Last two (very busy) weeks of summer

Oh my gosh, you'd think I'd be used to this by now, but I'm still shocked at how much stuff we have done in the last two weeks.  We have gone to a giant water slide, a balloon festival, swam in a reservoir, hiked through a cave, swam in a lake, and attended a glow party.  We definitely rode this summer thing all the way to the end.  

Let's go back to the not so distant past of August 13th which my calendar says was only two weeks ago, though it feels like a month ago.

The Adventure Camp kids finished their Monday swimming lessons at the end of July so they didn't have swimming lessons on that Monday.  Instead they went to Outer Limits Fun Zone which had an arcade and laser tag.  The kids loved it. 

On Tuesday the field trip for the week was to a place called Steadman's Place.  I had the day off of work, and Brandon wasn't doing anything that day either.  I started to figure out which one of us would be going with the kids on the field trip, but when I mentioned it to Miss Wenda she invited both of us along.  Veronica doesn't have daycare on Tuesdays (since it's normally my day off) so she came along too.  It was so much fun to go on this trip as a family. 

Steadman's Place is located in Raft River, Idaho which is about 50 miles west of Pocatello.  It is within sight of the interstate and surrounded by fields. 

But the actual property we were heading to had a beautiful green grass, and rolling hills. Two of those hills had giant water slides built into them.  Those water slides were why we were here.

There were three or four pavilions throughout the property.  We claimed one and the kids all took turns getting sunblock put on.

Then we had lunch.  It was about 11:30 by this point.  Wenda always has the kids eat before they go play.  It's a good plan because she says she doesn't want to have to pull the kids away from the fun to get them to eat.

After that we walked up to the house where the people who own the property live.  Part of their garage is full of inner tubes.  Brandon and some of the teachers pulled out a bunch of inner tubes for the kids. We stood around waiting for the water to get turned on for the slide.

This gave me a good chance to take the kids' pictures.  Here's Veronica.

And Lydia.

And Charlotte.

And Derrick.

We realized the other hill had the water on so we went over there and started sliding. (Well most of us did.  I had to take Veronica to the bathroom, but I was able to take pictures while waiting outside the door.)  Here are Brandon and the girls sliding down for the first time.

Derrick went down on his own, but I didn't get a good picture of him. Honestly I hardly saw Derrick most of the afternoon.  He'd be sliding down while I was walking back up the hill or vise versa.  He went up and down that hill so many times. And he was always really good about carrying his own tube with him.  Her he is waiting in the line at the top.  The boy next to him wanted to pose with him.  Yay for inclusive kids!

Charlotte and Lydia went down together a lot.  Here they are posing together.  I don't remember why Lydia is frowning, but I think it has to do with the fact that she was mad they had to wait.

There were two women teachers and two adult men teachers.  The men were unofficially in charge of pushing the kids at the top.  Brandon took a few turns up there as well.  Here's Derrick getting pushed by Present. (yes that's his name.) The other male teacher - Emanuel was a machine on the slide.  He'd take a few turns pushing kids, then he'd slide down with a whole group of kids, then he would RUN back up the hill and slide with another group of kids, and then he'd RUN back up again to help push some more. 

Here I am in line.  I really like my swim suit cover up.

And here I am going down with Charlotte and Lydia.  The hill was so much fun.  Those tubes went fast.

Most of the time I slid with Veronica. She and I were buddies for the day.  I never slid with Derrick because, like I said, I hardly saw him.  But he didn't slide alone every time.  Several of the girls took turns sliding with him.

The other slide's water was turned on so we could slide on both slides.  Veronica and I liked the smaller slide because we didn't have to hike back up as far every time.  Every once in a while we'd run back to our pavilion to get drinks of water.  I hoped someone was making sure Derrick remembered to drink water.  I finally asked Wenda about it and she said that they got some water into him every so often. 

Here's a picture of all four teachers going down the slide together.  They are so fun.  I used to think day care leaders were all stuffy, non-nonsense people.  I'm happy that these teachers love to have fun with the kids.

Here's a video of Brandon and the three oldest kids going down the slide together.  I forgot how long that slide was until I re-watched this video.  The owner of the property said that people used to skid out into the parking lot until he put up barricades. 

