Summer's Over?

I guess summer is all gone.
My kids begin their new school year this week.

How do you fit a whole summer into three weeks? This is our documented attempt.

No July is complete without a visit to America's Freedom Festival. We rise and shine with hot air balloons. We got to see my cousin Kelly and her family. No-Photos regret.

The kids enjoyed the parade. Cam always "surprises" us with a dozen doughnuts and 9 AM ice cream sandwiches for the parade. Dane is very proud of devouring six doughnuts. 

My dad joined us for the last half of the parade and for some time in the park. Again No-Photos regret (of course, he did say no more photos until he got some hair back)

  

 Dryers gave away free ice cream for the lucky hundreds that found their stand. Who can complain about free ice cream? (my kids actually: "No Vanilla?")

 That night we headed up to Ogden to stay in an amazing suite. We watched Ogden city's amazing fireworks from our room right before bed.
Life is so much sweeter when you can shut a door on your kids' sleeping quarters. What a great night's sleep...
The next morning we went to the Bear River Bird Refuge. We inherited the enjoyment of birding from Cameron's parents. Cam can identify so many birds by name, especially water fowl. It was really fun to come here with him as our guide.

After enjoying the birds, we drove all over northern Utah, to Paradise for fresh berries and then to Logan to get ice cream from the Utah State campus creamery.

Friday night, we went to the Thanksgiving Point/Utah Symphony patriotic concert. It was excellent and a great way to build our kids' live music performance appreciation.

The final song of the night was Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" and right at the end the fireworks EXPLODED! Hooray for America!

But that was just one long weekend...

What has really filled our three weeks of summer was swimming lessons three times a week and a newer tradition that I began with my friend Angie last summer. We do a craft and or an activity twice a week. This year we decorated sugar cookies, make Pearler Bead self-portraits, these adorable fairy/goblin houses, leaf-molded/shaped treasure dishes from oven-baked clay and had a water play day.

All of this definitely fills three weeks wonderfully. Makes me feel like I deserve to have the kids begin school. It truly has been a great summer! (will post Pioneer Day pics soon!)