Summer Begins

At the last faculty meeting of the year, Paul was given a Dundie Award. I'm pretty sure his life is complete now. :) Karen also decorated his door in true Office fashion. Ha! He's really going to miss all the friends he's made over the last 7 years at Timpanogos High School. And they are sure going to miss him. He's done such great work there as a teacher and principal and everyone has let him know how badly they wish he was staying.
   
Tessa and Damon had to say goodbye to their favorite timberwolf.


Rockwell was excited for his last day of 2nd grade and for summer to start.

Sadly Tessa, Damon and I were sick that whole first week so it wasn't a super fun start to summer. Within the first few hours of Rockwell being home, I had sent him and Tessa to their rooms for all their fighting. Damon was in a phase where he was telling everyone he was going to punch them in their face. After a few hours of all this, I was second guessing my excitement for summer break. Haha!
  
The kids were mostly fighting over the swings in the backyard. Nobody wanted the red swing, so there were 2 swings and 3 kids. Paul found another swing we didn't even know we had in the shed and hung that up. That has sure made for a lot less fighting!

All three of the kids are super into swinging right now. They do it any chance they get.
  

It gets hot out there, so Rockwell came up with a way to stay hydrated. :)


Rockwell had his last track meet the weekend school got out. This was the only meet where the kids could earn medals. He had a soccer game at the same time as the meet and he was sad to miss his last soccer game, but I'm so glad he went to this meet. He was super proud of himself when he heard his results and earned 3 medals.

He took 1st place in the standing long jump, with 6 feet 4 inches; 2nd place in the 50m dash, with 7.68 seconds; and 3rd place in the 100m dash, with 16.55 seconds.


The kids were so so so excited for Wyatt and Hallee to spend the night while Al and Keith were away celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary. Rockwell had an obstacle course all set up in the backyard. The girls commentated while the boys raced. Rockwell and Wyatt tied and then went inside and made themselves medals.

  
We loved having them stay with us!




Rockwell and Wyatt went to the Timpanogos basketball camp the first week of summer too. They had a lot of fun, and even won shirts for winning the 5-on-5 game the last day.

Running the Lake & Cleo's Bath

The trail around the lake is my favorite run ever. I ran it every morning, and never got sick of it.

It's so beautiful the whole way.

It's also very steep and a good challenge.

Over near the bridge there's a sign for the Cleo's Bath trail. I've seen the sign every time we go to Pinecrest, but haven't ever hiked it. Paul said he loved to go there and play in the pools when he was a teenager. I decided to try it one morning. I ran the trail as long as I could. Until it became like this...

Haha! It definitely got tricky to follow the trail at some parts. Thank goodness for those little blue arrows and rock stacks along the way! It was a beautiful run/hike and so much fun to be exploring new places. I could hear the rush of the waterfall for a while before I could actually see it. When I came over the top of the mountain and looked down on Cleo's Bath, it was absolutely gorgeous!

Everywhere you looked it was a different kind of beautiful, but this view was my favorite. You can see the lake off in the distance. I loved to be able to see where I started from and how far I had come.

Playing at the Lake

Playing at the lake was by far the kids' favorite part of the vacation. 

We spent hours and hours here every day.

It didn't get busy until around lunchtime, so we had a couple hours each morning with the beach and lake practically to ourselves. 

The kids loved to float on the rafts, spray with their squirters, and look underneath the water for treasures and fish.

  

  

They loved it when Dad would take them out to the buoys.

There were some geese and goslings that came around every day. The babies were very cute.

They also loved playing in the sand to warm up.