And this is a video I shot with my phone while going down the hill.  Veronica is on the tube with me.  One of the other adventure camp kids asked if he could slide down with us, so he's on there too.  But we can just pretend it's Derrick.

I thought it would be hard to leave the fun water slides, but after about 3 hours we all started wearing down.  It wasn't quite so fun to walk back up those steep hills anymore.  Most of the kids actually seemed a little relieved when it was snack time. 

Then it was time to get back on the bus and drive home.  Veronica was asleep before we were on the freeway.  The other kids were pretty worn out too, but they stayed awake during the hour ride back.  

We had to walk across part of campus to make it to where Brandon had parked the car.  It felt like a very long walk. On the way there Brandon and I decided that the only thing we wanted for dinner was Little Caesars Pizza.  The kids were so excited when we pulled into that parking lot.  

We went home, ate the Pizza, and then watched a movie.  No one had energy for anything else. 

On Wednesday the kids went to Deleta for the last time.  They have all loved skating there.  At the begginning of the summer I thought for sure Derrick would hate it there. I thought it would be too loud for him.  But no, he took to skating like a fish in water and LOVED the trips to Deleta.

Back in April when I started getting phone calls from the principle about Derrick's behavior at school I realized that he needed more help then I knew how to give him.  I asked around and was directed to apply for the Developmental Disability Services though Idaho Medicaid. If he qualified they would cover the cost of behavioral therapy. I applied, but then we had to wait FOREVER for the assessment appointment. (I guess the company that did them had a terrible backlog.  In May we were 42 out of 72)  That appointment finally happened at the beginning of August. After that things started happening fast. Derrick was approved.  We were assigned a case worker who came and met with us Wednesday Afternoon.  She asked lots of questions about Derrick, his routines, his likes and dislikes, his strengths and weaknesses and so on.  Then she made recommendations about what kind of therapy and how much of it we should start with. I could have cried.  After months of feeling like I didn't have the tools to help Derrick I suddenly had access to a TEAM of people with lots of tools.

We selected a therapy company that will provide the services Derrick needs.  They that will have someone observe Derrick next week.  She will come to our home for a few hours and also go to the day care for a few hours.  After that we'll schedule times for therapy.  The best part (for me) is that they can do the therapy at the day care.  So I don't have to leave work to take Derrick to therapy.  And since a lot of Derrick's problems occur around other kids he'll be able to have therapy at daycare where the problems occur.  The only thing that would make this better is if they could do it at school too, but unfortunately that isn't an option.  But we do have some good plans in place for the school year.  So I'm feeling very optimistic about all of that. 

Also this whole situation makes us very interested in staying in Idaho after Brandon graduates. We were already like 75% sure we wanted to stay in Idaho, but now we are like 95% sure. 

On Thursday the Adventure Camp kiddos participated in a rock climbing event at Ross Park.  This is the same place Brandon took his rock climbing class. At the dinner table the kids and Brandon had fun swapping climbing stories.  The girls talked excitedly about hand holds and hoisting themselves up.  It might have been one of my proudest parenting moments. 

We spent a little bit of time outside on Thursday evening.  Veronica wanted me to take a picture of her jolly rancher which was her treat for doing the dishes. 

Here are my tall, tall sunflowers.

Charlotte and Lydia pulled a weed out of one area of the yard and "re-planted" it in another.  They took their barbies out there and played garden for a while.

On Friday the kids had their last day of Adventure Camp.  They had a field day on the Quad.  I think we were all a little in denial that Adventure Camp was over.  It seems like just yesterday that I looked at the calendars for June, July, and August and thought "Wow, they weren't exagerating when they called this Adventure Camp."

This summer was kind of a test to see if I like working through the summer - or rather if the kids like going to day care all summer.  Overall I really loved it.  And I know the kids loved it too.  I'm so glad they had so many fun activities to participate in.  And let's be honest here, if they were home with me they would have spent A LOT of time watching movies.  In daycare they only watched one movie a week. 

