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!)

My baby turned five this week.

He was very excited to see we had a stack of presents all prepared for him.

Cameron said it was time for him to have his own big set of Legos to put together by himself,

without help,

especially from his brother.

The morning's most adorable reaction was about getting his first Book of Mormon (no, the kid can't even read yet, but he asked his dad for one and Dad delivered). He squealed about it and is excited to have a case for it.

This was the favorite gift of the day. He sang a ballad all about the "king of the Angry Birds" all the way to school and he just wanted to please just carry it in my backpack.

Mom said no, but it was waiting in the van for the birthday boy to be done with school.

Before his siblings came home, Bryce built his ship with very restrained help from me. He did 90% of the work himself and he was pretty thrilled about it. His favorite things, though, are still the guys that come with the sets.

On a whim, I whisked my kids off to Antelope Island on Tuesday.

We have a special family connection to the LDS church-run horse ranch that this place was in the "olden days."
The kids loved roping the steer.Bring 'em down, Brycie!This is what is left of the ranch on the island. Lots of old buildings including a cellar, spring house, bunk house, barns, blacksmith, etc. Very cool and well preserved without feeling like a museum. For the most part, it's very hands on for little ones. Don't worry. Old saw blades are hung up high.The kids, having a bit of fun posing in the bunk house (where transitory workers would stay).A view of the ranch's beauty with the main house and cellar to the right.We spent a lot of time looking for different bird varieties here and at Bountiful Lake. We saw so many, we even made a list. (Thankfully, we had our bird book and binoculars)

Birds seen and heard (if you follow these links, you can even hear the bird sounds):

Cinnamon Teal

Swan Goose

Cliff Swallow

Meadowlark
Red-winged Blackbird

Double-Crested Cormorant
Yellow-headed Blackbird

I got to help my friend Angie pack a few boxes for her upcoming move this morning.

That, plus the beautiful sunshine, put me in a housekeeping kind of mood.

Just look at that sky!

I wiped out one of my ovens and started the self-cleaner. The windows are opening to let out the fumes.

I washed my garden windows. They're the best view from inside the house and now they're a spotless view.

I kicked the last of the ice off of the deck and swept all the sunflower seed husks left by the flocks of birds we've been feeding. Here are some of our frequent visitors:

This is a nuthatch. He's so tiny. Less than 4 inches in length. They're my favorite!The house finchThe black-capped chickadeeThe mountain chickadeeOur more rare visitors are:

the spotted woodpeckerthe northern flicker (a type of woodpecker)and a small family of quail.I filled all their feeders so they should be happy.

I took out a bunch of trash and recycling and in general am feeling that calm before the next winter storm.

Such a nice day and there's Christmas to look forward to! The best part of that is that I'm all done shopping!