to stop at a Chevron/7-Eleven for gas and to get slurpees (since I also forgot water and we were super thirsty), doing this with 4 kids didn't go as smoothly, Pierce kept spilling and it was just a bit chaotic, so I didn't realize Larry had text me to tell me he was at the pool and was looking for me. I was almost to the freeway when I saw his call and had to tell him we had already left. I felt SO bad, he had already paid to get in and he didn't want to swim on his own so he just left and lost out on that money (luckily, it's only $5). So he didn't have as much fun as us.

Now, today, I decided to take the kids to the Lehi Rec Center. This pool we are very familiar with and we know how much fun it is. We ended up spending 4 hours there! Luckily, with it being an inside pool we didn't need to bring any sunscreen (the lazy river goes outside for a bit, but it's not too bad). Larry was even able to join us for the last couple hours. We made sure to ride the slides this time, as well. Gwen did NOT like it (she flipped around and lost her goggles and freaked out in the pool at the bottom for a bit), but Cara loved it and she went on it over and over. I did it a few times with her, it was so much fun!

I have really, really loved taking days off and spending them with the kids this summer. We've done so many fun things. My hair, however, is NOT loving all the chlorine exposure. It falls out so bad when we go swimming. I've been trying to keep it clean and use my hair mask more to help it. But it's all still worth it for all these memories.

All the Thanksgiving Point Activities

Our membership at Thanksgiving Point has been VERY useful so far! I've always loved going there and when we didn't renew our membership a couple years ago I really missed having it. Just this month we've done the following:

The Curiosity Farms had a Dairy Days event on the 22nd. It was a fun one, but they had a lot of little tables with activities out without any workers there to help the kids figure it out. And most of them you needed someone, so that was a bit disappointing. Luckily the train ride, pony rides, and playground were still open for the kids so that helped make it up. The goats were also being pretty silly on the bridge, so that was funny to watch. The farms has really upgraded and it's one of our new favorite parts to go to.

We hit up Imaginaria at Ashton Gardens, again, on the 23rd (yes two in one week). This time we just went to the areas we missed last time and we got to do the BIG slide, which was closed last time. We rode that one about 5 times, the kids loved it so much haha. We also spent some of our punches on ice cream. Even with all that we still have some punches to use up, so we'll have to plan to come back AGAIN. This one is such a fun activity, I hope they bring it (or something similar to it) back in future years!

The Museum of Ancient Life did a Dinos after Dark event tonight that we hit up. This was a really fun one, I forget how cool this museum is. Lucy does get nervous with all the big displays, but the extra activities they had set up and the sand pits at the end are always a hit! 

Back when we were looking at moving out of state, one of the biggest things that made me so hesitant to leave is Thanksgiving Point. There's nothing like it anywhere else and it has things for all ages. It's such a fun place and I'm excited we have this membership on auto-renewal. We're definitely getting our money's worth this year!

Memory Maker: Family Fishing

This year we thought it would be so fun to teach the kids about fishing. I'm big on exposing the kids to as many different hobbies so they can find what they are interested in. We took them out to pick their own poles back on the 2nd, which made them all the more excited to try this out. They had picked small poles originally, and then we found Minecraft ones that they went crazy for! We also made sure Larry got his license in enough time, luckily the kids didn't need one and I'll just be there to help out (and take pictures), so that part was pretty easy.

We picked this weekend to try it out, which meant another early Saturday morning for us (luckily, not as early as the bubble run last week), but the kids were still excited to go. When we got there, Pierce saw a playground and didn't care about fishing anymore. I forgot a jacket (doy!) so I went with him to run around to help stay warm. Larry got the poles and lures out for the kids and just took their time waiting for fish and learning how to cast out the string.

We made sure to snack a lot, let the kids play, and...we never caught any fish (boo!). The kids did start to kind of lose interest after about an hour so the girls came over to the playground with Pierce and me. Unfortunately, Cara fell out of a tree and hurt her knee pretty bad,  but we did see a caterpillar in a chrysalis form about to become a butterfly. I was pretty excited about that, I had never seen that in person before. 

We ended up staying for about 2 1/2 hours, the kids were antsy to leave earlier, but I wanted them learn to be patient and so I made us stay a little longer. We were going to stay for lunch, but I realized I forgot the bread for sandwiches (but I did bring everything else, at least), so heading home early was inevitable. 

Overall, it was a decent first attempt, but we'll have to go again, but maybe try a different area and make sure to bring some quiet distractions for the kids.

Memory Maker: Cowabunga Bay

Okay, I love water, the kids love water, we love swimming and slides, but I did NOT expect our time at Cowabunga Bay to be as much fun as it was. 