When I ask them about it though, the kids still say they would rather have me home during the summer.  That will most likely be the case next summer.  The way I see it playing out is that Brandon will graduate in early May, the kids will finish school at the end of May and then we'll move.  I'll spend the summer home with the kids and then find a job when they start school in the fall.  So the kids and I are already talking about Mom Adventure Camp next summer.  I'll have some pretty big shoes to fill. 

When I got home from work on Friday the kids and Brandon were waiting with the car all packed.  Brandon handed me a wrap and we were on the road and driving to Eden, Utah.  Eden  hosts the Ogden Valley Balloon Festival every summers.  Brandon's parents have been there for 4 summers, but this was the first time we've been able to make it.  (Last year the Balloon Festival lost out to viewing the eclipse.)  So we were bound and determined to be there this year.

On our way up the Ogden Divide road Lydia announced she had to go to the bathroom.  I was pretty sure there was an outhouse or something at the divide trail head so she held on until we got there.  While I was in the bathroom with Lydia a lady told Brandon that there was a moose in the bushes.  When we got out the bathroom Brandon drove over and we got a picture of the moose - or at least his shadow. 

We made it my in-laws house and found it FULL of family in town for the festival. After some quick hellos our group of 20+ people walked over to the Eden City Park to check out the festivities.  On the way there my kids HAD to throw rocks in the canal like they always do.

The park was full of people.  There was an evening balloon launch scheduled, but the weather was too windy.  The wind also cancelled the "balloon glow" that was supposed to happen when they sky was dark. 

But there was still some entertainment.  Some of the balloon owners got out their gear and shot columns of fire into the air.

Here are Brandon and I basking in the glow.

Derrick was scared and sat on my lap with a blanket on his head, but Veronica was all over the place.  She had fun playing with Justin.  She loves him so much. She never asks if her cousins are going to be at family events she always wants to know if Justin will be there.

I wanted to catch the atmosphere of the evening so I took this video.  I love Charlotte and Lydia's reaction to the fire.  And you can hear Derrick asking to go home every 10 seconds.  (Later he told me how cool he thought the fire was.)

We got back to the house late and put the kids to bed.  Every family basically got their own room.  So the kids slept on the floor and Brandon and I got the bed.  We had one of the smaller guest beds in the house, but it turned out to have the BEST view in the house.  

I was laying in bed in the morning and listening to the beautiful sounds of the valley.  During the night I'd heard coyotes and in the morning I could hear sand hill cranes.  Then I heard another sound and realized it was the sound of hot air balloon fire.  I sat up in bed and could see balloon rising above the trees just a few blocks away.  I hurried and woke up the kids and they quickly sat up to see the balloons too. 

The air was perfectly still.  The balloons would rise up and drift around lazily.

Veronica called these Easter Egg's.

I liked the tropical one.

We went outside to the back porch and watched balloons for a long time.

Thanks to all the fires the sun was red when it rose in the sky.

I took so many pictures of the balloons and I can't choose my favorites so here's another picture.

We all thought this Owl one was super cute.  We later found out it's name is "Whoos Up."

More balloons.

After a little while the balloons started coming down in my in-laws neighborhood. Steve told us that they'd had three balloons land in their front yard during the Friday morning launch.

While we ate breakfast the kids and I watched this balloon go down in a field.

Here's a video of the Balloons going up.  Derrick is the one you can hear talking.  

Brandon came from the front yard and told us a balloon had landed.  All the kids ran to see. We found out later that this balloon is named, Miss Wyoming.  

Each balloon has a crew of chasers that drive a trailer with all the stuff to put the balloon away.  The chasers showed up and started getting the balloon ready to take down.  A lady invited the kids and everyone else to help.

As the balloon deflates these guys pulled on some ropes to made sure it folded in half.

Here's another angle.

Then everyone worked together to gather the balloon up.  Brandon was right in the thick of things.

They brought the balloon into a big bag and squished it in as best they could.

Then all the kids were invited to sit on the bag to help it compress.

Derrick was a little shy, so he didn't help, but he did want to touch the basket.

Here are the kids squishing the bag some more.  One of the ladies asked, "how many kids do you have in that house?"  No one was sure of the answer.

