No, this is not another post about birds.

This is a model eagles' nest at Hogle Zoo that my babies all fit into perfectly.

We didn't go to the zoo alone. We went with friends we don't see enough: Anisa and her boys B, J and T and Jacinda and F & S. 

 It's not easy to keep eight kids together, but major attractions like a gorilla statue seem to help.

 Ella and I were very fond of the misters located throughout the zoo.

Ella was thrilled to find one that dripped.

Hey Anisa!

For Dane and Brenner, it was like no time had passed. It was also like they had no parents with them. They were the leaders of the day. No child hesitated to follow them around to where ever they might go.

 Hey Bryce!

Of course I'm ending with a bird! Not my fault, since this zoo helper was right at the exit waiting for us.This is a Swainson's Hawk. It was cool to get so close.

I am so impressed with the changes that the zoo is making. I love the new Rocky Shores (arctic) exhibit. That polar bear is a ham! (Did I mention that a portion of this exhibit is inside and air conditioned?!) It was a great visit. So glad we got to do this and sad that our visit had to end so quickly.

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!)

I'm from Spanish Fork, formerly a small town.
In some ways, they're still behind the times. There's no Wal-mart, no decent grocery store besides Macey's, no Target...
Anyway, they've got this great splash pad at a place we used to call North Park. I went there with Mandy in June, but FINALLY got my photos onto my computer.

Ella and Z think about getting wet...

After Z had his fill of flirting with water, we went to the nearby (well-shaded) playground.

Sisters are the best!

We got to go play with the Maynes family at their family cabin over Memorial Day weekend. 

Because of all the crazy wind, we mostly stayed inside, but oh it's a nice inside to be in!

With Angie, I attempted my first card making. Fun! We made a bigger mess than our husbands thought us capable of, but we actually know how to clean up.

Jeff and Cam spent their time talking politics, sports, government, money...and they read a lot.

When we got outside we has s'mores. 

Isn't Chloe adorable?! I can say this because I don't have to clean  up the marshmallow goo off of her 

(and because it's true) ;)

We had a great craft with the kids. We bought large dowels for each of them and they decorated them with feathers, American Indian symbols (which we burned into the wood for them), beads, twine and markers. The kids had a lot of fun with them and no one got hit in the head. Always a good thing...

Yes I was actually there. :)

Jeff and Angie

No one got hit in the head with a sick, but Bryce nearly took my eye out a couple of times.

About every five years, we seem inexplicably drawn to Zion National Park's majestic sandstone cliffs. 

We took Dane when he was a baby.

We went again when Bryce was a baby (as seen here)

 

And five years later here we are again (at Weeping Rock trail)

We had a lovely, if chilly, time and the kids did really great while on the road with us. Other highlights of the trip were a visit to Ivins, Utah to visit Anisa and her kids after our visit to the Valley of Fire. 

The Valley of Fire, near Overton, Nevada, is where my parents seemingly had to go in order to learn that my dad really did need to see a doctor, which led to the diagnosis of cancer.

My brain has been in such a different place since learning of this diagnosis. So much prayer has been flowing that, at times, I am overwhelmed by it. There have been so many blessings as well, in faith and strengthened relationships. Cancer shakes things up. It does in deed, but not always for the worst.

We started our month long holiday celebrations by attending Ella's 1st grade Christmas program. It was adorable. Each class put a lot of work into their part and Ella sang with all her heart. She just blossoms with her girlfriends.

You may notice something missing about Ella. She donated 10 inches of her beautiful hair to Locks of Love in October of this year. She doesn't miss it. I miss it half the time and Cameron misses it most of all.

I planned a lot of fun stuff to do with the kids in the three weeks they had off before Christmas. 

First, we had to tackle the beast of a tree we have. I let everyone help this year.

It was a lot of fun, but it took us the entire day!

Here she is, all done.

Top:

Middle:

Bottom:

We did a few kid friendly crafts we found on pinterest.com. Some failed spectacularly and some were adorable. We also made this gingerbread house. We were all pleased with how it turned out. The kids did a good job of designing it. I would definitely do a Wilton kit again.

We went to the Dickens Festival on their free admittance morning.

There was a lot of fun things to see. The kids were glad they brought their own money. Although it felt like a glorified boutique, it was definitely charming to have everyone dressed in costume. Father Christmas was a highlight for Bryce. No one else dared approach him.

a wooden toy booth

Scrooge (on the right) with the ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Yet to Come.

The boys with a Beefeater (official title:  Yeomen Warders of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Members of the Sovereign's Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary)

I made three different attempts at a family photo.

Here's some out-takes.

After attending Cameron's work's holiday party, we went to visit downtown Salt Lake City.

This is the tree in the center of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

Looking at the window at the Deseret Book store. They had a gingerbread man machine and handed out free cookies.

Crazy kids and fountains in the cold.

The Salt Lake Temple

Ah...Christmas morning. The kids were ready to start at 6 AM. Lucky for them, so was Mommy.

Church wasn't til 11:30 and somehow the kids let us have a two-hour nap while they played without disturbing us. It was a little surreal.

Cameron and I sang in a quartet on Sunday, part of a whole wonderful Sacrament meeting program.

After that we headed down to Cam's parents for the crepes and more Christmasing.

We ended the day with this chaos at my mom's house. One of my nieces had been throwing up all day and left early with her mom and Zealand was a dripping, unhappy baby most of the time. Poor kids! The rest of us had a lot of fun and haven't been sick (except Dane who was just getting past an ear infection before Christmas). We even fit in a game of Apples to Apples.

Favorite toys were a Pokemon White DS game (Dane), a baby doll (Ella) and a homemade crocheted octopus (Bryce). 

Since Christmas, the kids and I have been lying low.  We've done puzzles, cleaning, Perler beads, Legos, movies, Tinker Toys, Xbox and Wii. 

Dane's birthday is just around the corner. I just love this time of year!