So our original plan for the day, was I'd take most of the day off and take the girls to the aquarium right after lunch. Then we'd head over to Cowabunga Bay and when Larry was done with work he'd get Pierce ready and meet us there. However, I decided that's just a lot of spending in one day, plus I JUST went to the aquarium for Cara's field trip back in May (and it's really not THAT exciting to go multiple times in a year, much less within a couple months apart, unless you have a membership or something), so I decided we'd just to the water park. I did already have most of the day off, so I used my extra time at home to do more decluttering (which was really nice) so at least I was productive, still.

I found out the park takes a mid day break and re-opens at 2:30 so I took ALL the kids with me right as the 2nd time frame opened up (and got front row parking, even!). I hadn't been on all the slides before, just one of the big ones and the one in the kiddie area, so I made it a goal to ride all the slides this time. They had this new Surfin' USA slide that you had to use a mat for, so I was excited to do that one. Gwen and Cara are both big enough to do all the slides on their own, so while I swam around with Lucy and Pierce, I told them they could go on their own to check out the slides, as long as they stuck together. We played a lot in the kiddie area and the lazy river (the kids love a lazy river haha). Pierce LOVED the slide in the kiddie area, he wanted to go on that over and over haha. 

The workers there are also SUPER nice. They helped Cara and Gwen find out where to get the mats for the Surfin' USA slide while they switched spots. They even offered to keep an eye on Lucy while I took Pierce on a bigger slide (because she didn't want to ride any slides, but I wanted to see if Pierce liked the bigger ones). They seriously made me want to go there again and again!

Larry showed up a little before 4 and we closed the park down (it closes at 6, not sure why so early, but we wanted to make sure Larry got his money's worth). Larry and I took turns going on the slides, the kids kept asking to go on slides with me, but that water is much colder than the lazy river so I'd trade off and convince them to let dad take them on some haha. 

We decided to head over to Cafe Rio for dinner, since it was close and we knew traffic would make it take forever to get home anyways. Unfortunately, the lights in that area are ridiculous and it took me WAY too long to figure out how to get there (I got so turned around). But, I figured it out and we were able to eat a yummy dinner (the girls discovered they really like their salads). 

Being there in the middle of the day when I should be at work really made it seem much more fun haha. I love taking time off work and doing fun things like this with the kids. I especially love that I could let the older girls go off on their own and I know they'll be okay. They are much more confident in the water and they know how to find me if they need something. Plus having lifeguards arounds made me feel better too. 

Memory Maker: Family Bubble Run

One thing I didn't really expect to add to our list for this year, was a family fun run. Larry and I did a Dirty Dash about 9 years ago and we told the kids about it a lot. But then, when I got an email about a Bubble Run coming to the Salt Lake Fairgrounds, I thought that would be so much fun to do as a family (it even said it was great as a family event). Plus the email said we could get free registration if we did it right away. So I convinced Larry to get us registered for it and we planned that.

Let me just say, for having free registration this still cost us SO much money! We had to pay taxes and fees, plus parking, plus they tried to charge us $5 per person for a registration packet, which we realized didn't have anything in it that we didn't get in the mail anyways, so we skipped paying that, but man it was WAY more expensive than it should've been.

Luckily we got there early enough that we were in the first wave. We had decided one of us would run and the other would walk so that whichever the kids wanted to do, they'd have a parent with them. We kind of assumed Larry would walk, since he had the stroller, and I REALLY wanted to run it (I feel like I'm in some of the best shape I've been in and I love walking or running around). As it started, I was running with Cara and Gwen, while Larry had Pierce and Lucy in the stroller (Lucy was going with me for a bit, but gave up pretty quickly haha). Eventually, Cara and Gwen wanted to walk so I was with them, when Larry decided to start running and passed by us. Gwen saw that and decided she didn't want to walk, she wanted to run, so she caught up with Larry and off they went. Cara said she had a side ache, so I walked with her. Every time she thought she was feeling better, she'd start to run again, but then it would hurt again, so we just stuck with walking the rest of the way. 

When the first bubbles came up, we didn't realize they'd be colored ones, but we loved going through them (they did end up dying our clothes, and a bit of our skin though). Cara and I were able to finish it in less than an hour, which was nice for walking so much of it. We started so early (we had to get up at 5 to leave and get there in time to check in), so after eating some snacks we brought with us, we decided we needed to go home and take naps/relax. 

The kids said they liked the run, but Gwen said she wished Larry would've let her slow down, she ran the whole rest of the race with him, so that's a TON of running her little body did. However, the rest of the day it was like she didn't know how to sit still, she just kept running around the house. It's like a switch flipped in her and all she knows how to do is run now haha. Cara loved that we got medals at the end, of course. 