After the balloon was put away we looked around and realized most of the balloons were down.  Everyone else who had stayed at the house started packing up.  They were all done with the balloon festival.  But Brandon and the kids and I weren't in any hurry to leave.  This was our first festival after all, we were going to stay for the whole thing. 

But first I had to get back to bed.  I went and took a glorious three hour nap.  It was wonderful. 

After I got up we had a little lunch and then changed into our swimming suits.  Then we walked down to the Pine View Reservoir.  I figured traffic/parking would be a nightmare so we might as well just walk.  We probably could have driven and been just fine, but it was nice to know that our kids could make the walk.  We'd done the same walk a few weeks before we went to Yellowstone and it took over an hour, this time it only took about 20 minutes.

The water was cold, but that didn't stop the girls from playing in it.

I went out there too.

Derrick got in the water a few times, but he was mostly content to throw rocks. 

Charlotte and I went out where it was deep and had fun talking. 

We were on something of a peninsula that was actually the old highway before the reservoir was created.  It looked like the road went across part of the lake so we went for a little walk to see if we could walk to the other side.  Everything was going fine until suddenly the road was GONE from under our feet.  Charlotte, Lydia, Derrick, and me all stumbled and hurried to get back onto solid ground.  The girls were not happy about that.

Here they are heading back.  My camera had been in it's back when we all fell in the water.  I'd managed to keep it out of the water - mostly, but the bag did get wet.  Everything seemed to be fine, but later the power button quit working.  I was so sad and thought that my precious camera was ruined for the weekend.  I thought about all the great pictures of balloons I still wanted to take.  But luckily I figured out a temporary work around.  If I popped the battery out and then back in my camera would turn on in display mode.  Then I could push the record button and it would switch back to camera mode. That worked, but keep in mind that every picture you see after this was taken after doing that little trick.  I'm hoping Brandon can work some magic on the power button, but he hasn't had time to yet.

Derrick came out in the water and started throwing rocks.  He accidentally picked up a broken beer bottle and sliced his hand.  (This is why we don't bring glass to beaches people!)  Brandon, who has a first aid kit that is the stuff of legends, was undaunted.  He cleaned Derrick off, applied some pressure, and had Derrick playing again within no time.

We moved closer to shore and the girls pretended to be tigers or pandas or something in these willows.

There were a bunch of geese out on the marshy area.  I thought they looked like dinosaurs.

We finished up at the beach and made the walk back to the house.  We took baths and each of us left quite the piles of sand behind in the tub.

Jacque made us waffles for dinner and then we headed back to the park for the evenings events.  Once again the evening launch was cancelled.  (From what I hear they never do it.) But as the evening got darker we could see some crews getting their balloons ready for the glow. 

The mortgage company Remax was there with a balloon.  I guess when your logo is a hot air balloon it makes sense to have an actual hot air balloon. They were smart and set it up first.  so everyone who took pictures was doing free advertising for Remax.  (We've seriously noticed so many remax houses for sale since this.)

I just HAD to document the awesome grass at the park.  These are the types of things you appreciate after living in the south.

Derrick was nervous about the balloons again, but he didn't ask to go home quite as often.

Here's Veronica being crazy.

As the sky got darker the balloons started glowing every time they turned on their fire.  When I'd first heard the term "balloon glow" I'd assumed the baskets were decorated with glow sticks or something. I had no idea how much the fire illuminated the balloons.

Here's Lydia enjoying the sights.

Once again I had to take a video.  It was so magical.

I went to bed hoping to wake up early enough to walk to the park and watch the morning balloon launch from there.  But I also wasn't willing to set an alarm to do that.  So once again I woke up to the sound of fire.  I jumped out of bed, threw on my jacket and shoes, and RAN to the park.  (Okay, I ran halfway there and jogged the rest, but it was still faster than normal.)  Here's a picture I hurried and shot from across the street. 

And here's the view from the park. 

I figured since my pajama clad self was showing up in everyone else's pictures I might as well show up in one of my pictures.  I kind of love how this turned out. This is probably the view my children will remember of me.

And more balloons.  The whole time I'd been expected some sort of triumphant feeling from watching the balloons.  But instead I just felt really relaxed.  A balloon festival is like watching a live screen saver.  (And I mean that in the best possible way.)

