Nathan’s baptism and the end of school

A couple weeks into May, we had a really special day: Nathan's baptism!! 




A day or two before his baptism, we had another round of pandemic restrictions lifted, but we went ahead with our original plan for his baptism (just our family in person + our friend in the bishopbric). We then had a Zoom for everyone else to join; we were so happy that my parents, my sister Elise's family, and many local friends were able to attend virtually! 



Nathan was so sweet and it was a really special experience for us all. My parents gave the talks (via Zoom), Abigail played all the music, Juliet & I gave the prayers, and Luke and Isaac were the witnesses. 


A few days after that, we got to go to the temple with Isaac! (he actually went earlier in the week with Neil & the rest of the young men, but this was the first time that I went with him.) 

We went with our good friends and it was such a neat experience to see all of our kiddos in the temple together--and this was the first week that the temple was open again after the pandemic! 



And then of course we went to grab ice cream downtown afterwards. It was a really special night. 



We held our annual (scaled-down) end of school party for the first time in two years, which felt very celebratory after this year!! Normally we invite everyone we know and have a giant ice cream party; this year we kept it small with just 3 other families and did a cookout. I only grabbed a couple of pictures but here's the dry ice rootbeer & the pre-party decor (I was pretty proud of myself for pulling this together because we left for vacation the next day!). 

We had some really amazing flowers this spring; I think I already put up pictures of the tulips which were AMAZING but the peonies put on a good show too! 

They made an amazing backdrop for our last day of school photo!

A few more last day of school pics...

Cute macarons that my friend brought over--I couldn't get over how darling these were!

Another last-day-of-school tradition returning with the Kona Ice truck coming to our neighborhood...

This was the Sunday before school got out, but I randomly snapped a picture of our weekly Sunday night hangout. Love these people so much!

One day my sweet friend texted about taking the boys & I for a ride (she knows how obsessed they are with cars and they think her BMW convertible is about the greatest thing ever). They were totally in heaven!

My friend & I chaperoned the 8th grade end-of-year celebration--it was such a fun night and the PTO did a great job adapting it for the pandemic! Normally this is an indoor dance but it was SO much fun that I think they might just keep it as a carnival going forward! 

Can hardly believe this year is on to high school!!

And here's Isaac finishing up his first year of middle school with the big coveted Scholar Athlete award...he did such a good job adapting to a crazy year and kept his GPA at the tip-top while doing 2 school sports! Go Isaac! 

 

Summer Reading 2021

 

Here we go again! As always, I put together summer reading lists for my kids based on a couple of things:
1) Books I think they will love
2) Books to push their normal comfort zones of reading a bit 
3) Classic books that I think they should read just to be conversant with book culture

The first couple of years we did this the kids grumbled about it--now, it's something they really anticipate. We don't get out of school for a few weeks yet, but I've been working on putting these together because the kids have been requesting them! It's always fun to see what books they end up totally loving (Gone With the Wind was Abigail's surprise smash hit last year) and to hear them telling younger siblings, "Oh, I remember my year reading that one--you're going to love it!"

**Everyone: Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through the National Parks. This is something new I'm trying this year--a book that all of us read separately and discuss together. So far 3/7 of us have read it. 

Abigail (just finishing grade 10): 

1) My Life in France (Julia Child)

2) Better than Before (Gretchen Rubin) 

3) Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

4) Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)

5) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Mark Twain)

6) Furies of Calderon (Jim Butcher)

7) Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

8) The Demon King (Cinda Williams Chima)

9) Spindle’s End (Robin McKinley)

10) Have His Carcase (Dorothy L. Sayers) 

Juliet (just finishing grade 8): 

1) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver) 

2) Better than Before (Gretchen Rubin) 

3) The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom) 

4) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)

5) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Mark Twain)

6) Emily of New Moon (L.M. Montgomery)

7) Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

8) Furies of Calderon (Jim Butcher) 

9) The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle)

10) Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) 

Isaac (just finishing grade 6): 

1) Johnny Tremain (Esther Forbes)

2) Banner in the Sky (James Ramsay Ullman)

