*middle of August*

One of the challenges for the last couple years during school breaks is trying to find something that ALL the boys want to do. Not too babyish for Nick and not too old for Liam.

It is nice that Liam is getting a little older and more capable of doing more "big boy" things lately--even though I am not too happy about him growing up.

We headed to Boondocks for their $12 Tuesday except it was a sham because it only included the indoor stuff for that price. So I shelled out more money for the all inclusive pass, which ended up being less expensive than on other days but still more than I wanted to spend, but as the day went on it was worth it.

Now only if they would sell Coke products.

I took Liam around a couple times on the go carts but you know, I am either super wimpy or just getting too old because it gave me a headache from being jostled around so much.



Luckily he has an older brother who is nice enough to take him around.


Luke would pose for me every time he made it around the track.




We went on the bumper boats a few times.


Liam thoroughly enjoyed soaking people.








We went on virtual roller coasters multiple times.


And Liam and I went on this baby. It was a simulated roller coaster that actually turns you upside down. A lot. We both had a great time.


And Liam was so happy to find out that he was tall enough to ride the smaller go carts all by himself.


The older boys went miniature golfing and played lazer tag, Nick went in the batting cages, and we played a ton of video games. One thing that is nice about going on Tuesdays is that all the video games (except the ones that give out tickets) are free.

It was a great afternoon.

Nick also had his 8th grade orientation, Andrew had his yearly physical, and we went school shopping at the outlets in Park City and ate at the Dairy Keen. Yum.

*first half of august*

As I am writing this, the first big snowfall of the season is blanketing the neighborhood.

We thoroughly enjoyed our summer.

We hit the drive in and saw Ice Age 4 and Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days.



We visited a trampoline park in Provo. This is one thing that my boys really love to do but usually it is ten dollars a person for just one hour of jumping. We found out that XTreme Air Sports has a deal on Mondays where 6 people can jump for an hour and a half for just $20.

That, my friends, is a good deal.


We went to Liberty Park a couple times. One time we had lunch with my sister and her girls, played at the park, and got wet at the splash pad.

One time we went to the aviary.






Both times we went on some rides.

This is Liam's first time on the ferris wheel and he wasn't too sure about it.


But he sure loved the swings.








I woke up from my post night shift nap to find this sweet note on my wall.


We went to the Leonardo, the most awesome museum ever. It is "a Utah museum of science, technology, and art." Usually I am dragging the kids to some place to look at things that I want to look at and it is not enjoyable because I get asked a million times when we are going to leave. Not here. We stayed here for a good part of the afternoon and we probably could have stayed longer.

Here are Nick and Liam trying to draw self portraits while tracing their faces looking in a mirror thing.




I think Nick's looks pretty realistic!


When we walked upstairs, Liam was in seventh heaven. There was a real working lab showing us how to extract DNA from different things. He was able to swab his cheek and see his own DNA! He was pretty stoked to be able to actually do the steps himself. I totally forgot to write down what the technician said on how to do this at home, but I bet I can google it.







The boys spent quite a bit of time in front of the different green screen stations. Here was a demonstration on how some animation is done. They were able to make a cartoon knight move when they moved. They thought it was pretty darn awesome.










Then they moved to the weather station and there was green clothing to put on and it made them disappear.


They made their own stop action film.


And were able to get creative in the art station downstairs.


Here is a duck that Nick made.


We attempted to hike to Cecret Lake one afternoon but many people had the same idea and the parking lot was super full. We parked at the bottom and hiked the Meadow Trail instead.

It was a leisurely walk with some of the most gorgeous scenery I have ever seen. Gosh, I love living in Utah.













We had a picnic at the base of the Cecret lift and headed back to the car. What a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.


We still went swimming a ton. It is my favorite activity to do after a night shift. We tried out different pools and we found that we love the Kearns Rec center.

There are platforms there that are super high and Andrew went off the first two and Luke was so cute because he wanted to go off the second one so bad but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. It actually made me happy to see he had an internal control in him that alerts him to danger. He did spend a good hour on the platform wandering to the edge, looking down, walking back to the back and hanging out with this other little boy that was in the same boat.

Liam was estatic to find out that you didn't have to be 8 to go off the high dive as at many of the other pools. He went to the top, walked to the edge, hesitated a split second, took a deep breath, and jumped.

When he came up out of the water he yelled: "That was awesome!" I about had a heart attack. It is hard seeing your kids grow up and want to try new things. I was so proud of my little guy though.

We also hit our first demolition derby ever.

We loved it.






















This was a scary moment when one of the trucks couldn't stop and actually went over the barrier and almost ran into the bleachers. Thank goodness everyone was okay!




Summer is coming to a close and hopefully I can get my act together to get my blogging up to date. So much to talk about.