The week before school goal 10: Since today is the last day of summer vacation our goal is to have some fun. We usually go to a drive in theatre but the movies playing tonight aren’t really kid friendly. So we will try a matinee at the local theatre. Our goal is to spend time with the kids and enjoy freedom for a day.
Tag Archives: summer
The week before school Goal 1 & 2
Posted onWe have had a great summer and it’s hard to see it gone but alas summer is almost over. My kids start school one week from today. The week before school starts I like to prep my kids so I know they are ready. My first goal for the week is waking my kids up at the time they would get up for school. That is 6:30 am for my elementary age kids and 7 am for my oldest. During the summer our sleep hours become lax. Bedtime gets pushed back and I let my kids sleep as long as they want in the morning. If I waited until the first day of school to start waking my kids up their bodies would not be used to the deprived sleep. They would be grumpy at school and want to sleep. I can’t do that to the teachers who work so hard to give my children their all. 
That is why we prep them for school. That way the first day isn’t a shock to their system and they are ready to learn. This morning was tough. My alarm went off at 6:30 and automatically my hand flies up to push the snooze. I’m usually up at 6:30 for my morning walks but I’ve taken a little break and it’s already tough to wake up. Once I was up I went and woke the little ones. My 3rd grader had an easier time getting up. She is really a morning person. She will wake up all year round with a song and a smile. My 6th grader is a different story. He took a little longer and usually I pay for it later when tempers flair and he isn’t quite awake. It’s now 7:30 am and my two oldest are already arguing. My 9th grader who has been a morning child before has crept into that teenage cycle of wanting to sleep all the time. He gets to sleep in an extra half hour than the others because his school starts later. I woke him up at 7:05 this morning and didn’t see him until 7:20. Hopefully this gets better during the week.
The second goal for today is cleaning out my children’s dresser drawers. We will at some point need to go get new school clothes this week. So today we have to make room for those clothes. We will remove anything that isn’t being worn or is too small or worn out. We will fill a bag of slightly used clothing and take it to the DI (Deseret Industries). This is a must. I let my 6th grader hang on to too many shirts last year and now his drawers have a difficult time closing. He doesn’t even wear half of the shirts in there.
Day Hike with Activity Day Girls
Posted onThis morning we left for a fun adventure with our 10 and 11 year old activity day girls. I was called to activity days last September. I was so excited to get to hang out and teach these girls. This has to be one of the best church callings I’ve ever had. We decided since summer is here we could try and do some fun activities with these girls. So today we hiked the Menan Buttes. I love these girls all there silliness and craziness too. We had a ton of fun and the view was spectacular. I hope the girls enjoyed it as much as I did. Mary and I also took our own girls with us and they had a fun too. Oh and there may be a rumor going around that I got lost on the way home. I may or may not have taken a wrong turn in the tiny city of Menan. The girls had fun using my phone to navigate me back to the right road.
Before the hike picture.
Silly picture
Just the beginning of the hike.
Aren’t these guys the cutest!
Another silly picture.
Mary and I were behind and when we got closer we could here the girls pretending to cry and whine. So funny I had to snap a picture.
Eating lunch at the rim.
reading the signs.
Great view
The girls climbed up on this outcrop. It almost gave Mary a heart attack.
They are having so much fun
Another silly picture. Every time I took a picture they felt it important that we take a silly picture too.
climbing around on the rocks
Last climb before heading back.
End of hike picture. Do they look tired?
Last silly picture.
Last summer Hurrah
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Family Photo at Harriman State Park
For the Labor day we went for a hike at Harriman State Park. This is the last fun thing we got to do before school started the next day. It was beautiful. My friend told me that I was pretty much guaranteed a moose sighting. Well she was wrong we didn’t see any moose. We did however see a lot of moose scat but no moose. We did enjoy the water fowl that we saw. There were a lot of geese, a few swans, a pelican and a couple of cranes. We did the golden lake loop which was a very easy hike. We hiked in total 4.5 miles. The only person who seemed tired of walking was the littlest. It’s the longest she has hiked without having to ride on daddy’s shoulders. It drizzled on us off and on throughout the day. It was never enough to soak us through but enough to keep us cool. This area is also one of our favorite spots to cross country ski. They groom the trails in the winter and it is so beautiful covered in snow.
