Good-bye June, Hello July!

Another month has come and gone, so as promised, I have provided "June Photos" on our website for your enjoyment. Remember that you can see our photos "in living color" by clicking on the gray scale thumbnails.

The summer is flying by. "Mom's School" is not working out as planned because we have had so many different activities at different times each day, any kind of routine has kind-of fallen by the wayside. Life should slow back down in about 2-3 weeks, so I plan on torturing my children for the rest of the summer. MUAHAHAHA!

Here's a recap of the past few days:

On Friday, it was our Stake Lagoon Day. I finally gathered up enough energy to drag the kids to Lagoon at around 3:00 in the afternoon. I had a long talk with The Princess about how I would not be able to take her on the roller coasters as there would be no one to watch The Dragon, and she agreed to not complain. Ironically, she did rather well, and a friend offered to watch The Dragon so I was able to take The Princess on one roller coaster. The girls and I love how the entire park lights up at night, so I had planned on staying until it got dark... about 9:00. We stayed until 11:30! Oops.

When we got home, my right leg was in serious pain. I had developed a muscle cramp or two while walking the park but by the time we got home, it was much worse. I spent a very restless night with the heating pad - yelping in pain every time that I moved.

On Saturday, my leg was feeling better than it did the night before, but not healed. I took the girls to swimming lessons (the last one in this session). The girls have improved so much! The Princess is actually swimming (breathing needs a lot of work), and The Dragon will do pretty much anything her teacher tells her to do, including putting her face in the water. Something I have realized, but tend to keep forgetting: Don't "ASK" your kids to do something if you want them to actually do it. Her regular teacher always says something like "Now we're going to blow bubbles - it's your turn... BLOW!" And the kids do it. The Dragon had a substitute on Saturday, and she said things like "Will you blow bubbles for me?" or "Who wants to put their face in the water?" and almost every time The Dragon and her friend replied with "No!" and "Not me!"

Saturday evening we invited some friends over for dinner and games. Unfortunately, Jon was on call and so our evening was disrupted as he had to go into the hospital twice. We had a great time with his wife Julie and their kids, but we felt bad that Jon couldn't spend the evening with us. We knew there was a chance this could happen - and OUR feelings were NOT hurt - but we wanted him to have fun too, and he couldn't. Ah well! We tried.

On Sunday my leg was cramped again, so I skipped church and stayed home. I did take the girls to Grandma's house in the evening for dinner.

Yesterday, was a very busy day. We made plans to meet my cousin and her family at Hogle Zoo. We were supposed to be there at 9:00. They didn't get there until about 10:00 (I had planned on this happening - it's normal!). We saw about two animals, and then I had to leave to take The Princess to dance class. The Dragon opted to stay at the zoo with her 2nd cousin. After dance, The Princess and I headed back to the zoo. Once we arrived, I called my Aunt to see which part of the zoo they were at and if they were planning on coming back up the hill in a few minutes or if we should go down to meet them. You can see what's going to happen, right? Yep, we were told that they weren't done yet and to "come on down", so we did. And then we proceeded to march right back up the hill, because they were done. Lovely. We went on a train ride, and then my relatives were ready to call it quits. It was really hot! Days like this are when I am really grateful that we have an annual pass to the Zoo!

But, the girls were ready for more of an adventure, so we headed across the street to "This Is The Place Heritage Park." It was free admission day, and since we were so close, I figured we could go check it out for an hour or two. Besides, they were giving away free ice cream. FOUR hours later, we finally left. We rode a train, explored the farm house of Brigham Young, rode the train again, had free chocolate ice cream, checked out a school house, went on a pony ride, visited the petting zoo, made candles, went on a covered wagon ride, made bread, ate cookies, went on ANOTHER train ride, bought a magnet for our fridge, and went home.

Ironically, my leg survived. It's still a little stiff and sore, but not bad.

Tonight, the Independence Day celebrations begin. We are going to Grandma's for dinner, and then we are going to go see some fireworks! Should be lots of fun. Hope I remember to pack the earplugs for The Dragon!