July has just passed us by in the blink of an eye! With how slow the year has moved so far, that's a great thing. The boys rediscovered their legos over the past two weeks. When the lockdown hit in March Grandma Sheila & Papa Mike bought the kids a Legos kid that had bags of all colored legos that they could make anything with. So they've been creating and creating all kinds of cool things! They love coming up with their own designs.
Brooklyn has really embraced her inner girly-ness lately! She's obsessed with unicorns and princesses. She loves to dress up. She will even put a skirt on over her shorts every day. Since I'm not a girly girl this is new territory for us, but she sure makes it fun!
Along with her love of Princesses she is neck deep in a love for Elsa and Frozen. She dresses up like her daily. She pretends she's Elsa and I'm Anna constantly. She has spent months lamenting that her hair isn't blond like Elsa's "I'm so tired of looking like Anna! When will my hair be blond like Elsa's?!?" She was so excited when last week a surprise blond wig arrived in the mail for her from Papa Mike. She wears it daily and if she can get away with it, she sneaks it out of the house and to the park or to the library to pick up books. The boys have told her several times that although her wig is pretty, they like her better just the way she is (what amazing brothers they are!).
We received information last week on what School should look like next year. The governor is requiring masks, and since our district is planning to allow kids back in the classrooms, that means I've been sewing masks like crazy. I want the boys to have a mask for each day they're in school, one for church on Sunday (which is canceled right now, but eventually it will probably be back), and an extra just incase we need one more. That's 7 masks per boy and a few more for Brooklyn, Dave and I. The pattern I'm using right now isn't hard or time consuming, so they go fast.
I've also started collecting supplies to send the boys back to school with. I've been able to find 4 packs of Chlorox wipes, 2 cans of disinfecting spray, two bottles of hand sanitizer and tissues. Plus the basic markers, notebooks, crayons, glue, etc. I've never spent so much on school supplies, and we haven't even received lists from the school of what they want us to bring. But I want the kids to be able to go back to school in a safe environment. They learn far better in a classroom, so I'll do whatever I can to help facilitate the process.
Dustin and Brooklyn have dove head first into cooking with me! They love to help out in the kitchen and have been fighting over who gets to add what ingredient and who gets to stand by me. When the fighting is at a minimum it's fun to teach them to cook.
We got to have a picnic dinner at our favorite park last Sunday with my brother Mike and his family along with Alison's sister Becky and her family. The kids loved playing together and the adults enjoyed sitting in the shade and talking. It was HOT out, but we still managed to have a good time. Corona has been so hard on all of us because we miss our socialization. It's a strange summer not having people over for BBQs and family dinners but I think meeting up at a park is a nice compromise.
Thursday of this week Dave's friend Darren invited us to go camping with him and his daughter. So we threw together a last minute trip to the mountains! We had so much fun hiking and enjoying the outdoors. Thursday amid the hurricane of preparation, we drove up Big Cottonwood canyon to a few campsites in hopes to get a walk up campsite for the weekend. I've been trying to reserve a campsite since January and things have been completely full.
With everyone trying to get out in nature it's been a completely booked year. Unfortunately we weren't able to get one close by, but we got a great hike in and got to explore Moss Ledge Waterfall for our efforts.
It was a difficult hike for the kids, but they had fun. Dustin was a little daredevil, as always. He wanted to climb to the top of every mountain and see everything he could. Brooklyn always wants to be right with him, and it was hard for her to learn she can't keep up with him all the time.
By the end of the hike we were worn out, scratched up, and ready to head home! I was glad we had dinner waiting for us in the Crock Pot when we got there.
Friday morning the kids and I headed over to our Bishop's house to cut down some tree stumps for them. The kids helpfully enjoyed someone else's yard while I cut the stumps as close to the ground as I could and talked with Anna (Bishop's wife). It was nice to catch up, since I haven't seen her in a while. Gave me a good workout too, with sore arms to prove it.
When we got home I packed up the car with everything I thought we would need for a two night camping trip. We didn't know where we would end up, so I packed for a HOT weekend. We tried a few sites and were turned away before we found Redbanks Campground. It was exactly what we needed! It had huge trees for shade and wasn't far away from Tony Lake.
We hiked around Tony Lake Friday before returning to camp to make foil dinners and s'mores. It was stressful not knowing if we would find a camping site, but very restful once we got settled in. My favorite part of the area were the alpine wildflowers. They were everywhere! Brooklyn had a hay day collecting them and is hoping if she plants them in our yard, flowers will grow. The kids said their favorite part was the water and having friends with us.
The weather was perfect. It was in the 80's during the day and probably down to 50 at night. Nobody was overly hot or cold, although there were many mosquitoes to deal with. Saturday we made a big breakfast and headed out to Bear Lake for a day of swimming. We picnicked on the beach and had milkshakes for a late afternoon snack.
We tried two beaches. One we christened the Mud Beach and the other the Rock Beach. The kids LOVED the Mud Beach! They sunk into the mud up to their knees and the mud dyed their legs orange. Dave and I liked the Rock beach better. The water was clear and the swimming at Rock Beach was perfect. We were worn out from swimming all day and Brooklyn fell asleep on the ride back to camp. We roasted hotdogs over the fire and again had s'mores after dinner.
Saturday was our night of injury. It started with Darren cutting his finger open with a knife. It was pretty deep but we were able to patch it up pretty well with alcohol wipes, gauze, Neosporin, butterfly closure and duct tape.
Then Dustin tripped and sliced his head open on the corner of the picnic table. He has a huge, swolen bruise and got a pretty deep cut. He begged me not to take him in to get stitches while still crying from the initial pain. I promised if he could stop bleeding quickly I would not take him in. It did stop very quickly so we cleaned up his wound, bandaged it with the same supplies we used to clean up Darren earlier (glad we already knew exactly where everything was), and he asked if he could go to sleep for the night.
This experience made me realize how much my car first aid kit is lacking, so we'll be updating that as soon as possible.
Sunday morning we woke up, ate, packed up and headed to a hike. It lead us to Polygamist Cave which was used to house the Polygamists hiding from the law back in the late 1800's. It was a fun cave to explore.
As we were climbing out Logan and Brooklyn decided to hide in a small offshoot cave and surprise everyone else when they came out of the cave. They were so well hidden Dave and Dustin couldn't find them. I had to point out the cave to them.
The hiking in was long and strenuous, but the hiking out/down was a nightmare! The trail was pretty steep and by the last decent Dave carried Brooklyn, Dustin and I just slid down on feet while squatting and Logan slid down on his butt, crying the whole way from pain of hitting the rocks. Fortunately that last decent was just feet from the edge of the lake, so we stopped for a swimming break and picnic lunch. Logan discovered if you stood really still in the lake the fish would nibble/tickle your feet. The boys were fascinated with this.
By this point we were exhausted and decided to head home. The kids were asleep within minutes of leaving the parking lot, and slept the whole 2 hour drive home. We ate dinner, showered and everyone went to bed early.
This morning it was hard to get up, but with 4 loads of laundry, unpacking to do, dishes to wash and a house to clean we did and got to work. It's always busy getting back from a trip, but we needed the break so it was worth it.
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