The trail through the meadow
Stopping to look into a pond.
One of the winter warming huts.
Taking a break.
A Couple of swans.
Our destination Golden Lake
Girls getaway
Posted onEvery year my husband puts together a guys hike and they take an overnight hiking trip into the woods. Finally it’s my turn. We have been talking a long time about going on a camping trip just us girls and we have finally made it happen. We went up to coffee pot campground and kayaked part of the Henry’s fork river. This was my first time kayaking. As you can see I’m the only one wearing a life jacket. Most of these women have been down this stretch of the river and swore I wasn’t going to need one. I’m a little nervous around rivers especially since Corey joined the local search and rescue team. There have been too many stories of people drowning and their life jackets were on the boat but not on them. Well it turns out that most of the river is very shallow. We even had to walk our boats in some areas. It took us about 2 hours to get down the river. The best part is we could kayak right up to our camp site. The next day after breakfast we went on a hike. We hiked farther down the river where there were class 4 rapids. Not something I’m going to tackle any time soon. There were lots of huckleberries along the way. Andrea was always hanging back to pick a handful at a time. When we got back to camp we packed up and squeezed one more trip down the river. This time I did it without a life jacket! We had a great trip and I couldn’t think of a better butch of friends to experience this with. Thanks guys I had a great time. We need to start planning for next year.
Setting up camp
View from our camp
Taking a short break before hitting the water.
Getting ready to get in.
On the water
Walking our kayaks through the shallows.
Melanie
Andrea chillin with her peanuts
View from Debbie’s Kayak (photographer of the water venture)
Andrea and Jennifer
our camp is in sight
back at camp
Oh Deer!
Rapids
picking huckleberries
The hiking trail
A wonderful bunch of Ladies.
Andrea, Jennifer, Me, Debbie, and Melanie
4th of July 2013
Posted onWow we have had quite some weekend! We start with the 4th. It was jammed packed with fun stuff. We woke up at 5:30 am and went with Corey to help road block for the 5K firecracker run here in Idaho Falls. The kids had fun watching the runners go by and seeing some fun costumes people had on. Then straight from the race we went to the parade. We didn’t get a nice shady spot this year so it got pretty hot. Luckily we were well covered in sunblock. Then it was off to Gem Lake to hang out with our friends and play in the sand. We stayed there for a good 4 hours. Unfortunately some of us did get sunburned after 4 hours. Mainly it’s because they forgot to reapply on their shoulders. Later we were lucky to have Nami and Nampa Edwards join us for the fireworks. The show was an hour late because a 27 year old kid decided he wanted to swim to the island in the middle of the Snake river and drowned. They had to search the river and postpone the fireworks for an hour. So sad, it kind of put a damper on the festivities. By the time we got home we were beat. Sophia fell asleep in the bike trailer before the fireworks even started so she missed the whole thing. I guess it will be a year we never forget.
waiting for the parade
Corey and Sophia walking on the sandbar
Preston and his little buddy Seth playing in the water.
She may look sweet and cute here but…
she covered herself in sand. It was everywhere.
waiting for the fireworks
Sophia and her good friend Candice. Her mom made cute outfits for them.
A hiking we will go
Posted onWe have gone on a couple of hikes this season. We did Hell’s half acre again but this time we hiked a little further along the red line. Sophia walked about 2 miles but Corey had to carry her for a mile in between. It was a fun first hike.
