Hiking across the Summer

For me, the biggest challenge of the summer is always the adjustment between the regimented days of school and the wide-open days of summer. If you've met Andrew, you'll understand this. This is the child who wants to know what the "plan" is every day--and I admit, I'm partly to blame for this, because when he was little I discovered he did better when he knew what to expect so I'd tell him what was going on that day . . . but still. It's exhausting to have something big planned every day.

So this year, we started off the summer with a family conclave where we talked about expectations (ours and the kids). It hasn't prevented all tantrums, but it seems to be helping.

It also helps that we've managed to pack some fun in along with the work (i.e., cleaning out the bathroom cupboards).

For Memorial Day we eschewed barbeques for the big outdoors--at Zion National park. As you can see, it was a gorgeous day. Our original idea was to walk down the Parus trail and then catch the shuttle back--but as we pulled into the park we realized we'd left Oliver's stroller at home. (Dan thought it was in the car; I thought he was planning to load it in the car). Turns out, Oliver is really horrible at walking in a straight line. He wants to touch everything, stop every five seconds, and then walk back the same direction he just came. We went about half our planned distance (carrying a protesting Oliver for part of the time) before ditching the trail at the History Museum and taking the shuttle.

Oliver did like the shuttle.

 Weeping Rock was beautiful: very green. And wet.

We had lunch in St. George at (where else?) Red Robin and then took the kids to see Dan's grandpa Rogers' grave, and then on to the splash pad. Our time there was cut short when Andrew decided to blindly leap through the central geyser and crashed into a little girl on the other side.

This is what his cheek looked like on Thursday, four days later.

We spent the middle part of the week hanging out, doing chores, playing with friends.

On Thursday, Evelyn and her Bubby went to the local princess festival. I'm not sure if it's because we signed up for the 9 a.m. slot or because not a lot of people knew about this, but Evelyn was one of only two little girls at her time slot, so she got lots of undivided attention.

She got to meet lots of fairy tale characters (mostly HS students in costume), learned dances, and got her face painted (pictures courtesy of Bubby).

Saturday, we went hiking again. This time, up at Cedar Breaks. (We really live in a gorgeous part of the country). This time, we remembered to bring a carrier for Oliver, which is why there aren't any pictures of him (or me).

I'd forgotten, though, that 70+ weather down in the valley isn't quite the same in the mountains, and I was surprised at how much snow still covered parts of the Alpine Pond trail. This is me, standing on top of a 3 foot snow drift (pictures behind me at Dan and Evelyn, Andrew in front of me).

Other news: we put our garden in a week ago and almost everything is still alive. Win!

I've discovered how to keep Oliver from climbing on me while I cook: let him do his own mixing. Only, he took the cup of milk I gave him to drink and added it to the water/sugar/cinnamon mess he was already working, so I'm not sure how that went down. He seemed to like it. The only downside: the floor was incredibly sticky when he was done.

We've begun to think he might have a future as a chemist or pharmacist. He loves to mix things. Especially his dinner. A sure sign he's done eating is that he will start dropping his food, etc. into whatever's in his cup.

And Evelyn's Star Wars fetish continues unabated. She saw Episode VI last week, so now Ewoks are her new favorite thing.