Check, Check, Check! {Summer Fun List}

I think this is an all time silence record for me. It wasn't a premeditated blog hiatus, just an absence born of the fullness of life the past 2 months. Lots of important things have happened - weddings, a stake pioneer trek, family activities, and plenty of visitors, little trips (camping, the coast, Portland), and summer chores keeping up with the garden and the yard and the daily to-do's. Last night as we were getting ready for bed I said to Nate, "I feel like we've done a really good job of living life to the fullest this summer. We've had lots of adventures and we've done lots and lots of summer things." But my goodness, when you sit down to catch up on life after a long stretch of quiet, there is such a mess of possibility - so many things that could be said...it's hard to know where to begin.

I'll start with our summer list...
at the beginning of the summer, just after school got out, I sat down with the kids and we brainstormed a huge list of things we wanted to do in the hot months:

We have done many of the them, most even. We've visited our elderly friend Ethyl, played in the sprinklers, celebrated Lily's third birthday, eaten popsicles aplenty, looked at the stars, camped in the backyard (Mimi's actually), eaten donuts for breakfast, washed the car, mailed a package to a friend (right Hyde's? :), organized the playroom and turned half of it into a school room, we've been to the park, to the beach, to the tops of the mountains and floated down the river. We have had fun and made memories and squeezed all the warmth and wonder out of these summer days. And we're not done yet! We've still got to make popsicles, do one more family hike, write a letter to Henry's kindergarten teacher, pick peaches and light sparklers (Henry's request :).

Here is a bit of our recent life in pictures:

we froze hundreds of strawberries from Mimi's prolific patch and ate beets from her garden

we ate breakfast in bed

The kids ran in the all-comers track meet (their mom could not take a crisp picture)

we've watered our flowers every day and they've grown!

We're growing and eating a lot of basil and tomatoes

we sewed pajama bottoms with grandma nan - we're going to have a family movie/pajama party in the next few weeks

we've been swimming fifty times at least and soaked up the afternoon sun


and I think the kids got a little cuter, too. I don't know how that was possible.