What a cute group of people
Eating lunch
Family Photo
Corey Hiking with Sophia
Preston Shooting his new BB gun
Another hike that we went on was Palisades creek trail. It is actually a pretty easy hike just really long. In total we hiked about 5 miles (Sophia 4 miles). If you went about 1.5 miles more then we would have made it to the lake. The kids kept complaining all the way hiking in but on the way out they were just fine. On the way back we sang songs to take their minds off of hiking. I wish I had thought of that on the way in. Corey and I are hoping that we can make it to the lake next time. It was a very pretty hike.
The creek that goes along the trail.
Pretty wild flowers
Hiking the trail
More traill
More wild flowers
Corey’s sneeky bouquet. He put flowers in my backpack while I was hiking.
Mid point over look.
Wild Cats
Posted onGrandma worked last night so we ended up spending the day with grandpa. Grandpa decided to take us to a place just outside of Cave Junction called Wild Cats. On the way we stopped at Kerbyville and looked at this shop that sells a bunch of wood carvings and had a lot of tree houses on the lot that the kids explored. When we got to the cat park we got to see a lot of really cool cats. The first one we saw was the lion. It freaked me out a little because I didn’t expect them to be so close. It’s a little unnerving when they roar. Most of the pictures that are of the big cats aren’t zoomed that is actually how close they were. My boys loved it. Sophia got a little hot and tired and by the end of the day just wanted to go back to grandma’s pool. It was pretty hot but every so often in the big cat park they had misters to stand in to help us cool off. When we got home of course we spent an hour or so in the pool. We had a really great day with grandpa.
The kids climbing up a tree house
Grandpa T. on the lower level and the boys on the middle level
Grandpa T. lower level while Levi is on the very top. So high!
Sophia and Levi posing silly.
Cool enclosed tree house with faces on it.
Leopard
Tiger
White Tigers
Baby Leopard that we got to pet.
Snow Leopard
Very impressive Lion
4th of July 2012
Posted onWe have a tradition of going to the parade every year. This year was no different. The kids love the parade. At one point in the parade a live band with drums and guitar went by and Levi just started rocking out. Corey started to record unfortunately he missed the best part but still got a little snippet for you to enjoy.
After the parade we played and ate lunch with some friends at Gem Lake. We did this last year and I think it should become another of our traditions. Later in the evening we like to watch the fireworks. We usually go to a place off Skyline near our house but one of our friends invited us over to see them in their backyard. This was really fun too. Corey and I forgot the camera so no pictures of the fireworks this year. I love that even though we are far away from family we still feel like we have family close. The friends we have made in this neighbourhood are great. What a great way to celebrate our country’s birthday. Hope you all had a great 4th too.
Waiting for the parade
Our big group trying to squish in the shade
Mesa Falls
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Upper Mesa Falls
The last weekend in June or first weekend of July, however you want to look at it, we went camping up by Mesa Falls. The falls were a beautiful site. It was pretty crowded up there but well worth seeing. They have an old log inn there that they have turned into a visitor center/gift shop. I told Corey that someday I wouldn’t mind retiring in a log cabin like this. We went through the visitor center and a park ranger gave the boys a booklet to look through that had a comic in it. Afterward we walked the path that went by the waterfalls. While everyone is looking at the falls Levi would find a bench and sit to read his comic. He was so much more interested in what happened to smokey the bear than the beautiful scenery around him. We had a really nice weekend. We are so lucky to live near such beautiful areas.
Beautiful!
Levi and his comic
Really neat Inn
Can you see the Tetons in the back?
Love Sophia and Levi’s expressions here.
We spent a couple of nights in this area and the next day we ended up hiking by Warm Springs. They have an old fish hatchery that you can rent out and near there was a bunch of hiking trails. We decided to hike a couple of miles (all Sophia can handle). Have I mentioned how beautiful the area is? This was a great weekend. We had beautiful scenery accompanied by equally beautiful weather. I love going camping. It really helps me relax and get away from the world.
Hiking along Warm Springs
Taking a trail mix break
The grass is as high as Sophia
Family Photo at Lower Mesa Falls over look