Summer's End

Temperatures are still in the upper 80s this week, but this is officially the last whole week of summer. It's hard to remember it's summer when the kids are already back in school by the end of July, but we have managed to do a few more fun things.

We were able to fit in one more camping trip over Labor Day weekend. We had a fun sleep-over at Jenny & Brent's place Saturday night, then went to their sacrament meeting Sunday morning. From there we went again up into the Uintah mountains, though we didn't go quite so far off the main road as the last time. This made it possible to take a few short side trips, hiking around Provo River Falls and driving through a few other campgrounds to check out where we may want to camp next time. Our camp site was really nice with lots of trees and a little stream nearby. We tried to keep this trip simple, so I let the kids pack their own clothes (then I brought a few extras). For the most part they did okay, except Alexia only packed a nightgown to sleep in so she woke up cold in the night. The temperature did get down pretty cold at night, so Andrew and the baby slept in the van. The rest of us stayed in the tent, though I can't say we slept. Austyn was up several times in the night, a couple times for sore feet and a couple times because he was cold. Ashley had to go to the bathroom at least twice before the sun came up, and Alexia woke up to go to the bathroom once or twice, then woke again later because she was cold. I had a hard time sleeping worried that I wouldn't hear the baby if she woke up crying hungry. I finally just got up at 6:00 because my feet were freezing and I figured she would definitely be hungry by then. After I fed Adalyn, Andrew and I worked on getting the fire started to warm us up. We packed up soon after breakfast and made it home before lunch. I was in desperate need of a nap, so after I fed the baby, Ryan kept things under control and I was able to sleep for four hours. I felt much better after that.

Ryan had to go back to work the next day, but the kids got one more day off school to get cleaned up and rested up. Austyn started his preschool that Wednesday 9/6, and has really been enjoying school a lot more this year.

Andrew's big Egypt project is due this Thursday so that will be a relief when he has that done. He will probably get another big project soon, but now he has the experience and will know a little better how to tackle the next big assignment.


Last Saturday Ryan's work had a Lagoon Day and we all got FREE tickets to go. Andrew had a football game at noon, so we didn't actually get up there until close to 3:00, but it was enough time to have a lot of fun. Ryan took the three older kids around and I took Austyn and Adalyn. Our time was spent mostly watching Austyn go on all the kiddie rides, but that was fun and we got several cute pictures.

Sunday we had all of Ryan's family over for dinner, cake & ice cream to celebrate his mom's birthday. By Monday Ryan and I were both pretty tired, so I didn't give him a hard time when he just wanted to come home and go to sleep after work (especially since I had taken a couple naps myself throughout the day :-)

Today we're back to the same-old, same-old, I'm just waiting for that energy to kick in. (I was really hoping I would have some by now!) Back to work and looking forward to fall, one of my favorite seasons!