July, Over and Out

Oh dear, we're coasting down to the s-word (school). Summer has peaked, and school supplies are back in the stores. So sad. But we've kept busy enjoying summer as much as we can! It seems especially warm this summer, so we've hit up a couple of new-ish indoor spots for kids around town. One is a mini kids museum called Kids Town. The kids loved it! It has lots of opportunities for pretend play and experimentation with vacuum tubes and earthquake tables.

We also went back to the new climbing gym, this time with kid harnesses. They both had a blast, both with top-roped routes and bouldering (no rope) walls.

Baseball season finally wrapped up, but there was a week of soccer camp (O is blond 2nd from left on the bottom) with British coaches

and a week of church arts and sciences camp where they played drums and fired off bottle rockets.

There was that day we drove to Driggs to bike next to the Tetons. The kids both biked about 7.5 miles!! (Notice Hadley's bigger bike - it made a huge difference!) It was a hot day, so we cooled off with snow cones and dog sledding at the visitor's center afterwards.

On another hot afternoon, we saw the Blue Angels perform at the air show. What a great show! Though we were baking in 95-degree heat, it was worth it.

They also had several other planes doing aerial stunts, including a thumbs up, and showed off the new F-35A Lightning II jet next to the historic P-51 mustang.

They also had lots of cars and planes to check out on the ground, which the kids really enjoyed. Ka-chow!

We also had some old friends, the Tylers, from Austin visit. They are doing an epic road trip around the west, and it's so fantastic that our kids got along just swell. They go back to early diaper days together!

Meanwhile, our garden has been producing tons of strawberries, peas, parsley, and oregano; a little bit of tomatoes, radishes, beets, and lettuce; and really overdoing it on the raspberries. It's a good problem to have, I suppose.

Oh, and this happened! So proud of him for doing the hard work just to help out dad!

Water Works

Besides travel and holidays, we've been savoring summer! It's hard to believe it's half over already. It has been a hot one since the end of June, so we've been around a lot of water, starting with swim lessons. The kids were in the same class this year, so I think that motivated Owen to step up and graduate to the next level, which he did. And Hadley fed off of him and improved a ton, too. Here they are doing their front crawls:

I hope they'll continue to enjoy swimming throughout their lives!

For water fun outside the backyard, there's the splash pad and carousel in Rexburg.

And there's also Rexburg Rapids, which has a lazy river and play area. Unfortunately, because of my having to be in the water there too, I did not get any water shots. But here's an 'after' of my little stud!

We even hiked to some water at Mesa Falls. (We seem to go there on a 3-year cycle.) It was still beautiful, although I can't figure out how to get a good picture of people AND the waterfall because the boardwalks block the water. But the boardwalks do provide a safe way to get right next to the water.

There are actually two waterfalls, so we did the short hike to the lower falls, too. These two sure know how to pose for the camera together.

Once we got there, we could see the lower falls, but had also read about hiking down to be right next to them. I guess we were feeling adventurous, so we decided to try it. The camera doesn't do justice to the steepness, but the kids did most of the hike down holding our hands or scooting on their bums.

It was a little sketchy to get to, but worth it! Wild Idaho at its best! No railing here. We could easily have stepped out into the falls and the thundering power of water was truly amazing (and deafening) up close.

I wish I had a machete for this shrub that is ruining my epic picture!

Here's the panoramic to give a better view of the lower Mesa Falls.

Not to be forgotten, we have been beholden to coach-pitch baseball again this summer. Our friends coach, and they are fantastic with the kids and skills practice. Owen has made some good catches and is hitting better this year, although he still thinks he's faster running to get an out instead of throwing it. With his aim, that's probably true!

And we still do playdates. Sometimes they even have a higher purpose, like this one where we packaged items for troops serving abroad with Operation Shoebox.

Salt Lake B-day

In lieu of a birthday party for Hadley this year, we opted to do a family weekend in SLC. She was very excited about it, but clarified, "but you know I'll do a princess party next year, right?" Sure thing. We made it to our hotel right at check-in time, and Hadley promptly locked herself in the bathroom! It was a pocket door with a strange "handle" and she could not figure out how to open it. What a start to her weekend!

After the hotel's handyman freed her, we headed for a "fun center" with rides and games. It was nearly 100 degrees outside, and unfortunately, their AC seemed to not be working. And even more unfortunate, about half of their games and rides were also not working. Adults were disappointed, but the kids didn't seem to mind! Owen found this dinosaur hunting game and didn't want to leave.

He also really enjoyed the go-karts.

Glow-golf was more Hadley's speed. With some guidance from Dad, she did pretty well, and has already asked to go again sometime.

The main attraction on Saturday was the Museum of Natural Curiosity. We walked over from our hotel shortly after it opened at 10am and didn't leave until after 5! The kids absolutely loved it. Here is some of Archimedes' Playground, highlighting simple machines in a very fun and interactive way;

treetop rope bridges to explore the rainforest;

and a drop of blood; oh the irony of swimming in a germ-covered ball pit while looking for the elusive, lone, disease-fighting white blood cell.

There were some physics lessons, like the earthquake table (Hadley loved building and rebuilding our Lincoln log houses and shaking them apart over and over), trying to squeeze as hard as a python, and controlling water flows (Owen was very invested in his pipe project).

We had a great time in the music area, especially the personal orchestra where you could control the percussion section beat by beat.

We caught a rescued animal presentation where we learned about snakes, rabbits, ringtails, and cockatoos. We even got to pet the rabbit and ringtail.

And the last thing before we left: the kids climbed up to this second floor marquee in Kidopolis, figured out the backwards spelling, and gave us surprise special messages. It makes it all worthwhile!

Our last stop on the way out of town was the zoo. We managed to catch training demonstrations of the elephants, seals, and sea lions. Oh, and they had Bugzillas on display throughout the zoo. Yuck!