Our Summer - the "Reader's Digest" version

Building an AWESOME sandcastle


Two girls laying out by their Aunt Kami. This was too cute!!

Kassidy & friends celebrate the first day of summer

I've been without a computer for about 3 weeks. The summer weeks before that I was "reunion obsessed". Add those two together with a dash of overwhelming emotion and I get an entire summer with one post on my blog. So here is the "Reader's Digest" version. Not as good as the real thing, but hopefully enough to get the story told, and hopefully enough to get me back into the blogging saddle again.

Summer Story #1 - "My Daughter the Party Planner"

Kassidy has always planned parties. When she was about 2 and a half she invited nearly the entire neighborhood to her "Gooey Party". I'm not kidding. Eventually she had invited so many children that I actually had to come up with something. I had numerous kids on the street asking me, "Miss Kristen, when is Kassidy going to have her goey party?" The only problem was WHAT IN THE HECK IS A GOOEY PARTY???? But that's a story for another time. Luckily, Kassidy is now at the age where she can plan the details of the party, invite the guests, and then tell me what I need to do. The last of school this year was Kassidy's first sleepover party with a few of her closest friends from school. They played night games, made homemade pizza, gave themselves facials, and stayed up late at night talking & giggling. Needless to say, Mike and I didn't sleep much.

Summer Story #2 - "Booty Freeze at Bear Lake"

My mom has a fantastic cabin at Bear Lake that she owns with the rest of her siblings. We go there every summer for a week and have a great time. This year it was FREEZING! Let me repeat that - IT WAS FREEZING!! Bear Lake is a mountain lake. It never gets incredibly warm to begin with. With an unusually cold Spring here in Utah- the lake felt like glacier run off. It rained nearly every day and only one of those days got above 70 degrees. It was still a blast. First of, Mike's mom came with us as well this year. She & my mom are a hoot when they are together. More than once Mike would say, "Now Grandmas, if I get any more lip from you I'm gonna pull this van over and make you both walk". This of course just made us all giggle more. We played games, watched movies, did crafts, and even went to the beach to jet ski nearly every day. Call us crazy - but sometimes crazy can be a lot of fun.

Summer Story #3 - Yellowstone

Our family vacations this year were products of the recession - and much closer to home. We spent a very long day in Yellowstone National Park and had a fantastic time. From Old Faithful to mud pots, we saw all we possibly could within the hours of daylight. On one hike the kids were whining about the difficult climb and all I could think of was "I obviously do not subject my children to hard physical labor nearly enough!" We read Harry Potter together during the drive and played a license plate game where we found 40 of the 50 United States represented. It helped all of us appreciate the beauty found within this country just a little more.

I think I'll just stop with three - otherwise I will never publish this post. I hope you all had a wonderful summer and are ready to jump right in to Fall.