Looking Back at Summer

Oh, how I hate to think that summer is coming to an end! Already the nights are in the 30's and the leaves are coming off the trees. So I have to look back and remember that yes, we DID have a summer, and it was a rather good one (aside from our best friends moving out the day after the 4th of July, but we'll eventually forgive them for that...). We have about 11 weeks of summer between when one school starts and another begins, so we tried to do something every week that was "summer" fun and special. I've already blogged two birthdays and the air show, so now I'll add some more things we did. Winter is so long in Idaho that summer has to be special!

We celebrated the Fourth of July, of course. We had a barbecue, some sparklers, and glow sticks while we watched the city-wide fireworks from our yard.

Augie playing in the back yard. All the kids got matching t-shirts from Grammy.

Abby flinging her sparkler.

Jimmy's imitation of an alien. How funny!

We went to a Johnson family reunion. We hiked to a cave, went down the homemade waterslide, and had a talent show.

playing my violin (sorry the picture is sideways)

Abby and Jim coming down the waterslide.

Group picture after we made it up to 40 Horse Cave.

We also did some fun things just as a family. We went to Rigby Lake and enjoyed burying Abby in the sand and going down their new water slide... well, it's a slide that ends in the water. It was fun to see the different reactions on the children's faces as they went down the slide. Sam loved it and wouldn't quit; Augie loved it the first time till he hit the water, then wasn't so sure. Abby's face was comical. She was like, "This is fun... wait I'm nervous.. now I'm scared... now I'm terrified! How do I stop?" She cried after hitting the water. I guess she didn't understand that she'd go underwater.

The blue slide attaches to a floating dock, in about 12 feet of water. It's farther out than it looks. Sam is playing football with some college kids.

Augie in his life jacket.

Abby's quite the diva in her sunglasses.

Her cute little toes in the sand!

Jimmy digging his toes into the wet sand.

We went ice blocking one Monday evening for fun. Some people call it ice sledding. We bought two blocks of ice and since it was a spontaneous decision and we didn't bring towels, we just put pieces of cardboard on the ice then slid down the hill at Community Park. There was a baptist group there doing the same thing, and they gave us a pizza they had leftover. It was quite fun!

Abby on the way down.

Sam and Jim cheering after their run down the hill.

Jimmy sledding. It makes your seat a little wet...

Jimmy is in the center. Napolean Dynamite dance.

Jimmy was also in a dance festival. He'd been working since May on learning a few dances. He did the Napolean Dynamite dance, the Bollywood, Verse, Rock, and Hero, and participated in the finale which was Circle of Life. It was a new experience for him to learn to dance. Our stake in the church worked really hard, and had the costumes and choreography all figured out. We were very glad he decided to participate and it was fun to watch.

The grand finale, "Circle of Life."

Jimmy in the yellow shirt doing the Bollywood.

Jimmy in yellow and his friend Robert in blue during the Bollywood.

picture courtesy of lavahotsprings.com

We also went to Lava Hot Springs, which is a fun water park about 90 minutes from here. Jimmy's school offered a discount day. We played all day in the pool! Because I was in the water with the kids the whole time and Daddy was working (as he was during most of these activities) we didn't get any pictures. Here's a picture from the internet:
We got very sunburned that day, although we'd applied lots of sunscreen. We got back home around 8 in the evening and Daddy had dinner ready for us. It was a blast and worth the trip to spend a day in the sun and water. We did NOT go off the 10, 20, and 30 foot olympic dive towers, but Sam and I did go off the regular high dive and climbed the rock wall in the deep end of the indoor pool. All of us went down those red and green curly slides you see in the picture, and I forced Sam to go with me down the white slide (it was one of those free fall, "my butt did not touch slide" slides).

And the rest of the summer was full of lazy days where you can kick back and watch a million cartoons until you're bored and go outside and play. That's what summer's all about, right? We had lots of things keeping us busy and were so sad to bid summer goodbye on August 18th when Sam and Abby headed back to school.