Cherry Picking

What is a great family activity to do on a summer weekend?  How about picking some fruit!  We looked up "fruit farms" in the area that let you go pick your own off the tree/bush/vine hoping to find somewhere to go get fresh strawberries.  Apparently strawberries are more of a late summer pick in this part of Utah.  Cherries were what was ripe for picking today....so....we went cherry picking in Payson!

Everyone had their own container to fill with cherries.  The kids would NOT stoop until their containers were full to the top....especially once they tasted the cherries they were picking!  When we finally called it quits our total came to 8 pounds of fresh, picked right off the tree, cherries!  We had so much fun.  I am sure we will be back later this summer for some raspberries and strawberries!

Bird Bombs

We got home tonight after work and decided we were going to let the kids play outside while the lawn was mowed.  While the adults were inside changing our shoes the kids were out front.  All of a sudden Zach comes running in the house crying and says, "The bird pecked my head....the bird PECKED MY HEAD!!!!"

Yup.  The bird DID peck his head.  He was chirping up a storm swooping down at ANYBODY that started walking on our lawn.  Yes, OUR FRONT LAWN!  Here is the little terrorist.

So we did what ever parent would do...protect OUR OWN....no BIRD is swooping down at our kids.

We sat out front watching the birds...oh yes...the BIRDS...another one showed up shortly to join the fun.  There were TWO of them and FOUR of us.

We watched them for a good 20 minutes (broom in hand), trying to figure out what was going on.  We knew there was a birds nest in the tree in our front yard....but the family of birds that built that nest was from four years ago and we had not seen it inhabited since....and we NEEDED to get our lawn mowed.

So....we mowed the lawn.  Jen got half way done with the front lawn and noticed something in the grass.  That baby bird wasn't in our grass through the entire ordeal up until now.  He must have fallen out while his parents (terrorist birds) were causing all the frenzy.

Dustin grabbed some gloves and moved the bird out of our yard to a secluded bush area so the parent birds would feel a bit safer.  But they kept chirping for a few more days....and my kids decided to wear their bike helmets outside!

Logan was proud to be helping (he was on broom duty while mom mowed the lawn) and Zach was still REALLY sad the birds pecked his head.

Tom & Berta visit

Jen's Aunt Berta and Uncle Tom decided to road trip the US in their RV this summer.  They made a stop through Utah to visit with us!  We took them for drive through the American Fork Canyon and smoked up some ribs for Father's Day dinner!

 The boys HAD to get their feet wet and throw some rocks!

Brother love!

It was great to have Tom and Berta visit with us!

Zach finishes Kindergarten!

Today was Zach's LAST day of Kindergarten.  He is excited to go into 1st grade next school year...he keeps talking about how he is growing up.  He has come home this week with all sorts of end of year paperwork & memorabilia (yes, a yearbook!)...we thought this one was the coolest.  His teachers took a picture of him at the beginning of the school year and the end of the school year and then laminated the pictures on a bookmark where one side is the before picture and one side is the after picture:

Another reason Zach was excited to have the school year end is he got to throw his shoes away!  He started forming holes in his school shoes about a week before classes ended.....Jen told Zach that when school was done he could throw his shoes away and start wearing his sandals (Challenger has a strict dress code which includes type of shoes and the color).

Let summer officially BEGIN!

Slip-n-slide

Every summer we break out the slip-n-slide for the kids to play with.  The side of our house has a slope to it so putting the slip-n-slide over there it ensures the kids move really fast!

Yup!  Sunday afternoon fun in our backyard!

Coconut

When Jen took the kids shopping for Dustin's birthday presents we stumbled upon a coconut.  The kids were adamant that a coconut should be one of Dustin's presents.  The kept feeling it, shaking it and wanted to drink everything that was inside it!

So....today we decided to crack open that coconut!  We all gathered around Dustin's workbench in the garage.  Zach got to do the honors of cracking that coconut with a hammer.

There it is!  See the water seeping out of the crack?

 We are putting those tools in the garage to good use.  Prying open that coconut.

Wahoo!  We did it!  We cracked open the coconut!

Each of the boys took turns trying out the coconut water.  I don't think they really new what to expect and the final consensus is regular water tastes better!

It took forever to get that white coconut off the shell.  In the evening we decided to make Pina Colada smoothies with the coconut...and the left over coconut shells can be made into a coconut shell bra!

Challenger School Picnic

Today Zach's school had a family picnic in the evening.  Zach talked about it for the whole week before the event:

"We need to bring a picnic dinner to eat"

"I need to make sure I have a dollar to buy a snow cone"

"They are going to have a face painter!  I am getting my face painted"

So after work we picked up the kids and drove to a sandwich shop to get our "picnic".  The sandwich shop is attached to a gas station so we ended up picking out chips, beef jerky and slurpees too.  We arrived at the park right as the face painter was getting set up.  The boys both jumped in line (which was only about 1-2 kids long at this point) and this is what they picked to have on their face:

Yes, Logan did pick to have a "butterfly" painted on one of his checks.  I think the face painter still wanted him to be masculine, so she painted some lightening bolts on the other side.  Soon after they got their face painted they saw the people making balloon animals.  So that was the next line they stood in.  Zach walked away with a machine gun and a sword.  Logan had a machine gun and a pony that looked like a pink poodle.  With all the kids running around with their balloons, they didn't last long and most of it was all popped by the end of the event.

While the kids ran around the huge park and played with all their friends...we just ate our dinner.  It was fun to just sit and watch our kids run around with their friends and run around finding their teachers to say hi.  We never even made it to the splash pad at the park..there was too much other stuff there to have fun with!

We left and the kids were exhausted.  

Lagoon

For Dustin's Birthday today we decided to hit up Lagoon.  We try and visit this place once a year, its a blast for all of us.  As the kids get older they take on more daring rides.  This year Zach was tall enough for almost all the roller coasters, but Logan was not.  Logan did not like being left out from the 'big' rides!

It turned out to be the perfect day to go.  Not too hot, not too cold and no crowds!  We got to ride everything we wanted and still head out before dark to get some dinner.

Bambora was our favorite roller coaster....we rode this one a lot.

Rattlesnake rapids - no trip to Lagoon would be complete without a 'water ride'.  Yeah, we got soaked.

The kids love driving their own cars!

We ended the night letting the kids get totally drenched in the dancing fountains.  We brought extra clothes for them to change into before heading back home.

Happy Birthday Dustin!  We hope you had fun being a kid again :)