Summer Fun So Far...

We have been keeping the kids busy this Summer with lots of different activities. They have been doing art classes once a week through Parks & Rec.

They made butterflies.

Fireworks suncatchers.

Salt Paintings.

And dreamcatchers!

They are enjoying swim lessons at local pools this Summer. 

In the video below, Gavin got to jump in from the diving board for the first time!

In the video below, Avery looks like she's trying out some synchronized swimming skills.

In this next video, Avery is learning to dive off the side of the pool.

Then she got to jump in from the diving board for the first time!

We've been doing different activities through our local library, like Harry Potter Day at the train museum - we got to take a short train ride -

Pose in front of the train, the sign and the background with Hogwart's.

We got to check out the Rescue Helicopter in our area and the kids got to sit inside the helicopter.

They also got to do parachute games and dance with a streamer.

They got to check out a waste management truck and Avery got to honk the horn. Gavin had no interest in getting into the truck.

Gavin has moved up to a six year old gymnastics class that he is really enjoying!

Then we had a crazy hail storm the other day! Our temps have been in the 90's and then out of nowhere we had hail hit us last Wednesday. The banging noise in the video is the hail hitting the windows!

We went to an orientation for Waterford Upstart which is the online preschool program Avery will be doing in the Fall. The kids had to pose in front of the banner for fun! Emma, Avery's friend from gymnastics, joined in too!

That's all we have for now!! We hope you are enjoying your Summer and staying cool!

Camping in Dinosaur land - Days 1 & 2

Our next stop was Dinosaur land in Utah where we camped for one night at the Green River campground. We were very close to Quarry Exhibit Hall where the Wall of Bones is located. We made the most of our first day by taking the shuttle to the Wall of Bones and then taking the hiking trail back to the Visitor's Center.

The path you see is the Fossil Discovery trail that goes from the Visitor's Center to the Quarry Exhibit Hall. We saw a couple fossils and some petroglyphs.

White arrow is supposed to be pointing out a fossil but we were not sure what it was.

One of these looks like a vertebra but I cannot tell what the first one is.

You may have heard of the invasion of Mormon Crickets in Nevada and other areas. We ran into them on our drive to get to Dinosaur land! I did not realize they were crickets when we were on the freeway but here is a picture of what the road looked like.

I thought it was leaves or something. Then we decided to check out a few short hikes to see petroglyphs and an old cabin in the area. The trails had thousands of these crickets!! I didn't get any pictures - we were mostly trying to avoid them. But here is a pic from online.

They can get up to three inches long and they were just gross!! Every step we took on the trail made about ten of them jump out of the way. Avery was afraid at first...she kept falling farther behind on the trail and Carlton said she started shaking because she was so afraid of them! He gave her a little pep talk about what a big girl she was and how they were more afraid of her. All she had to do was a big girl stomp to make them jump away. That seemed to help a lot! 

So here are some petroglyphs we found.

We also saw Turtle Rock.

Then we made our way to Josie Bassett Morris' cabin where she lived for 50 years until she died at 90 in 1964. From her cabin we did a hike to a box canyon nearby where she used to corral her animals.

We didn't go all the way to the box canyon because it was pretty warm and the trail had very little shade. So we went back to the cabin where we had parked and then Carlton and Gavin decided to hike to the other box canyon where Josie kept animals. I think Avery had had enough of the crickets.

Back at the campground, the kids decided they needed to go to the river and stick their feet in. It was definitely muddy but at least we didn't have the crickets at our campground!! I think all the lizards were keeping them away.

This was our campground, right near the Green River! On our way out of town the next day, we stopped at the Visitor's Center again for the kids to be sworn in as Junior Rangers of Dinosaur National Monument.

The last stop before heading home was to get our pictures in front of the official sign!

That wraps up our camping adventure for this trip!! We hope you enjoyed the pictures!