We had a lot of fun in the garden this summer!
The kids love helping pick strawberries. Brinlee has the basket.
Daisy checking on the tomatoes.
That one looks ready!
Caisen is on shovel duty.
And egg collecting duty.
Starting on the lower left hand corner we have zucchini and squash, then peppers, some broccoli that had gone to seed, then tomatoes, behind that is our asparagus patch, across the way is corn, the butternut squash. In the middle is our strawberry patch, and behind that are walking onions.
Brinlee and Julia.
My friend Ellen brought her kids Julia, Gabriel and Matteo (her newborn who I’m holding in the picture above) for a fun day. We love when they visit.
This year at Bear Lake marked a special occasion. They built a beautiful 3-story house on the lot! Talk about a life of luxury! Our kids just don’t know how good they have it. Each family takes turns making meals, and with a full kitchen the meals are fabulous! We have comfy beds to sleep in, two refrigerators for all that food, temperature control, hot water, showers, flushing toilets, no bugs (some years the mosquitoes are awful!) and access to Bear Lake year round. The camping part can also be lots of fun, so in future years we hope to give our kids some of both experiences. There are 6 bedrooms and 7 families, so each night the families with no kids 3 and under take turns sleeping in the loft area of the second floor. So far that doesn’t include us because we have wee babes.
Upstairs the entire third floor is one giant room plus a full bath for all the kids to sleep in. Our kids do not know the meaning of sleeping in, and we are all much happier when they are as well rested as possible, so they stayed in our room. During the day they play and have fun up there too. There is a small under the eaves storage room that the kids all squeezed into with a tiny laptop to watch movies. The top floor is mostly windows with beautiful views of the lake, and therefore too bright for daytime movie watching.
This picture was taken in a later year when black out shades were added to the windows in the upstairs room. Excellent addition, because sun coming up at 5:30 am makes for cranky kids.
One last summer adventure at Bear Lake is the perfect ending to summer. Strangely, none of us took any other pictures that year. Grandma had had back surgery that year, and I don’t know why no one else took pictures, but we didn’t. Too busy having fun, I guess. At least we got these two group shots.
This year Brinlee, Kimball and Sawyer start kindergarten! Real school! Well, I’m not sure how real it is when they get out at 10:45. And on Wednesdays they get out at 10! It’s not even worth it to get them up, fed, dressed and dropped off at school by 7:45 when I have to be right back there to pick them up. I barely get anything done when it’s time to go get them. How do they get anything done?
The one benefit is I have learned to get into Costco right at 10 when it opens, get what I need, pay, load the car and get to their school in 45 minutes. No more perusing. It has cut down on my bill a lot. Sawyer had a bit of a rough start because he hates change (just like his mama), and he hates not knowing everything. We had a lot of rough mornings getting him out the door, and he had a few rough moments in class, but after about 6 weeks, he adjusted. They had a fantastic teacher who was just amazing. I’m so grateful their first year is such a positive experience for them.
One night right before school started, I met Adam in Salt Lake for dinner and shoe shopping. That sounds really awesome until I mention that our 5 young kids were coming and the shoes were for them. I dread shoe shopping with the kids. It is exhausting trying to find the right sizes and colors for each kid. Even though we go to Nordstrom where someone else supposedly does the hard parts, it takes no less than 2 hours. I don’t know why I bother. My kids go barefoot anyway. Here they are on the first day of school with those new shoes on.
The kids also got eye exams, and after they dilated Kimball’s eyes, one of them wouldn’t go back to normal. Look at his pupils.