Summerfest Carnival

 Al invited us to go to the Orem Summerfest Carnival with her and Wyatt and Hallee on Thursday. The rides were all $1 that day. The lines were long, but luckily it was a cool day and the kids had fun with their cousins.

I stayed with Damon, Tessa, and Hallee and did the rides they wanted to do. Al took Wyatt and Rockwell to the older rides. It was nice that they could all be happy and choose what they wanted to do. There were some that they all wanted to do, so Al and I got some time to visit in those lines too. It was a fun afternoon!

We roasted hot dogs and s'mores that night. It's been a very hot summer so far, and so it was great to spend so much time outside on this cooler day.

This & That

 Paul's friend Karen hired Rockwell to come mow her lawn for a wedding they were having there. It looked amazing!

He is mowing the Loosle's, Chao's, and Thompson's yards every week this summer. They all are so happy with his work, and he is loving having that income every week.

Damon wants to earn money too, so we've been coming up with some things for him to do around our house. He's helped with weeding and fertilizing the plants.

He wanted to do a lemonade stand. He was so excited with the $4 he earned from that.

Tessa has been begging to color her hair for a while now. We got her some hair chalk, and that has been great. She put some in Damon's hair the other day to make him a "rocker." :) They got dressed for the part and put on rock music on Alexa. It was adorable.

 

Tessa was riding her bike over to Roxanne's house (2 houses away!) to go play in her backyard. She fell off her bike and came running right back over with a bloody head that looked pretty serious. I figured I would have to take her to the doctor, but knew that head wounds bleed a ton and can look worse than they really are. I very carefully searched through her bloody hair but couldn't see much of anything. I decided to wash her hair so I could see better. After washing all the blood out, it looked like she scraped her head. There were a few little scrapes, but luckily no cuts or anything that looked like it would need staples. We were both so grateful! I had a good talk with the kids about wearing helmets after that. They have been more willing to wear them since then.

Gloria Falls

We went on a family hike in Little Cottonwood Canyon. I had seen a few people mentioning Gloria Falls recently, so I thought we could try that one. We read the comments on the AllTrails app and headed out.

It was beautiful and peaceful. We only passed a handful of other groups.

We crossed over a lot of little streams.

After we had gone quite a while, we realized this was probably not the correct trail. There was no sight of a river or waterfall. We headed back down the trail and tried a different one. :) The kids weren't thrilled about passing the parking lot and starting on a whole different trail. There was definitely some complaining on the second trail. 

We made it to a river and the kids were happy to play in the water for a few minutes. 

I ran ahead a bit to see if the falls were close. I followed the instructions on the app as best as I could understand them, and this was all I could find.

We called that good, and decided to head back down. We thought we were going to hike just under 3 miles, but ended up doing closer to 6 miles. We were disappointed with not finding the waterfall. We all actually enjoyed the first trail more than the second since it was less crowded and just as pretty. Oh well. It was still fun to get outside in the mountains with the family.

Upper Falls

 I took the kids to hike Upper Falls. I was a little concerned about how steep it is for Damon, but figured we could take it as slow as we needed to. They all did great on the way up! Tessa and Damon had been complaining before we left saying they didn't want to hike, but about halfway up Tessa said, "Mom I regret saying I didn't want to come here. This is awesome!" Damon followed with a quick, "Me too!" I'm glad they liked it so much.

It really is a beautiful hike and I think they liked the challenge of it.

They always like when they can walk right up to the waterfall and feel the water.

The views are pretty everywhere you look!

When we got down to the car Rockwell asked when we can do that hike again. I told him I'm always up for hiking in the canyon and he said, "Great, tomorrow then?" :) It was one of those awesome hikes where everyone really enjoyed themselves. I love those!!

When we got home we played on Damon's splash mat again. It was a great summer day.

Summer Time

We went to South Fork with Al and Katie. It was great to sit in the shade and visit while the kids explored, built forts, and played in the water. Gramps was driving through the canyon and stopped to say hello, so that was an extra fun surprise!

We had a party to celebrate Alexys' and Ataiya's high school graduations. We're sure proud of these girls!

Alexys had an extra ticket, so I was able to go to her graduation. 

Damon is absolutely loving riding his bike without training wheels. He wants to ride it all day every day. 

As you can see in the picture above, he felt very confident on two wheels very quickly. :) We got him a bigger bike and he loves it!

Rockwell had his last track meet, and it was his best performance yet.

He jumped 12' 3" at the running long jump, and was really happy about that PR! He also ran the 100m in just over 15 seconds. It was a good way to finish the season.

 

Paul hung the hummingbird houses that he gave me for Mother's Day. Hopefully they'll make a nice home for some cute birds. :)

I decided to use fake succulents for the heart rock garden this year. We're running out of space for all the cute rocks we find, and so we can add them on the pea gravel now too. Plus it's drought-friendly since we're having a super dry year. :)