I walked back to my in-laws and saw that the Owl Balloon had landed in a nearby field.  This was such a fun balloon.  When I went back to school shopping a few days later I found water bottles for 99c that had owls on them that looked like this one.  The girls were so excited when I brought those water bottles home.  Veronica kept saying, "It's like the hot air balloon festival!"

Charlotte met me outside when I got back to the house.  So I had her pose in a few pictures.

She looked so pretty in the morning light.

I also liked this picture.  I feel like this was my Charlotte Weekend.  We always seemed to have little Mom and Charlotte moments.

We tried doing one of those trendy heart hands posses together.

But Charlotte figured out it worked better with just her hands. 

We went into the house and were greeted by teen-age Veronica.  I can totally see her sporting this look on a regular basis in a few years.

I have to tell you the story of how we got these hats. During the balloon glow Derrick kept talked about how he wanted a Balloon Shirt.  And I kept telling him there weren't any.  After the glow he kept pointing to a both and saying, "I want a balloon shirt."  I figured we'd never get out of there until I could prove that their weren't any shirts so I took him over to the booth.  It was the information booth and they lady that worked there was wearing a balloon festival shirt.  I told Derrick, "she has a shirt, but that's because she works here, they don't have any for sale."  And that was supposed to be the end of it.  But the lady said, "oh we have shirts for sale.  Come see."

So then Derrick runs over and is looking at the shirts and I'm telling the lady that I didn't even bring my purse with me to the park.  And then Jacque appears out of no where and asks how much the shirts are and then runs off to see if Steve has any cash.  She comes back with a card, but the booth only takes cash.  I'm willing to walk away, but the lady says that these shirts are basically worthless since its the last night and she's willing to give them away.  Jacque reminds me that we have to get four since the girls will be sad if they don't get anything.  The lady says she doesn't have four of the same size shirts, but she does have hats.  And next thing I know we are walking away with four free hats.  I don't know how he does it, but these are the things that happen when you hang out with Derrick. 

In addition to the hats Derrick also got the card from the Miss Wyoming and a festival poster.  He was one happy kid.

We'd planned to go to Sacrament Meeting with Steve and Jacque, but next thing I knew it was 8:35 and church started at 9:00 and no one was dressed.  So we stayed home and played with Brandon's old Legos.

Derrick and Brandon built a jet and then Derrick happily flew it around the room.  He pretended that the pilot's hat flew off.  He had the hat and ran around the room while I had the pilot chasing it in a helicopter.  It was so fun to actually play pretend with Derrick. 

Veronica came and laid down on top of me and I took this slightly surreal picture. She and I definitely look a like.

Eventually we got things together enough to throw them in the car.  The kids said goodbye to their grandparents and we drove home. 

This really should have been the end of our summer adventures because ISU started fall semester on Monday the 20th.  But we weren't quite done yet. 

Brandon's program reshuffled the order they do their classes.  A class that used to be in the first year was moved to the second year.  And since Brandon's second year class has already taken that class they don't have to go back to school until the middle of September. 

Brandon has been hired as the tutor for this year, and so he did have to make an appearance on campus for the little introduction class they do on the first day.  He didn't want to worry about traffic and parking so he just rode his bike.

The kids' school doesn't start at the same time as ISU so they had to go to day care this week.  But it wasn't adventure camp.  It was just hang out in the day care room and draw camp.  Honestly after a whole summer of go go go I think the kids enjoyed the downtime. 

With the beginning of the new semester Veronica was bumped up to the 4 year old class.  She moved up with most of the same kids that she hung out with all summer, but she has a new teacher.  We knew this was coming so it wasn't that big of a deal.  I guess I should have taken a picture since it was technically her first day of pre-school for the year, but honestly the new semester kind of blind-sided me.

Monday marked one year since my last day of work in Yellowstone.  So I was a little sentimental about that all day.  I really can't describe how much that summer meant to me and my family.  We grew and learned so much living in that little RV in the middle of the best vacation ever. Professionally it was also a big deal for me.  I was Assistant Controller of Roosevelt Lodge!  That's a big deal when you consider that 7-8 months earlier I'd been a stay at home Army Wife.

