A week for water

After a few weeks of sweltering Utah heat, we finally managed to get out in some water this week. Our apartment complex does not have water spigots on the outside of the buildings, so there's no place to set up your own private pool party. And I'm not excited about paying more money than I would like to go an overcrowded public pool. Thankfully, our cool neighbor and her kids invited us to go wading up Provo Canyon, at a perfect little kid park. We'll definitely have go back. The cold water was a good way to offset the heat, and it wasn't as hot up there. A good little afternoon trip.


Evelyn enjoyed jumping off the bank into the water the most. I couldn't get her to actually stay in it and play. She wanted to be jumping, or walking upstream. Jill liked being on the bank and digging in the mud of course, and eating available rocks.

For the 4th, the girls and I headed up to Soda Springs, ID to see Tyler and Nicole and the cousins. We headed over to Montpelier to have a tour of the Oregon/California Pioneer Trail Museum first. It was fun, the museum guides played the parts of the era, and I learned a few things. At one part, we were able to go on a "wagon ride," where we all sat in a wagon, and a machine moved the wagon up and down like we were going over big bumps, and there were creaking noises and all that jazz. Evelyn started crying within 45 seconds, rather loudly, while Jill was watching the light and shadows play off the canopy of the wagon and talking about it. "Tree!" "Leaf!" "Light!" I was finally able to convince Evelyn with some help that we were not going to any place scary, and that we would get out of the wagon soon. After that, the kids seemed to mostly run around in the museum. I was able to keep them under some control, until we got outside and they could play. Then Uncle Tyler got ice cream. The girls thought that was great. We headed to Bear Lake, and "the beach" which I had been telling the girls about. They were going to put on their "supersuits" and "go swimmin' wif Taden and Daren."

This was the girls first beach experience. I've never been to Bear Lake before so I really didn't think it would be much of a beach. Most western lakes I've been too and cold and rocky on the shore. So I was quite surprised to find it quite like the beach, except for no salty water. After being there for an hour, Evelyn was referring to the lake as "the ocean."
There were a lot of people there, but we were able to stake out a spot and drive right down to the shore. Very cool, I thought. Except that the bathrooms were 1/3 to 1/2 of a mile away, and Ev had to go to the bathroom at one point. We walked all the way up there, and when we got into the bathroom, she refused to go. I couldn't quite believe it. So she held it, until we got back to Soda Springs, about 2 1/2 hours later. She's acquiring a fear of public bathrooms, unfortunately. It makes for great traveling and shopping experiences. Anyway, the lake is lots of fun and I definitely want to try and go up there again.

We got back to Soda, and got all changed to see the fireworks. Kaden and Evelyn fell asleep on the way, and we left them in the car while the rest of us changed. The mosquitoes are pretty bad this year there, and six feet from the car there are already 6 trying to eat Nicole and Jaren. We all slathered ourselves in bug spray, but thought the two sleeping in the car would be fine. Well, yesterday afternoon I counted 25 bites on Evelyn. She isn't itching them too bad. Yet. Getting back in the car to drive to the park I kept smashing mosquitoes that were parked on the ceiling of the car. You could tell they had been gorging themselves. Eeewww.

The girls enjoyed the fireworks much more than last year and even today, Jilly is telling everyone, "sireworks! loud!" and she says it really loud too. It's quite funny. We were 2/3 the way through the fireworks show and we hear a spraying noise, which many of us thought were fireworks going off in the surrounding neighborhood, until the people next to us are screaming and then I feel a big jet of water hitting me square in the back of the camping chair I was in. We were sitting in ball fields and the sprinklers were on. I got out of there as fast as I could, and we ended up sitting in the car for the rest of the time. A memorable fireworks show! I actually didn't get wet, thanks to the nylon back of the chair.

Here are the elk in Tyler's family's basement. Ev and Jill thought they were pretty cool, and know what elk are now.
Evelyn even got the plastic tongue out to show it to me. She wanted to lick me with it. Umm, no thanks. Both girls have developed this new thing for licking the last few weeks. They've been watching too many dogs or something.

Thanks to family and friends for a fun week!