St. George Trip

When Alyssa went to St. George with her tennis team, we decided to go along to support her(and to be close in case she or any of the other girls on her team got sick that week). We were all going to go, but then we found out that Ashley had an all day field trip at a Ranch in the mountains during the trip. She didn't want to miss it and we didn't want to force her to miss it, so we arranged for her to stay with Gawbie and Grandpa while we were gone.

We left for St. George on Thursday afternoon, after the boys got home from school. They were so easy to travel with. They each had an electronic device to entertain them in the car. They didn't have strong opinions about which restaurant we chose to eat at. They were most excited about swimming and playing at the park(mostly free forms of entertainment). And they didn't mind sharing a bed. It's crazy to think that it used to be this easy when Alyssa and Ashley were little.

When we got to St. George, we checked into our hotel, unloaded our stuff, and then headed out for dinner. We ended up at Black Bear Diner. The next morning, we were up bright and early for Alyssa's 8 am tennis match. After the match, we had about 2 hours to kill, so we headed to this park I had read about called Thunder Junction. It was one of the coolest parks I've ever taken the boys to. It had a dinosaur theme and was an all abilities park, so there were some different things to play on. It also had a little train that went around the outside of the park. It didn't start running until and hour and a half after we got there, but the boys were the first kids in line to ride when it did open.

After lunch and Alyssa's second tennis match, we had another 2-3 hours to kill. This time we headed back to the hotel and I took the boys down to the pool to swim. We stayed there as long as we could without making us late for Alyssa's last match of the day. After the match, we grabbed dinner and then headed back to the hotel again. The boys talked Danny into taking them to the pool again. They stayed until Alyssa's whole tennis team showed up at the pool and made it too crowded down there.

The next morning, Alyssa had another 8 am tennis match, so we were up early again. The boys wanted to go back to Thunder Junction again(this time in their swimming suits so that they could play in the water feature). Because Alyssa and her teammate won their 8 am match, it gave us an extra hour to allow time to go back to the park. We were surprised when we got there, to find that the parking lot was full and there were a bunch of college aged kids in the park. It just happened to be Dixie Day and all of the Athletic teams from Dixie State were there running activities in different sections of the park. There was also a scavenger hunt, that they gave the boys. I think they had the most fun squirting the swim team with water sprayers.

We even ran into a girl that used to be in our Ward(her parents still are). She is on the cross country team at Dixie. So we got a picture to send to her parents.

We let them play until we got a call from Alyssa telling us that the matches were happening earlier than the schedule said. So we headed out quickly after that. We watched her last match and then we found a Chuck O Rama on the way out of town for lunch. It was the first time going to a buffet since the pandemic hit, but they had plenty of precautions to make it safe to eat there. The drive home was uneventful. We ended up getting to Gawbie and Grandpa's house before Ashley had gotten back from her field trip. But she arrived within 10 minutes. She had all kinds of stories about taking a sinking kayak onto the pond and then falling into the water in her clothes. She also spent a lot of time with the dogs on the ranch. It was a fun weekend for all of us and so good to return home again.
 

First Day of School

We feel fortunate that our kids got to return to school this year. Alyssa is at Willowcreek Middle School for 9th grade. Our High School is in the process of expanding, but until that is finished, the 9th graders have to attend at the Middle School. She started school on Aug. 18th. They are just about finished with first term and have attended 5 days a week, in person. The school district has been telling kids who have been exposed to COVID to quarantine for 14 days. None of our kids have been exposed so far, knock on wood. 

They get to wear masks all day, which they all love.

She doesn't follow the mask rule when she is with her best friends, though.

Ashley is back at American Heritage this year. She is still getting used to the homework load required for 7th grade. She is also attending school 5 days a week. Her first day of school was Aug. 19th.

Camden started Kindergarten this year. He is at the public Elementary School-Snow Springs.  It's been a rough year for him, so far. He came down with a fever the day before school started, which lasted for the whole first week of school. Then, last week, he had to miss another week of school because of a stuffy/runny nose. Fortunately, he hasn't suffered academically, since he knows most of the stuff that they will be teaching him this year in Kindergarten. His first day was supposed to be Aug. 25th, but it ended up being Sept. 1, instead. 

Tyler is also at Snow Springs. He is in 2nd grade this year and loves his teacher and his new school. He especially likes riding the bus to school. His first day of school was the same as Alyssa, Aug. 18th. After about 2 days, a good chunk of Tyler's class had to be quarantined because someone in his class had COVID. Fortunately, he wasn't close enough to whomever had it so he got to still attend school in person. 

