June

What a month!

I pulled the kids out of school a day early (not on purpose!) to start our cross-country drive to Idaho and Utah. We met up with the Garners in Omaha so Rachel and I could bike 50 miles in that state, then took another couple days to get all the way out to Idaho Falls where Bobby's parents live. This time, with so many kids of certain sizes, we decided to rent a VRBO for our family. That worked well for me. We could keep a lot of our routines in place and still spend lots of time with grandparents and cousins. We went to the zoo, did baptisms for the dead in the Idaho Falls Temple with cousins, ate fantastic home-cooked meals at my in-laws' house, spent a day or two in Rexburg with cousins, sampled a ton of new things at candy and soda stores and ate waaaaaay too many Creamies. 

After a week with the grandparents, it was time for another 50-mile ride! This one started in Cache Valley, UT. I was riding it with Heidi, Rachel, and Rachel's sister-in-law Becky. The weather was great, the event was a party, and I've never had such a refreshing lime ricky. I loved chatting with Heidi for hours. We swapped cycling playlists, ate fantastic food, and checked out an international food shop.

After the race, Heidi and I headed back to Salt Lake City where our families were waiting. We all met up with Kristin for dinner at The Red Iguana 2. Mmmmm. Our kids are too picky to take out to eat. I asked for plain chips with melted cheese on top and a little beef, thinking it would be plain ground beef. Well, they brought a plate of chips doused in white nacho sauce and topped with half a pound of well-seasoned shredded beef. Delicious to most people, but almost entirely inedible to 3 of my 4 kids. Ugh. This is one of many reasons my kids aren't too thrilled about family vacations.

That evening, we spent the night at my sister's cabin in Heber City, UT. My kids thought it was pretty much heaven on earth. First off, there were friendly dogs. And horses we got to feed. And a hot tub. And a queen-sized bunk bed for each member of our family. Then they discovered the gun safe and the Rumba and the entertainment room with whack-a-mole, pool, and shuffle board. The indoor pool wasn't ready, and they're a little young to appreciate the pickleball court, but they were thrilled with everything else. And THEN they discovered the 4-wheelers. They seriously begged to come back next summer to ride horses, shoot guns, ride on 4-wheelers, and swim their hearts out. I didn't dare tell them about the snowmobiles or the theater room downstairs...their heads might have popped off right then and there. 

The next day, we went to church with my sister's family and then headed to American Fork. We stayed in a cute little VRBO in Highland right next to the mountains. That's the place Alex, Robert, and I fell in love with the game "Bohnanza." We played tourist at Thankgiving Point, hiked to Timp Cave, and drove around a little as I pointed out places I remembered from my time living there. I also got to spend an evening with my good friend Marie and visit my first ever dirty soda shop. Very tasty!

The drive home was punctuated by a stop in Des Moines, IA for the third and final 50-mile cycling ride on this trip. Des Moines has a TON of really nice trails all throughout and around the city. It was a very pleasant ride :) 

We got home in time to enjoy a weekend before the first of the summer camps began.

Robert has had Advanced Math Academy at the school, which he hates, except for the days they spent designing new treat recipes or building mini electric vehicles. I'm sure they tied it in to math somehow...

All three boys are at "College for Kids" right now. It's a summer program put on by our local community college. All three moaned and groaned and gnashed their teeth at the idea of any summer camp of any type, but I insisted that this was important to the health of our family this summer and it was time to take one for the team. After the first few days, they were less miserable. Robert really likes coding for websites and building robots. James and Matthew have fallen in love with geocaching and hooked me into it as well. All that AND I get a few glorious hours completely alone in my house to regenerate and work on things uninterrupted.

James and Matthew had a week of swim lessons at our friend's house and loved it. Matthew actually jumped off the side of the pool into the shallow end. He's collecting rings off the bottom of the shallow end now and capable of doing a 6-second backfloat without assistance. I kinda thought this would never happen. I kinda want to give his swim teacher a hug. Would that be awkward?

James and I have a goal to get Matthew comfortable on a pedaled bike by the end of the summer. That's not going nearly as well as swim lessons. This boy insists that bikes hurt his bottom. We've tried at least two seats and they're both fine for 5 minutes, then it's over. I've pushed him to go a little further, encouraging him to toughen up his tender bits, but that typically leads to crying, irregular balance and a crash. The crash creates more physical and emotional injury and then he's barely able to walk his bike back to the car 100 feet away. The most recent attempt at this ended with Matthew in a puddle, looking up at me crying and frustrated, "Can't you see, Mom?! I'm just not a bike rider!" I had to admit, it never occurred to me that one of my own kids wouldn't enjoy riding a bike. I let him know that riding a bike was an important skill I wanted him to learn before he became an adult...just like swimming and music lessons and rudimentary cooking and cleaning. That didn't help Matthew in the moment, but I realized that it doesn't have to happen this summer. Maybe Matthew just moves at a different pace.

My big project the last week or so has been swapping out our 15cuft chest freezer for an upright freezer and an upright fridge. Alex rolled his eyes and jokingly quipped, "Oh, so we're one of THOSE families now." Uhhh. I guess so. Whatever that means. I've had to go through the garage and get rid of a lot of stuff to make everything fit. I've also been going through our "room of requirement" and donated a van load of old books, baby gear, games, toys, and clothes we've outgrown. I originally held on to it thinking we'd have friends with small kids coming over all the time. Nope. Then I held on to it thinking that it would be handy for when I'm a grandma...10-15 years from now, with no idea how physically close I'll be to my grandkids at any point in their lives. Nope. I don't need to keep it. 

Alex started his first job. He LOVES it. Everything about it. He loves his manager, his coworkers, the kids, the lessons/games, and all the tasks assigned to him as a junior counselor at Nature Day Camp. He loves the positive feedback he's getting from peers, adults, and kids. He's also thrilled about the generous $12/hour he's getting paid for all of this fun. His first paycheck is today. Wahoo!

So that's been June for us. This is week 5 out of the 13-week summer *deep breath* so far so good.