Welcome to Summer!

Summer started as summers should- with swim lessons! Elliot is now a full blown swimmer. 

 

It took some coaxing to get Annie to brave the deeps. Charity Nielsen was up to the task!

I signed the kids up for a free Vacation Bible School camp at a Baptist church in Green Valley. A ton of people in the ward signed up as well- I think there were about 25 kids from the ward there! The theme was construction and Christ as a foundation. They came home with lots of crafts and some bopping songs. 

At the end of the week they had a parent night with free dinner and a performance of the songs they learned throughout the week. Elliot's lips hardly moved, and his hands never went above his waist for the dance moves. Afterwards we asked him how it went, and he said something along the lines of "Great, I knew all the words and moves!" I have no doubt that he did and that he was a total rockstar on the inside. 

We picked up free school lunches for ourselves and the Gonzalezes on days where we had swim lessons or camp. It was the third summer that they have run the free school lunch program that was started during Covid. I always appreciated not having to cook lunches, and the kids enjoyed the novelty.

Another favorite activity of the summer was the library program! They had some sort of craft about once a week. Our favorite was the message in a bottle. They had a bunch of reference sheets with secret codes. Elliot worked diligently on his and would not let me see it. It was a gift for dad- a message that translated to "You stink so much dad." True love. Annie had me help her write a message for Jeanie, our favorite librarian. It said "Thank you for being a nice librarian." It got posted on the library facebook page!

They had a scavenger hunt with a prize box. Annie wanted to do it every single time we visited.

Elliot found this cool library book that is a step by step tutorial on how to code a vampire pizza gme. He and Aaron spent many hours on it before Elliot's interest fizzled out.

I found this tiny scorpion on the bottom of my vegetable steamer- AFTER I microwaved it for 5 minutes! It was somehow still alive and had probably acquired superpowers. Or cancer. Regardless, I defeated him in battle. 

Fun trip to the children's museum for a summer splash day

The rains came early this year! Annie still loves being wet. She runs out in the backyard whenever there is a good storm. 

Pretty sure this was after our weekly ring-around-the-rosie during family home evening. "Everyone fall on dad" is a favorite variation. 

Peach Palooza! I love the few weeks where we grab a handful of peaches every morning and put them in yogurt, oatmeal, or cereal. So good. 

Fruit leather. So yummy. We decided it is worth it to haul the folding table outside for this operation

Aaron turned 33! XR Trading (Aaron's work) sent him two dozen donuts from a fancy place in Chicago. This does not seem like an efficient way to get treats to somebody, but we were happy to share them with friends! We also went to Kababeque with the Hornes for dinner. Aaron is the rock of our family, and I'm always happy to have excuses to celebrate him.