I liked it so much, I told them I think I wanted to do our neighborhood Turkey Trot that they do on Thanksgiving (or design our own 5k route to do on our own that morning, if the neighborhood one has so many hidden costs like this one. No need to pay just to run outside). This was a really fun event for us and I hope it gets the kids wanting to move more, if we can do more of these ones in the future. 

Memory Maker: Monster Trucks

I know I've said this a bunch, but one of the biggest things I was looking forward to doing with the kids this year is Monster Trucks! Back in February or March I got an email about an event coming up this weekend and new I had to get the tickets right away. I wasn't telling the kids because I didn't want them to keep asking if it was coming up soon, so I've been loving that I could finally tell them this past week and now it's finally here!

We found out that our tickets included free Trax rides, so we all got to ride up and not worry about parking. The kids loved riding that, especially Pierce and Lucy since it was their first time. They started exchanging some of their clothes (extra clothes we mad them bring in case it got cold...spoiler: it didn't!) and pretending to be each other to keep themselves entertained, haha. It was a long ride, about an hour from the Daybreak Station to the Stadium one. We made sure to get there early for the Pit Party, which really wasn't as exciting as I thought it might be (maybe if the extra fun stuff didn't cost extra?). Maybe for others who follow this "sport", but for us we could've just gotten there an hour earlier and been okay, but we were there for a few hours. It ended up being way too hot for everyone, even though we did find some shade in between walking around.

We decided to head out to get dinner before the show started, we walked over to The Pie Pizza, which wasn't really that great (we had to do a LOT of walking to find it, which was annoying. I wanted to do Subway, but couldn't convince enough of the everyone else, though it was MUCH easier to find). After eating all the pizza and breadsticks we could handle (the crust was really not the greatest), we headed back to the stadium.

Unfortunately, we ended up on the sunny side and we didn't bring any sunscreen (dang it!), so we made sure to drink lots of water and try and stay in the shady stadium until the last minute before it started.

The show, overall, was really great! I didn't realize I had gotten tickets for a some grand finale event, so they were REALY doing it up. We got to watch them do races, high jumps, and then a free style part. I didn't want to bring my phone out too much, so I just picked a random car during the free style part to record and it ended up being the winner (what are the odds? haha). Pierce ended up falling asleep halfway during the freestyle part, I'm not sure how he slept through ALL the noise of the crowd cheering, the engines revving, and the announcers getting the crowd riled up (he refused to wear the ear protection, but once we noticed he was asleep, we put them on him just to make it a bit better).

Once we saw the end, we headed back to the Trax station. It was already so late and we knew we'd have an hour to get to our car and another 30 minutes back home so the kids were going to be up super late. The kids were tired, but to make it a bit more rough, we ended up getting the ONE Trax car that had no a/c and we ended up DRIPPING with sweat! Cara kept saying she wished we didn't live in a dessert haha. Luckily, there were some of the nicest people on the train. Some had fans that they'd put on our kids until they got off (which did help a bit). Every stop we'd try and blow outside cold air into our car to help too. We ended up being one of the last ones on the train, so it was a very long, very hot ride home. 

Now that we're home and the kids are passed out, we found out we also got lucky and none of us got any sunburns! I'm not sure how, but I'm thanking our lucky stars haha. We did end up having a lot of fun, but I don't think I'd go back to those unless the kids asked to go. It wasn't fully our scene, so it would only be worth it if they wanted to go because they liked it. I'm just glad we got to see the finale (last night was the semi finale, which I almost got tickets for that just for the fireworks, but changed it to this night instead. Luckily, our show had some fireworks too...which Pierce also slept through haha).

2025 Independence Day

I have really enjoyed how much we've been able to do for Fourth of July in previous years, especially last year. Compared to those, this year was a bit more lazier than usual. We did start the day with a hike this morning. We decided on Battle Creek Falls, which we've done before, but it's been a while. I love a hike that involves a waterfall and this one has a great one that you can stand under (if you're willing to freeze), plus a little pool the kids loved to play in. 

We got home and let the kids play Minecraft (or watch videos on YouTube Kids). We should've ridden bikes or tried skating or done a craft or something, but we just didn't get around to that. Oh well! 

For dinner, we decided to do red, white, and blue nachos, which was a really fun idea! We then watched Sandlot while waiting for it to get dark. After the movie, we headed outside for S'mores (I swear we've done them more this year than any other year...I might be getting sick of them, haha). Then we lit up our fireworks once it started to get dark.