3) A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle)

4) Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)

5) Swiss Family Robinson (Johann David Wyss)

6) The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley)

7) The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (Maria von Trapp)

8) The Daybreakers (Louis L’Amour)

9) And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie)

10) Sherlock Holmes: any five short stories 

Luke (just finishing grade 4): 

1) The King of Attolia (Megan Whalen Turner)

2) Island of the Blue Dolphins (Scott O’Dell)

3) The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)

4) Dark Lord of Derkholm (Dianna Wynne Jones)

5) Peter Pan (JM Barrie) 

6) Over Sea, Under Stone (Susan Cooper)

7) The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper) 

8) The Black Stallion (Walter Farley)

9) Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh)

10) Inkheart (Cornelia Funke) 

Nathan (just finishing grade 2):  

1) The Iron Trial (Holly Black) 

2) Five Children and It (E. Nesbit)

3) Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) 

4) The Girl Who Owned a City (O.T. Nelson)

5) Holes (Louis Sacchar) 

6) The Tale of Despereaux (Kate Di’Camillio)

7) James and the Giant Peach (Ronald Dahl)

8) The Red Pyramid (Rick Riordan)

9) The Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan)

10) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (JK Rowling) 


Matthew (one year of preschool to go before kindergarten):

Continuing our daily hour of read-alouds, mostly picture books, but with a daily chapter of Little House books. 

**Everyone: Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through the National Parks

Summer Reading 2020

Summer Reading 2019

Summer Reading 2018

Summer Reading 2017

Summer Reading 2016

Indian Staircase

On our last day we decided to do our most ambitious hike: Indian Staircase. What made this especially challenging is that it's not an official hike and so the park doesn't have any signage about how to get there, so we were using a combination of AllTrails and extensive Google directions/YouTube videos. Supposedly the hardest part of this hike is actually finding it and we would definitely agree! Apparently it's a tricky enough trail that the park doesn't want to advertise it because it weeds out people who aren't able to actually complete it (so says the internet) and thus reduces the need to rescue people. 

Thankfully we managed to find the right combination of trails after some false starts and backtracking and up we went! The hike was SO pretty and went through so many gorgeous wildflower fields. 

The first part of this was actually super challenging; there's no way we could have physically gotten up the rock without Neil boosting kids (and me--I was about half an inch too short for the hold I needed!). 

Then we got up to the next pitch and realized that we had gone the hardest way possible and if we'd gone another five yards to the left we could have just walked right up. Oh well, it was really fun!

When I was researching this trail I kept reading things like "VERY DANGEROUS DON'T TAKE KIDS" (hence why I watched so many YouTube videos really trying to figure out if it was legit dangerous or just the trickiest trail in the area and not actually that hard compared to other stuff our kids have done). I was worried about Matthew but man he just RAN up this and we had to work to keep up with him!!

We had some snacks at the top and enjoyed the gorgeous view--so many little arches and holes and cool formations!

This one is called the Frog's Head--do you see it? 

Matty, standing next to me as I type: "Up dere you are right on top of the world!" 



Rather than go back down the Staircase, which is supposed to be quite a bit trickier, we opted to loop around the valley and take in some of the other arches. 

It was cool to see Indian Staircase from each new vantage point along the lip of the cliffs. 



Eventually we turned and headed down to this cool amphitheater-type thing (I think this is called the Council Chamber). 

At the very end of this we found an amazing bell-shaped concavity in the rock. It was low enough that when we stood under it it came down about to our shoulders, and went up about another 4 feet to make a perfect circle. The acoustics were AMAZING and we spent quite a bit of time hooting and whispering and experimenting with the echoes. 

Then it was on (with several more false starts and doubling backs--dang I was grateful for All Trails because all those unmarked trails were super tricky and many internet commenters noted that they missed turns and ended up with 10-14 miles instead of 3-5, so I was constantly checking our path!) to the next set of arches...

It got pretty hot by the end, but we loved this hike! When we got back to the car we headed home (and I hopped on a ward council meeting, 3 cheers for Zoom) and back to school the next morning!