Best of Summer 2013

This is the last you will hear of my summer. I promise. 

Indulge me as I give you Best of Summer 2013:

Best Activity with the Big Kids: Hike and tour of Timp Cave:

Best Activity with the Little Guys: Thanksgiving Point Farm:

Best Mommy Daughter Activity: Taylor Swift Concert.  It truly was amazing:

Best Cheap Take-Out Meal: Cheesecake factory Skinny Asian Lettuce Wraps.  These babies are like $6.99 and they give you the yummy bread too.  Add a McD's Diet Coke and you've got a meal.

 

Best Event of the Summer: Ashley and her family moving back to Utah.  Ryan was in boy Heaven with his cousins.

 

Best Summer Date Activity: Alpine Coaster and dinner in Park City

Best Bike Ride: Wildflower Pedalfest in Mountain Green, UT.  Rolling Hills, beautiful scenery, fun friends, great food:

 



 Best Lesson Learned: Yard sales are not worth it.   I made 80 bucks and lost my dignity:

Best Extended Family Outing: Alpine Rodeo with Ashley's family:

Best Reunion: Seeing my favorite guys from my freshman year at BYU.  Already planning another one for the Fall and hoping my girlfriends can make it!

Best Treat: Hokulia shaved ice.  This stuff is as big as my head and totally lived up to the hype.

Best Parenting Moment: Driving home from Café Rio and seeing this homeless looking toddler roaming the neighborhood in a swim diaper.  Sure enough, it was my kid.  Luke was supposed to be babysitting.

Best New Addition: My brand new nephew Wyatt

Best Tradition: Fourth of July Parade as the Patriotic Pirates: It never gets old...at least not for us!

Best Vacation for the Kids: Going to Snow Mass, CO with Sam for five days

Best Vacation for Mama: Kids going to Snow Mass, CO with Sam for five days and I stayed home
No pics.  Just lots of trashy tv, dinners out with friends, and roaming the mall by myself. 

Best Shopping Find of the Summer: Slip Extenders.  These are a life saver for us tall girls. I bought one in every color.

Best Bang for your buck: Seven Peaks with the Pass of All Passes.  There are a lot of haters out there but it will always be my very favorite Summer activity.  I love this picture of my bff Susan doing the rope swing in Provo with Y mountain in the background.  Our boys make us do it every time we go.

Best Free Adventure: Alpine Sliding rock: I felt like a hero for actually going down it with the kids.

That's it folks.  Put a fork in me.  Until Next Summer...I'm done!

Goodbye Summer

Marjorie Hinkley has a fantastic quote:

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny spots car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long perfectly manicured fingernails.  I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.  I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children.  I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed some one's garden.  I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.  I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

And that is how I felt this evening when I pulled into my drive-way in my filthy mini-van.  I had four kids in tow, all wearing wet swimsuits.  We spent our last official day of summer at the pool with Ashley and her kids and of course we stayed until the bitter end.  We picked up chick-fil-a and ate it in the car on the way home. 

Every year at this time, I mourn the end of summer.  I am a Summer girl.  I live for warm weather, flip flops, bike rides, hikes and long days at the pool.  And we squeezed the life out of this summer.  We went non-stop every day.  Swimming lessons, hikes, Seven Peaks, parades, rodeos, amusement parks, birthday parties, t-ball games, bike rides, sports camps, you name it--we did it.

Summer makes me feel like an awesome mom. I don't say this to brag. You see, I am not that mom that does cute Back to School themed dinners for my kids. I don't put notes in their lunches, Heck! I don't even wake up with them most mornings before school.  But I am great at taking them to do fun adventures and I'm not afraid to get my hair wet! 

I will never get tired of Summer.  I will never be ready for school to start.  I will never welcome the routines and homework and freezing cold temperatures. 

But at least I have no regrets from this summer.  Now who wants to come deep clean my mini-van?