We got some from one of those parking lot stands, I wasn't sure what to expect, but they were pretty good. They weren't as big as we've done before, but better than what we've done in recent years. Ours was over quickly so we headed to the neighborhood party at the end of the road. This was way more exciting, especially seeing fireworks going off ALL around us! We've decided next year we'll have to go to the top of the mountain nearby and watch fireworks from up there, that might be pretty cool to see. Our neighbors across the street even ended up doing a HUGE display. It was a fun one and the kids really loved staying up late to see it all.

Today has been such a great day! Pierce and Lucy got a little nervous over the fireworks and it was way more lazy than we've done, but we still had fun. Ever since the D.C. trip I've just really been excited to celebrate being in our great country!

Six Month Surgery Update

We have reached my 6 month since I've had my surgery milestone. I've been so excited to reach this point, I heard 6 months is when you feel like you used to and I can attest to that! I do still have very obvious scarring and my belly button is silly looking (but not NEARLY as silly as before), but I do believe my scars will fade a bit and I'm just so happy with my results. I'm okay if the scarring doesn't go away, I'm so much more normal looking with clothes on and this has really put my eating into perspective and helped me get a bit more of a control on those issues I had.

I can pretty much do everything I could before. The only iffy things are anything stretching related. I can work out, even more than I could before. It's a weird feeling my core muscles actually engage during exercises now! I can even lift the kids, twist around, cough or sneeze without pain! It's all just such a miracle haha.

When you consider where I started, I'm especially proud and happy of where I'm at now:

While the first part of the recovery was SUPER rough (seriously, I'd only recommend this surgery if you really needed it), it's been a great 2nd half and beyond and I look forward to the year mark to see where I am at that point.

Larry's Birthday

So for Larry's birthday we knew we'd have to celebrate the weekend before (with his birthday around the 4th of July and mine around Christmas we hardly ever get to celebrate too close to the actual day), so I told him to figure out what he wanted early. I assumed he'd choose Malad because he had wanted to go a couple week before, but he surprised me by picking a day to himself in Wendover. 

After he left for the bus ride, I decided to take the kids out to Golden Corral for breakfast (I thought we'd get a free one, but they said the "coupon" we had only worked with two adults. Blah!). After that I let the kids pick between a hike up North with a bird refuge nature walk, and a walk through the International Peace Gardens OR a nature walk down south that had some water they could play in. Majority vote made the water nature walk win so we headed there after breakfast. 

This Dripping Rock Trail was pretty fun, it had this cool rock wall with painted rocks that were fun to check out. All was good, until Pierce and Lucy both needed my help to get down into the water and had a hard time waiting for me to help the other, so there was lots of crying. Then I made a rookie mistake and didn't have them try and go potty after breakfast, so we were only there for a few minutes when Lucy said she needed to go to the bathroom. I thought I had seen a bathroom at the trail head, so I figured we could walk back, go potty, and head back to the water. Unfortunately, there wasn't a bathroom there and we had to drive to a gas station down the road, which meant we weren't going back to the trail and so it was a VERY short visit. 

After the bathroom break, we headed home to relax for a bit and then I thought it would be fun to go to the Family Park in Lehi (it's a playground and a pretty cool splash pad). I made ANOTHER rookie mistake and totally forgot Pierce's shoes AND it was super sunny and the ground was really hot, which means I had to carry him around because he wanted to play more on the playground than in the splash pad (which means I had to hold onto him a LOT!). Luckily, the kids still had a lot of fun, but, of course, no one wanted to leave. I told them we'll have to plan a whole day there to enjoy the park and splash pad, we'll bring our own snacks and sun cover so we can really enjoy everything it has, again. Overall, it could've been a worse day, but we had a lot of fun.

Larry came back and said he actually won some money, which is new for him! And he really enjoyed being able to read on the bus. So that was a win.

For his actual birthday day, he didn't want to do a breakfast and doesn't like a lot of sugar, and has been saying he doesn't really want gifts anymore, just gift cards or coupons for massages. I made him some for Father's Day, so I decided for his birthday to stick with the "Want, Need, Wear, Read" gifts (mostly because I already found something he'd like for each category). We also did dinner at Leatherby's and the "why we love him" tradition. We did dinner right this time, we had Gwen and Cara share a burger, Lucy ordered chicken strips, and then Larry got what he wanted. Pierce and I just shared their food with them so we all didn't eat too much food, saving more room for ice cream (of course even though we only ordered three meals, all of us getting our own ice cream means it was still close to $100 with tip).

Even though he really wanted the gift cards, he liked the ones I got him (a silly shirt, a book about games with the kids you can play while sitting down, a game from his wish list, and new N64 controllers, since our old ones don't work as well). He had fun in Wendover and enjoyed a low key birthday day with his dinner choice. I just hope he knows how much we love him and all he does with/for us!