But I didn't dwell on missing Yellowstone too long because I had more adventures to prep for. 

Way back at the beginning of the summer Brandon and I decided that we should go to Bear Lake on one of my Tuesday's off.  Bear Lake is such a popular destination that it can get crazy packed on the weekend.  So it made sense to go there on a Tuesday.  But then the kids had so many cool field trips on Tuesdays that it didn't seem right to make them miss out on any of those.  So we pushed the Bear Lake trip all the way to the Tuesday between the end of Adventure Camp and the beginning of the kids school. 

At first I thought we'd make this into a camping trip and go down to one of the campsites near the lake on Monday night.  But as the trip got closer I could not work up the desire to pack all the gear and set up the tent.  I figured if we camped it would take us until about 10:00 am to have breakfast and clean up camp, or we could just leave the house at 7:30 and get there at 10:00 without all the work.  That sounded like the better plan.  (Note to self: I'm too tired for big trips at the end of the summer.)

We had another sight we wanted to see in addition to Bear Lake.  Minnetonka Cave is located near the north shore of Bear Lake and it's been on my radar as a place I wanted to visit since at least 2009.  So I made sure we put it on the plan for this trip.  We would go see the cave in the morning.  And play in the lake in the afternoon.

The morning went just as planned.  We packed the car and left the house around 8:00 and arrived at Minnetonka cave a little after 10:00.  The cave is $8 for adults and $6 for children over 5.  They have a family pass for $32 so that saved us $2. 

We met up with another family and our tour guide at the mouth of the cave. 

After giving us a brief history of the cave and some rules she let us go on in.  One thing everyone talks about with Minnetonka Cave is all the stairs.  And we started down those right from the beginning.

There were stairs, stairs, and more stairs. 

There were also cool features.

This one was called the Grinch hand.

This was the stairway to heaven.

This shaft looked down on what's called the Devil's Lair.

And here we are at the end of the cave.  The guide had just demonstrated total cave darkness so Veronica wasn't too happy about all that.

This was the rock that everyone could touch, but for some reason my kids didn't want to touch it.

Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick were perfectly content in the cave.  They talked to the tour guide, counted cave kisses, and spotted a bat.  Veronica on the other hand was not very happy.  She kept telling me she was cold and she wanted her coat instead of her jacket. (It was a chilly 40 degrees.)  She was afraid there would be mud in the cave. She didn't want to get her shoes wet. And she was afraid the lights would get turned off again. She ended up slipping a little bit so Brandon held one of her hands and I held her other one. 

She was pretty happy to get out of the cave.

We thanked our tour guide and then headed back across the wooden walkway to the parking lot.

We were all hungry so we drove to the North Beach Park for lunch.  Normally this place costs $5 per car, but we got in free with out Idaho State Park Pass.  We found us a spot and had a quick picnic lunch.  

There were hardly any people at the beach.  But this wasn't just because it was a Tuesday, it's also because it was unseasonable COLD.

But we still changed into our swimming suits and headed out to the water.  When I put this picture up on Facebook I said that we should pretend that's me and Brandon our there on the paddle boards.  I'd looked into renting a paddle board for $25 from the Outdoor Rental Center at ISU, but the cold weather made me abandon that plan.

Brandon and I used to come to Bear Lake at least once a summer when we lived in Logan.  I LOVED Bear Lake.  I loved that it was shallow forever so kids could play in it without worrying about stepping into a deep end.  I always looked forward to bringing our babies to this lake.  But we never did.  By the time Charlotte and Lydia were born we were living in Bountiful and we didn't have enough money to make a trip up to Bear Lake.  And then we moved to the South.  

In the south we discovered the amazing beaches on the Gulf of Mexico.  We made up for not taking our babies to Bear Lake by taking them to South Padre Island, Corpus Chisti, and Galveston in Texas.  When we moved to Alabama we added Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Panama City Beach, Florida to the list.  And let's not forget paradise itself at St Joseph State Park in Florida.  

After all those gulf beaches I wondered if Bear Lake would even compare. Would the Caribbean of the Rockies just seem like some back water mountain lake?

