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!)

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.

Cam and I are SO GLAD TO BE BACK HOME!!!

Have we honestly spoiled the kids to the point that we have to drag them kicking and screaming to the happiest place on the earth?

We spent three days at Disneyland and two days in San Diego for our vacation this past week.

All the kids wanted to do was watch TV or swim in the pool. It was a bit frustrating.

Disneyland and the parents always win in the end. We always start on the train and head round to Fantasyland. It was blissfully un-busy for Disneyland and we really got a lot of rides ticked off on our to-do list.

Sadly, Ella got sick our first night and after a rough night and morning, Cam took the boys to the California Adventure park. After lunch Ella was feeling more herself and the five of us went back together.
After two vacations of trying, Dane was finally chosen as a padowan for the Jedi Training Academy. I may have been more excited than Dane.After training, he helped defeat Darth Maul.

Bryce loved meeting the characters. Here he is with the bears from Brother Bear.

My own Buzz and Woody.

Bryce and I got to meet Mickey. VERY cool!

Ella eating a cool Mickey ice cream sandwich.That night we saw the must-see show Disney's World of Color. If you've heard that it is amazing, believe it! Wow! We all loved it.

The next morning, Ella was sick again and so Cam stayed in with her while I went with the boys.
We went on Dane's favorite ride Grizzly River Rapids twice (Dane's total was four times). Bryce dug it as well.

Bryce's favorite ride, however, was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. That's Cam in the red shirt with Bryce right next to him. We went three times in a row. (Thankfully, Ella was able to finish this day out with us, back to her normal self).

After Anaheim, we headed down to San Diego where we spent our honeymoon.

We visited Point Loma and the Cabrillo National Monument.

Here is the old Point Loma lighthouse.

Inside the visitors' center we were tried on a replica of 16th century Spanish head gear. The chainmail weighed seven pounds alone.

The tidal pool area closed before the tide went out completely, but we still got some good beach time before the tsunami hit the next morning.

Us above the tidal pools and the vast Pacific OceanWe visited the San Diego Zoo the day before we started our return journey.

We all loved the snakes. Such a variety!The big display on elephants and prehistoric/extinct North American animals was a favorite of ours.

Dane has become such a ham when it comes to getting his picture taken. Here he's being crushed by an elephantine sculpture.
We loved seeing the polar bear exhibit

and I loved the panda exhibit because someone else was telling my kids to be quiet. You had to be quiet to enter this area.
Family trips are always an adventure, that's certain.

Now with all I have to do to get us back to normal around here, I wish the day didn't feel like a stay-in-your-jammies kind of day.

I need some energy!

Thanks for reading about our trip.

New York City is an old Grande Dame of a lady that can't quite keep up with her upkeep.
The first thing that Cameron and I had to face on our second trip (just two nights this time) to New York City was this extremely long, broken-down escalator. We just finished climbing up and thought it very picture worthy. We arrived Friday evening and had just enough time to check in, change and take the subway to here:

The cast was great, most making their Broadway debut. Tony was marvelous and Maria was lovely. The whole cast was full of energy and fun. My only complaint: they substituted a lot of the songs' regular lyrics with Spanish a LOT.

I had my first cannoli after the show.

These are some sites on the way back to our hotel. St. Patrick's Cathedral at night.Saturday morning we dropped by Grand Central Station. HUGE place!
We went to the official (the original, right?) New York City Library. It was mostly covered up by renovations, but at least the lions were on display. It was awesome inside and I love how they grouped their poetry section. I even helped out by re-shelving a misplaced collection of Auden poems. Yes, I am a serious library nerd.
Warning: if you take pictures inside TURN OFF THE FLASH!!! A fellow tourist snapped a photo with a flash and two guards from different areas of the same level converged on the poor soul peppering them with angry "No flash! No flash!" calls.

We hung out at Bryant Park while we waited for the library to open. Happy Anniversary to us!This is William Cullen Bryant for whom the park is named. He was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.

After switching hotels to the, ahem, Waldorf-Astoria (I can now be thankful that Cam was a frequent traveller) for our second night we went to the American Natural History Museum and Rose Center for Earth and Space. Cam soaked up this place like I did with the Met last year. He didn't want to leave. We watched an IMAX with images from the Hubble and saw the regular planetarium show. Very interesting.

Check out this bad boy meteorite.

I'm more of a history girl than space and the future type, so I was really happy with the dinosaur section. There were more types of skulls and skeletons than we'd ever seen before. The variety was amazing. Here's a T-Rex The parasaurolophus is a long time family favorite (mainly because we learned to pronounce it), but this was one of many amazing crested/horned dinos. I loved these.I missed the kids a lot here. There was so much that they would have loved.

Nothing beats eating on the streets of NYC.

Saturday night we headed over to the Lincoln Center for the Perfoming Arts to watch a Met opera out of doors. Then Cam said "There's Moroni!" He saw the reflection of the temple in a window before we realized the Manhattan Temple was right there. I'm glad we at least got to walk by.

A view of the screen we watched Tosca on. The Metropolitain Opera House is just behind it.

Here are a few images of the amazing soprano that played Floria Tosca.

Both of us were so moved by the performances. Even though we hadn't been familiar with the music, it was our favorite experience for this trip.My trip to New York wouldn't be complete without another visit to the Metropolitian Museum of Art. Like Claudia from From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler I could really live here.

The more I see of Van Gogh, the more I love him. Look at how thick that paint is!Seurat There was an odd creation on the roof called The Big Bambú. We weren't too interested, but look at the view! A sea of Central Park with the sky-scraping mountains behind. Gorgeous medieval limestone sculpture.

Our kids were fascinated by this box when we told them that it had an actual mummified falcon inside. (This was part of the expansive Egyptian section)

"Here comes the train again" Eurythmics style...sing with me!

We rather like taking the subway.

What a fancy place this was! There is a dress code after 6 PM. I felt like we had to sneak in quickly after our long day out in our casual wear so we wouldn't be kicked out! If you look carefully, you can see the Chrysler Building just above the word Astoria.

We headed back to Penn Station (and on to Newark Airport) right after this photo was taken, having just finished a huge Reuben sandwich at a great luncheonette. Yum! Now that was a bite!

Oh, I love New York!