I took this picture of Tyler one morning at the bus stop. I thought it was funny how his whole face was covered between the eye mask and the nose and mouth mask.+

So far, it has been an okay school year. The kids are making the best of the situation. I think they are just happy to be in school. We did find out that because of the growing number of cases in the secondary schools, they are changing over to a hybrid schedule for 2nd term. Basically, Alyssa will have 4 days in person a week and one day online. She isn't thrilled about it, but it's better than only 2 days in person which would probably be the next step if the number of cases doesn't decrease.  We are really looking forward to the day when this is behind us and we can be around people in a normal way again(without the face masks and without the fear of being exposed).

 We took an end of summer camping trip to Bear Lake. We booked the campground before Alyssa even expressed an interest in tennis, but by the time the camping trip rolled around, she was full swing into her tennis season. As a result, Danny had to head out on the camping trip with the three younger kids without us so she could be here for a tennis match. We headed up there the next day, but they managed to do a lot of stuff without us in that time. The explored all of the amenities of the campground(this campground had a lot of super fun stuff)

The Big Picture Perfect Rocking Chairs

The miniature golf course

The playground

The giant jumping pillow

The swimming pool

They also went to our favorite raspberry shake spot.

On Friday, they headed up to the North Shore Beach. They took the canopy, lunch, sand toys, and life jackets and made a fun day of it. 

They were surprised to find this food truck(or maybe I should say boat) out on the water.

Alyssa and I arrived at the campground about the same time that they got back from their beach day. We enjoyed the evening together and lit a campfire to enjoy after dark.

The next morning, we rented a boat. Alyssa has a bit of a fear of deep water, so we let her stay behind in the trailer. The other three loved our boating outing.

We rented an inter tube with the boat and they all had fun going out on it. Danny and I even tried it once each. 

The boys got a bit cold by the end and curled up under blankets on the front bench seats.

That afternoon, we took the kids to this adventure park. The girls wanted to try out the ropes course.

Ashley got a bit scared up there and didn't last as long as Alyssa.

Her favorite crossing was these platforms that swung back and forth. She is sitting on one of them in this picture.

The boys got to go down this huge slide 7 times each.

After the adventure park, we went back for more raspberry shakes and then another campfire night. We headed back home on Sunday. It was a fun weekend. We want to go back here again. The only down side is that Garden City does not have any public tennis courts and Alyssa really wanted to go play every day. We were also quite jealous of our neighbors who had a private patio with a hot tub and grill. Next time we want to book that campground.

Day trip to the Mountains

 We were going to do a camping trip midway through July, but some stuff came up and we had to cancel the camping trip. Instead, we took a day trip up the high Uintas. We started with the lofty lakes hike. I knew it was going to be on the difficult side for the boys and Ashley, but I thought that if we took it slow and took breaks by each of the lakes, then it would be doable. The kids were troopers and the scenery was beautiful.

It was quite a climb up to the highest elevation of the hike, so we stopped to enjoy the view(and the snow) for a bit.

Ashley kept begging to go swimming in one of the lakes, but we knew that would make things uncomfortable for her afterwards, so we promised her a trip to a lake after the hike so she could swim.

After the hike, we were all hungry, tired, and hot. So we found a place to have a picnic. We didn't take pictures, but it really wasn't the best picnic location. Not super pretty and right next to a dirt road that cars kept driving past us on and kicking up a dirt cloud over us. We didn't stay there long. After lunch, we found Ashley her promised swimming spot. I think it is called Trial lake. The sun was going in and out from behind the clouds and it was a bit breezy. So even though Tyler got in his swimming suit, he only dipped his feet in the cold water before deciding he wasn't going all the way in. Ashley was another story though. She loves lake swimming.

After dragging her away from the lake, we started our drive back down Mirror Lake Highway. We stopped at the waterfall off of the side of the road.

After the waterfall, we continued on our drive and made one last stop at Fairy Forrest. We had stayed in the campground here a few years ago and the kids were excited to go back and see Fairy Forrest again. We found this rock that Camden was excited about, since it had his name and birth year on it.

After returning to civilization, we found dinner at Panda Express. We took it to a park to eat it since the restaurant did not have it's dining room open. We tried to head over to the Dairy Keen for shakes after dinner, but the drive thru line was out of the parking lot and halfway down the street, so we just headed for home instead. It was a fun day and nice to escape to the fresh, cool air of the mountains for a day.