NOPE!  I still love Bear Lake. 

I loved that I could just let my kids play in the water without worrying about waves toppling them over.  And every time the sun sparkled on the water I felt like everything was right with the world.  

The kids had a great time too.

Buggy boarding was a little different without waves, but the kids made it work.

Oh and full disclosure here, Brandon never got in the water.  He said it was too cold.  Which it was, but there were some slightly warm parts and made it bearable. 

The kids had a great time.

Veronica made herself into a mud monster.

I took another video to capture the magic of the kids playing together.  I didn't just wait a whole summer for this trip, I waited their whole lives. 

After about two hours in the water we all had to face the facts that we were freezing.  A breeze had picked up and we were shivering while playing in the water.  

So we went back to the shore and warmed up in towels while we figured out our next plan.  

That next plan turned out to be go to Fossil Butte National Monument outside of Kemmerer Wyoming. Brandon and I stopped here on our way home from our Southern Utah Road Trip in 2010 and we'd been pleasently surprised.  It was one of those places that I've always wanted to go back to but never had the chance.  We were with 90 minutes of it, the beach was freezing, so we figured why not?

And I had another reason I wanted to go.  I'd never taken a picture of this giant Crocodile Fossil on that 2010 trip.  It wasn't a big deal at the time, but when I started my travel blog and went to write about the monument I realized that I didn't have a picture of the thing I remembered best.  So as soon as we walked in the door I made sure to take the picture.  

I also took pictures of the other fossils on display. This area has really cool fossils.  They aren't just bones, they are skin and muscles and other soft tissue. 

Here's some turtles.

The kids loved it.  They liked making "bone fish" tracings at the kid area.

Here's the outside of the building.

And here's a new display.  It depicts men at work in the quarry.

We headed back home with a stop at a park in Montpelier. the kids loved these horse swings.

We made it back home around 9:00 and had pizza for dinner.  Then the kids went straight to bed.  

We were supposed to be practicing for getting up early when school starts, but when I work up on Wednesday I wasn't feeling well.  I'd had a sore throat all day on Tuesday, but I figured it was from the fires. By Tuesday night it had turned into a stuffed up nose.  By 3:00 am it was a head cold and I took medicine.  By Wednesday morning I was achy all over.  

I texted work and told them I'd be there an hour late and I got ready for work in a fog.  I literally laid on my bed for 10 minutes after I got dressed because it had worn me out.  Meanwhile Brandon ran to the store to buy some things to fix our Jeep which had had a coolent leak or something a few days earlier. He got back and helped me finish getting the kids ready for the day. We all got in the car and Brandon dropped me off at work before going to drop the kids off at day care, and then he went home and fixed the car - or maybe he went to work and then fixed the car in the evening.  All I remember is the car was fixed by Thursday.  

Wednesday Night was the fundraiser for my co-workers campaign to be the County Treasurer.  It'd been trying to decide if I was going all day long, and by evening I was feeling well enough to make an appearance.  I wish I'd been feeling better because it was a good event, but mostly I just felt like I was only partially there.  I did take a picture of the center pieces because I thought they were really cute and appropriate.  

 On Thursday we had back to school night at the kids Elementary.  We met Charlotte and Lydia's second grade teachers.  And we re-met Derrick's first grade teacher.  He has the same teacher Lydia had.

On Friday I didn't have to work because I can only work 120 hours a month, and August is a long month, and blah blah blah.  I'm glad I picked this day for my extra day off because I had SO much to do.  I started the morning back to school shopping at 7:00 am at Walmart.  Actually I'd done most of the nitty- gritty shopping online on Walmart.com.  It was so easy to type in things like "crayola markers classic colors" and see exactly what I wanted pop up. So I had most of my order waiting for me.  But the pick up location didn't open til 8:00 and I had some other things to buy that I hadn't ordered online so I spent an hour wandering all over the store looking for those things and then I picked up the online things. 

We got a lot of fun supplies, but for some reason the only thing I took a picture of was the socks.  I took this picture so I could post it to instigram as my back to school tip.  You need enough socks to make it though the week. 

