Summer Activities

Well, with vacations at an end, we were quickly hit with the realization that we were going to have to get creative and make a plan for our day to day summer activities.  My friend Carrie brought up the idea of themed days last summer.  What a great idea! I stole this one from here.  Along with that the girls helped me write out a summer bucket list of things we'd love to do sometime during the next couple months.  I told them we won't be able to do all of it, but we'll do as many as we can...

 

Instead of making a treat on Wednesday, we went on a snowcone hunt instead - I was unsuccessful... but we ended up at Sonic instead and that was almost just as good :)  We took our slushies to a park and sat in some shade - the kids even played on playground for a little while even though it was over 100 degrees outside.  I must really have Arizona kids!

Emma got to tag along golfing with Ben and his friends on Friday morning - Ben says she did well and even drove the cart most of the time.  :)  She came home very happy.  I had an outing planned, but we saved it for Saturday morning instead so Emma could join us and I could get my Friday errands done.  Fun Friday turned into Fun Saturday at the Deer Valley Rock Art Center.

Once again, it was HOT, and I meant to get there earlier in the day (they open at 8) to beat the heat, but we didn't get there till around 10:30.  The kids enjoyed the outside trail to hunt for petroglyphs, but we felt rushed to just hurry back inside and out of the 110 degree weather.  The kids were troopers though...

I love catching the kids holding hands...

Thankfully, they also had some great stuff to do inside.  They spent a long time "shopping" for desert foods...

They set up a grocery store - Becca was the hard working cashier, and Jake was in line for his turn to check out.  Emma was really taking advantage of the sweet bagging service...

Claire was busy eating pencils...

Later that afternoon we went to the water park for a short visit.  (Ben was working during all this btw - his 4 week vacation finally ended... drat).  They opened up a new kids area at the water park - It's a real hit for my kids.  Especially for Becca and Jake since they aren't tall enough for most of the slides - this gives them more to do.  Jake has gotten really independent getting himself on all the slides by himself, and hauling tubes around.

 
Alright, so after watching the next video, maybe Jake isn't so great at hauling around his own tubes - Becca seems to get stuck with most of the work at the end.  :)

Flagstaff Retreat

We stayed in Flagstaff last weekend in a cabin with all of Ben's family.  We had so much fun!

Scout's 1st birthday was the first day we arrived at the cabin, so we had presents and cake.  I love first birthdays...

Scout loved her cake - she ate it all :)

We went caving at Lava River Cave...

Jake did NOT like being in the cave...

But Claire loved it - I guess you can't tell by her face here, but she was very happy being in the dark cool cave...

I love these babies so much

Dirty babies are happy babies...

Caroline...

Scout...

Goofy kids in a hot tub...

Prepping for night games... can you spot the ninja Ben?

The highlight of the weekend for me was completing the Flagstaff  Extreme Adventure Course.  It was amazing!  We all agreed it would be worth the drive from Phoenix just to go to it.  Emma and Adam did the kids course, and did awesome.  Here's Emma hooking up her safety lines all on her own...

 

Ben and I, along with Emily, Ben Lee, Peter, and Lacy all worked our way through the adult course.  There were 4  different courses, that progressively increased in height and difficulty.  It was challenging and crazy, but so exciting!  We had a brief training at the beginning to show us how to use our equipment.  Once we were up in the trees, we were on our own to hook up our own safety lines and hook up to the ziplines.  The guides were watching us from below and would shout up instructions if we needed it.  I had never done anything like this before, but it makes me a little more interested in trying out rock climbing...

 
 
I'm almost too embarrassed to post this video, as you get to watch my bum for over a minute, but this was also the hardest obstacle for me, and I was proud that I did it - I was getting really nervous at this point, because we were about 50 feet off the ground and I really had to trust my safety lines...

On the last day we stopped at Slide Rock before heading home.  This is always a favorite...

Claire going in for a drink...

We learned from Emily and Ben and there is a unique cafe just north of Phoenix that sells wonderful pies.  They had brought one up to the cabin at the start of the weekend, and it was eaten all up so quick.  We couldn't resist stopping on the way home to get a pie for ourselves.  Yum...

Alright - that officially finishes off the vacation posts.  It was a lot of vacation in a short amount of time - it was awesome, but now I'm so happy to be back home and getting into a more normal routine for the remainder of the summer.  

When the parents are away, the kids will PLAY

My parents did the best job keeping our kids entertained for the week we were gone in New York.  I swiped my favorite photos from their week of fun off my mom's blog.  They hiked, fished, crafted, picnicked,  gardened, visited Wheeler Farm and Jump Around Utah.  They even dealt with a sick Claire for much of the week.  Thank you again mom and dad!  My kids are so lucky to have such wonderful grandparents.