Heber Valley Camp

Shane's parents are doing a service mission at the Heber Valley Girls Camp and we got a chance to go visit them for a night on the weekend when there aren't any girls or big groups.

When we arrived we went straight to the challenge courses. I think this is the highlight of the place. It's what all the teenage girls talk about when they come back from girls camp.

I'm not sure why...this stuff isn't scary to me. I think it's all the safety gear, or the daredevil in me.

We did the big swing first. The younger kids could only be pushed, Roman and the adults were hoisted way up to a tree where we then let go and really swing. It's pretty fun.

Our next challenge was where you climb a pole, balance across a pole, then zip line down. Roman made it to the top. Marisa didn't want to try and Ezra tried but he was too short to make it all the way to the top. He was bummed because he really wanted to do the zip line. He got pushed like a swing instead.

The kids thought it was a blast.

Later we headed to the lake where we paddled around in paddle boats and canoes. The weather was PERFECT!

 Root beer floats afterward.

 As the sun was hanging low in the sky we went over to one of the campsites and started a fire. We roasted hotdogs and marshmallows and drank ice cold lemonade. The boys had fun lighting sticks on fire.

Just a little tagging.

We stayed until the stars started showing then we drove home. We could have stayed the night in one of the cabins but we would have just returned first thing in the morning and no one would have slept well so I petitioned for driving home. Glad we did.

In case you've never been there, this camp is really nice. I imagine there could be one time when I get to camp there for a week. It's beautiful.  

We had a great time. It's so nice to have Shane's parents close by for a summer. We don't see them often because they are busy busy but it's fun to see them when we do.

This Summer

I'm trying to have a plan this summer. Not so big as two summers ago where everything was very themed and planned. But if I don't have some kind of plan, we are going to spend too much time... wasting time.

So here's my plan which is based off of this really.

Everyday they have chores. They get a ticket (that can be used to play 20 minutes of video games and other things), and a small treat for finishing. if they do their chores every day for two weeks they get allowance. (do you think I'm bribing them enough for doing their work? Nah... me either ;)) Chores are typically; clean room, get dressed, brush teeth, practice piano, read 20 minutes, take out trash etc. and then there is an extra credit where they do something I come up with.  After that:

Monday is piano lesson day. Roman is kind of a natural at the piano and I've been just HORRIBLE at disciplining myself and teaching him. Marisa wants to learn too. So, since Mondays seem to be my most productive days, this is when we're doing it. So far so good. We haven't skipped a lesson yet and they practice daily as part of their chores. Roman is zooming through his lesson book and Marisa is catching on too. I have to remind myself that if I had someone else teach them it would be $30-$40 a month each so essentially, I'm saving our family $60 -$80 a month by sucking it up and teaching them... at least until they pass my realm of knowledge. Then I will pay someone to un-do all the damage I've done ;)

Monday is also cooking day. I hate having helpers in the kitchen. But... I don't want my kids to be clueless so this is the day where I plan on really letting the kids help me make something. We made bread the first week. The kids thought it was fun but wouldn't really eat it. Oh well, flour is cheap.  The next week was cookies but we ran out of time. I don't know how piano lessons, a trip to my work and dentist appointments ate up the entire day... but it did.

Tuesday is library day. This takes a surprisingly large amount of time. The kids like the story time and we get a new stack of books.

Wednesday is exercise day. Marisa has Ballet for 1.5 hours so that counts for her, but I try to get the boys out and make them work their muscles. We've gone running twice. Well, I run, Roman rides his bike and Ezra gets to ride... not exactly exercise, the youngest gets away with so much. I took them to the park for some soccer drills once. Then they played on the playground while I ran laps. Roman ran a lap with me. I need some more fun ideas, but I'm really thinking that we will just do soccer mostly since that's the next sport coming up.

I was going to make Wednesday friend day... but... friends can play when friends can play. And I'm really wanting my kids to get along together so honestly,  I'm not focused on getting them with friends much. They play with the neighbor kids a lot because it is convenient and can last 10 minutes or hours and it doesn't really matter. The first week of summer was rough. Marisa and Ezra get along great... mostly because Marisa does whatever Ezra wants her to. But Roman is older, wiser and likes being in charge and it was like throwing a wrench in a well oiled machine.

Thursday is craft/sewing day. I'm trying to get excited about teaching Marisa how to sew. It's hard. I get impatient quickly but she did sew her baby doll a pillow and a blanket. I tend to want to skip the basics like threading a machine or sewing simple seams. She tends to sew very crooked. HA!

Then I want to make sure the boys get to make something fun too. We made a fathers day card last week, then I let the kids paint whatever they wanted after that. Today was supposed to be sidewalk paint. I'm paranoid of it staining our sidewalks. I don't want that. Maybe we'll just make the cookies we didn't make on Monday.

