August 2019

Boys Day Boating

August started out with boating. Dave took the boys, their friend Trevor, and Dave's brother Joe, out on Utah Lake. I stayed home and had some alone time because...summer. Apparently Trevor was pretty scared there for awhile, but eventually warmed up and finally enjoyed himself. 

Miles Cuts His Hair
August 5th was the day Miles decided to give himself a haircut. I was too upset to take a picture and tried my darndest to save it, but he had chosen the worst place to cut it: right up front. So I had to take it all. Miles felt so bad, that he drew me a picture. Because that's how Miles shows his love. You know he really loves you when he draws you pictures.

Cruise's Birthday
The 7th was Cruise's 12th birthday! He decided to invite 3 friends, Aiden, Sam, and Ethan, to Fat Cats that had just opened in Saratoga Springs in July. It was the first time any of us had been there and we were pleasantly surprised at how nice it was and how many arcade games they had. We had the boys all do some glow miniature golf first, which lasted a total of 5 minutes. Then we gave them each a card with money for the arcade games. It worked out great because it was half-price Wednesday, so our $10/kid budget really was $20/kid. Score! That lasted about an hour, and then after they turned in their tickets for prizes, we went out to the car for cupcakes! It was windy out, so we had to have Cruise blow his candle out in the car, where he also opened all his presents. It wasn't ideal, but it was free! And everyone loves free.

Cruise had received a Storm Trooper mask for his birthday that distorts your voice. So of course he offered to read Jett and Miles their bedtime stories and they all thought it was the most hilarious thing ever. And it totally was.

Then that Sunday we had the Ybarras over to celebrate his birthday. Vanilla on vanilla cake. And he got lots of $$$. That's all he really asked for, and he got it!

Strawberry Trip
On the 9th, we took a mini camping trip to Strawberry Reservoir.

 When Dave went with the scouts to Strawberry, he learned of the good places to camp you don't have to pay, so we headed up that way and found us a nice spot. Everyone was helpful setting up camp so we could go down to the lake.

Miles was really good at catching crickets and bugs. 

 Once we got everything set up, we headed out to the lake and snorkeled for crawdads! Luckily we all had our wetsuits. We also had a couple of nets to share and Dave had a trap and raw chicken legs to catch them with. The boys loved every minute. And I loved watching everyone have a good time. Because really, that's a good time to me.

 Miles got super cold at one point and called it quits. So I got him all changed and bundled up in the back of the van on the blowup mattress.

 The clouds rolled in and started raining a little. We made it back to camp and cooked up burgers under an umbrella. It could've been a lot worse. Luckily it passed pretty quickly and we got to enjoy the evening.

 We decided to cook up the crawdads we caught and while we waited for the water to boil, we sat around and tried to tell ghost stories and play the alphabet game. It wasn't long before Cruise revolted and decided it was too boring.

 Finally the crawdads were ready to eat and produced, as usual, a minimal amount of meat.

 We put the boys to bed finally and Dave and I stayed up and made sure the fire was completely out before we turned in ourselves. While the boys slept in the tent on mattresses, Dave and I had our own in the van. It got cold, but everyone seemed to stay pretty warm. Although, I never feel like we bring enough blankets. You can never have too many blankets camping.

 In the morning, we had cereal, muffins, and cocoa for breakfast. At one point, Miles almost fell head first into the fire, but luckily my cat-like reflexes saved him. My phone fell and got covered in cocoa, but Miles made it home with a face. So it was all good. 

 After breakfast, we packed up camp and it was THE. WORST. There was mud everywhere and everything was wet. The kids were minimally helpful. Cruise, at one point, put on his sandals and decided it would be fun to jump into a giant mud puddle where both his feet and the sandals were quickly eaten up and he was stuck. There was mud all over his pants and feet and sandals. I had to pull him out and clean his feet off, which was not an easy task. Once he was clean, I banished him to the van to watch a movie and wouldn't let him out. The whole pack-up experience was a nightmare and Dave and I decided to not do this again. But we probably will because we're parents and parents say that all the time and then completely forget how awful it is until the next time they go.

Once packed up, everyone (not me) wanted to go back to the lake and catch more crawdads. So we went and spent a couple more hours doing that. Having reached my stress and anxiety threshold at that point, I sat in a camping chair next to the car and worked on a bag of dill sunflower seeds as I watched everyone snorkel. When the boys came in with a crawdad, I'd help them put it in the bucket. And they came in with A LOT. And Dave, who had lost the trap, spent the majority of the time looking for it. Luckily, he eventually found it and it was full of crawdads.

 When we got home, we cooked them all up and there were so many they started crawling out of the pot! It's best to just think of them as tiny lobsters, otherwise it's completely gross and creepy.

 That many crawdads produced this plate of meat. Yup. It's never worth it, but the boys for some reason love it. I will say though, it's pretty delicious.

Last Backflip
On the 16th, we invited our friends, the Lowes, onto the boat. All 8 of them. We had the whole lake to ourselves and the Lowes loved every second. However, this was also the trip where Dave tried to do a backflip on the wakeboard and ended up tearing his MCL, which ended the wakeboarding season early. Sadly, it was a sobering reminder that we aren't 17 anymore.

First Day of School

The first day of school for Cruise was the 19th: 7th Grade Day! He was SO. EXCITED. and I was SO. NERVOUS for him. When I dropped him off at school, all the teachers were waiting outside with music blaring and they cheered as every student made their way into the school. It was the sweetest thing and Cruise loved it. And it made me feel a lot better about his day.

 Then Jett started 4th grade with Mr. Morris on the 20th.

 And then Miles started Kindergarten on the 27th with Mrs. Gunn! He got a new backpack and a new Pokemon shirt and was ready for anything! Dave and I took him to his first day, and of course the first thing he did was make a new friend. After we said goodbye, Dave and I went on a celebratory breakfast date to Waffle Love. It was the first time we had gone and I'm sad to say, it was the most disappointed I have ever been in a waffle place. I mean, maybe for dessert, but man oh man, not breakfast! But it was still nice to get out just the two of us.

 

Honorable Mentions:

Miles wanted a picture in the tree after church.

Jett got new shorts and quickly realized he looked just like Dave before/after work. Dave brings his suitcase into the house up on his hand like a pizza deliverer.

The boys spent a good deal of time at the neighbor's pool with a bunch of neighbor kids. Luckily it's right next door, so it was easy to check on them.

I found an old hot chocolate can full of my Pogs from when I was a kid. I showed the boys how to play. It held their attention for maybe 5 minutes. Ugh.

My mom came to Utah for Education Week at BYU and stopped by our house bearing gifts for the kids. Cruise got Grandma's old laptop for school, Jett got a surfer shirt, and Miles got a pilot hat, which he wore EVERYWHERE for the next two weeks.

Miles brought me a flower he picked and wanted me to put it in my hair.

We visited the Provo pool on their last outside day open. I'm surprised I didn't get more pictures, but the truth is, we were just having too much fun to stop and snap pictures.

And finally, Dave took Jett fly fishing again. It had been so long that he grew out of his waders. Luckily, he was able to wear some of Dave's, but he was definitely too small for them.

And that was August!