 My big goal for the day was to get the kids rooms clean.  I kept them home from day care and we all worked hard on getting their rooms spotless.  We seriously took EVERYTHING out except the furniture.  Vacuumed behind the beds and dressers and sprayed the edges for spiders.  (That's how I motivate my kids to clean- to keep the spiders away.)  It was a lot of work, but the rooms look so much better.

Then I made cupcakes so Charlotte and Lydia could play "Elsya's birthday" with their barbies.  I put on a movie for Derrick and Veronica and took a nap while the twins played.

 Around 2:30 I work up and helped the girls set up their lemonade stand.  They've begged to do this all summer but I kept putting it off.  Finally I wrote it on the calendar as something we'd do on this day off.  Lydia had the idea to set up on the busy-ish corner a little ways down the street.

I wasn't sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn't what happened.  The girls made over $30 in 2 hours.  It was crazy!  In the first few minutes I went out there to buy a "pitty drink" so they could at least have one customer.  Before I made it to the corner they had a lady stop her car and pay $2 for a drink.  Two Dollars!  They were only charging .25!  They were so excited about their money.  I helped them count it and then we talked about things like tithing and using the money to buy supplies.  (I was fine fronting the supplies the first time, but if they were going to be pulling in that kind of money they could buy their own supplies going forward.)

That night we were supposed to watch Big Hero 6 for movie night.  We'd ordered it from the library after the kids watched it at Adventure Camp.  Derrick, Veronica, and I walked to the library to pick it up and they were so excited.  But when it came time to watch the movie we couldn't find it anywhere.  Veronica had been holding it, but she'd put it down and it had disappeared into our messy house.  We searched everywhere, but we couldn't find it.  Derrick was so sad.  We watched Beauty and the Beast instead.  I told the kids that this was why we needed to deep clean the house. 

On Saturday I woke up a little overwhelmed with how much we needed to do. The kid's rooms were clean, but the rest of the house was a disaster.  It was the price we paid for all our gallivanting this summer.   Brandon and I started in our room.  I think it took over an hour to fully dig out. We also decided to move the rug from our room to the family room. So that took some time to get out from under our bed.

Then we got out the cleaning game cards.  I told the kids that this week it was us against the house.  We would all work together on each job instead of breaking up into teams.  It took us 2.5 hours (and a few emotional outbursts) but we got the house spotless.  Oh it feels so good in here again.  School can start now. 

I feel kind of bad that I didn't take before and after pictures.  But here's a picture of one of my sunflowers.  And that's probably just as happy.

Oh and we found the movie!  Under a pile of laundry.  Derrick and Veronica watched it as soon as we were done with lunch. 

 I took Charlotte and Lydia to Winco and we bought more lemonade, cups, and ice.  They set up the stand again.  Our neighbor's daughter came over and helped with the stand.  The girls know her from Day care and they always like playing when she's staying with her dad.  I thought, "well even if they don't make as much money today at least they are playing with a friend."  Brandon commented, "If two little girls make $30, will three girls make $45?"  His guess ended up being pretty spot on.  They made $43 dollars!  I helped count the money and split it three ways.  I think our neighbor was pretty excited to go home with $14. 

Charlotte and Lydia knew exactly what they wanted to buy with their money.  We went to Fred Meyer and they bought a Tracy Dog that has puppies.

 They saw this on one of those Anya and Elsya youtube videos.  they even named the dogs the same thing as the movie.

 In the evening all we wanted to do was go to bed, but instead we rallied one last time and went to a party at our friend Melissa's house.  It was a glow party.  She had glow sticks, silly string, and chalk bomb.  We had fun with all of those.  Here's Lydia's hair after a chalk bomb.

 Derrick was fascinated with the silly string. 

The party was so much fun.  Melissa was a wonderful host.  It was a great way to end summer. 

And its for real now.  Summer can officially end.  I think we rung every last ounce of fun and adventure we could get out of Summer 2018. 

I think I'm going to apply the same rule that I applied at the end of our summer in Yellowstone.  We aren't leaving Pocatello for a month.  I don't want to go anywhere in September. 

As fun as it's been I'm looking forward to some down time.  Or at least what passes for down time in our family. 

Talk to you later!