Friday is field trip day. Not that we don't go tons of places other days, but this day I will try to throw in a fun but hopefully cheap trip. Swimming, splash pad, dollar movie, hiking, feed the ducks etc.

My hope is that we have a fun, relaxed summer without our brains going to mush.

Some goals for the summer are teaching Ezra to read (we're off to a great start), maybe teaching Marisa to ride a bike, piano lessons weekly,  not too much T.V. and more importantly not too much video games, have fun as a family and avoid sewing during the day too much which is hard because summer months mean swimming suits, and swimming suits have to be cut out at the store. So.... the kids have to come and try to be good while I try to cut out as many swimming suits as I can (not many, it turns out) before they go nuts and we have to leave. I should just take the summer off, but I like sewing the suits, it gives me a reason to wake up before the kids in the morning and the tiny little paychecks help fund our little summer adventures.

Ezra doing his reading lesson. He loves them! Why oh why can't he go to Kindergarten in the fall? WHY??? OK, I know why and I'm hoping it's a good thing but the kid is just too smart for his own good.

What are your summer plans? Scheduled or Complete free time?  Vacations?

Art City Days 2013

I love our little local celebration. Mostly because everything is so close to home. Our little town has a Walmart..and a grocery store...and a few chain restaurants but that's about it. So when there is fun to be had in our town I like it.

We started out the celebration with the 5K fun run. My friend and I have been training for this one for 6 weeks or so. I was trying to get top 5 in my age division. After about two weeks of training I figured it was a lofty goal because well... I've had three kids and well, I still have three kids and I just can't run like I used to.  Not that it's a valid excuse...my friend has 5 kids and she is faster than me. Maybe I need to have two more kids ;)

Anyway, I signed up the whole family to make a day of it. Boy did I hear about that. Actually...the kids were OK with it. Mostly because they have no idea how far 5K really is.  My dear husband however, knows exactly how far it is. :)

It turned out to be OK. I ran and found out quickly that I should have warmed up better. My legs were JELL-O for the first mile. By mile 2 my friend kicked it up a notch and I didn't. BLAH. I just can't seem to care enough to kill myself. Hmmm.

But, by the end I was feeling okay and happened to finish 2nd in my age division. I was thrilled even though my time was a far cry from my best ever.  I think it's because all the ladies my age are busy having babies. My friend is in the age division above mine and she got 3rd and she beat me by 30 seconds or more.

Anyway, sorry to bore you.

After I finished I started running the course backwards to catch up to Roman who was running on his own. I was really surprised that I found him only 1/2 mile down the course. He is not a fan of running and I had done nothing to help him get ready to run that far except have him ride his bike along the course so he wouldn't get lost. But he did great with a time of 36:45.

So I ran the rest of his race with him and we waited for Shane who had one jogging stroller and two kids. Marisa and Ezra took turns running and riding. They came in at about 50 minutes and didn't totally hate me so I call that a success!

We stayed for the prize drawing hoping we would win something but we didn't.

I was proud of everyone for how well they did. Honestly. I wasn't sure they would even finish. Roman says never again...we'll see.

Our next little adventure was the carnival. UGH! I love carnivals but I HATE crowds. This year was just awful. They didn't start until 6 p.m. so it was pretty crowded from the get-go. The kids got 10 rides each and I'm trying to figure out how we can avoid it next year. After Disneyland and Waldameer, the local carnival just doesn't have much charm.

 Roman would tag along with anyone he knew to ride a few of the bigger kid rides. He got sick to his stomach after being super cool and riding the Starship 2000 upside down. 

On Friday I took a chance and woke the kids up early to go to the balloon launch. We can always see the balloons from our house but we have never gone over to the field. Ezra has this thing about loud sounds so I told him he could wear headphones. They did nothing to block the sound but he enjoyed the placebo effect.

It's always fun to watch them fill up and take off.

Later in the day, we went to the Art Fair where the kids get to do some art projects and have their face painted, etc. My biggest problem with this is that so many of the projects require my help and/or drying time. By the end I'm so frazzled from trying to hold a thousand drying art projects and balloon animals while helping pour colored sand over wet glue and keeping hair out of wet face paint I could just scream. But....the kids like it so even though last year was a total disaster that Ezra screamed through, we went again.  SIGH!

 Oh well, It wasn't SO awful.

Saturday the kids watched the balloons, this time from the comfort of our front steps.

There's my friend picking me up for a run. She's moving away...I may never run again.

I took the kids to the parade Saturday morning. I like that it's a nice short parade. You can usually sneak a spot at the start of the parade where it isn't "officially" started yet.. Less than an hour and a whole bucket of free candy to give the kids as rewards. Worth every minute.

After a lunch break we went to the car show. There were lots of cool cars including one just like Shane's, only blue.

Usually we watch fireworks from our steps on Saturday night but instead we went to the Heber Valley Camp for the evening. That deserves it's own post.

Good times!