Summer Reading Update

We've been doing some Summer Reading activities so I'll mention a few of them.

I did another Story Trail, this time by myself. I've been so busy I haven't gotten out for my morning walks so I made myself on this day. This one was "The Husband of the Rat's Daughter," at Lions Park. A few of us read this one back in 2021. 

Jet and I watched a video about dinosaurs of the Cretaceous Period. 

He and I also did sun art prints, where we took leaves and taped them to construction paper then left them out in the sun for a few hours. Since we started later in the afternoon, we had to move the paper as the sun moved.

When we took the tape and leaves off (and rocks so they wouldn't blow away), our prints looked like this.

Jet's is the darker paper. Mine is the lighter paper. 

 

I also did some quick trips to the libraries to drop off and pick up things.

I got my completion prize for Provo Library because I read enough minutes (and listened- go, audiobooks). 

A 25th anniversary water bottle!

 

At Orem Library I saw that the triceratops skeleton was still up. 

It has shrunk quite a bit but is still mostly intact so the stands are being pulled toward the middle now. Look at my tail. Ha Ha. 

 Ah, Summer Reading is great.

Movie Night!

June 12 was National Movie Night. I was so busy that day. There was pizza dough in the fridge so I told the kids to make pizza and to put fresh basil on it. I got basil from our garden that morning for that reason.

I also told the kids to decide on a movie to watch for Movie Night. They picked Matilda so we watched that while eating pizza and I completely forgot about us having popcorn during the movie. Nobody else mentioned it. Jr. did make some cookies, though. 

Matilda was also a good choice because June 12 was Magic Day. 

 

Another day, I used fresh basil again in a pasta dish.

 

Garden Update

Jeremy wanted to do something special for our garden this year so we put together an irrigation drip system. It was nice to work together to do it. We make a good team. I hope it helps the plants be happy.

The zucchini obviously like it. Above is the difference of 4 days. Both the zucchini and tomatoes are thriving.

 

One of our bell pepper plants is having troubles. It's been going back and forth between being droopy and being perky. I don't know what will happen with it because I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Is it getting too little water? Is it getting too much water? Is it something else? I don't know.

Overall, the garden is doing well. We even have a jalapeno growing. We'll see how the garden is in a few more weeks.

 

On a related note, we decided not to leave our watering can outside anymore when we're not using it.

 

Nature Is Cool, Birding Is Cool

June 10 was Black Cow Day. We were too busy and it got too late to make root beer floats with chocolate syrup in them.

So we celebrated the next day, observed. Nichole and Jet made them for everyone. Jet put in the chocolate syrup and Nichole put in the ice cream and the root beer. Mwah (chef's kiss). They were very well balanced. I was impressed.

 

Before we had our black cows, though, Nichole and I had the opportunity to go on a bird walk with Utah County Birders. We've missed the last couple they've done so we enjoyed getting to go this time. We started at Vivian Park and walked along the Provo River Parkway for a while. We had a huge group of people. It was nice to see so many people show up. There were a lot of new birders and some that are new to the area. It was hit and miss with some of the birds, though. You never know with a huge group of people if it's going to scare the birds or not.

At one point several people saw a beaver. Nichole and I didn't.

Bird of the night for me was the catbird. I kept getting glimpses of catbirds but they wouldn't stay in sight for long. I saw one flying across the trail or hopping over on the side but not long enough to even look with the binoculars. Until... on the walk back, one finally decided to hop out and show itself for the small group of people we were with who had not gone ahead with the rest. So Nichole and I got a good look and got to get pictures. Yay. It's been a while since I've seen a catbird.

Nature's cool, man.

Books Are Cool, Reading Is Cool

Monday, June 8, was Name Your Poison Day.

At one point, Lucky looked at the calendar and called out, "Name your poison, Nichole!"

Without missing a beat, Nichole called back, "Ricin!" 

 

I told her the Daisy Dalrymple books I've been reading have had poison used several times. Mystery books are cool. I like that we've got generational mystery readers. My mom introduced me to Agatha Christie books when I was younger and I got into them. I introduced Nichole to Agatha Christie books when she was younger and she got into them.

 

For the Orem Library Adult Reading Challenge this year, I needed a book recommendation from a friend. Nichole recommended a mystery book for me. She's my friend.

It is fun to have book discussions with my children. I love that books and reading are one thing we all have in common in our family. We may have differences in tastes. I wouldn't recommend my "kissing books" to everybody in the family. I did make everyone watch the movie, Seeking Persephone, but only a couple of us have or will read the book. It doesn't stop me from sharing with Jeremy when I'm really enjoying parts of those books, though. 

We do all enjoy similar books from time to time, though. I've taken book recommendations from Lucky before who reads more junior fiction books than I do generally. We all like Terry Pratchett books on some level. Audiobooks on car trips can be fun. We went through the whole (original) Fablehaven series on audiobooks a while back when we were traveling more. 

 

Isn't this funny? I just wanted to mention the funny interaction that happened on Name Your Poison Day then I kept going about mystery books then books in general and... blah blah blah blah blah.

Books are cool. Mystery books are cool.

Here is a picture I made three of my children pose for so I could put it on this blog post.

Oh, look. Jr. Jr. is reading a Fablehaven book. Lucky is reading a Terry Pratchett book. Nichole is reading a mystery. I did not tell them what books to grab. I just told them to grab a book. Ha Ha.

Family Home Evening Circus

One day after school, Jet was excited to show us he got circus tickets. How fun. Now we knew we weren't going to take him to the actual circus but we knew we could create a circus at home.

My idea for it was watching a circus movie and eating popcorn. Simple celebrating like we did with Drive-In Movie Day.

Jeremy, awesome husband that he is, suggested some other ideas somewhat last minute to add to the "experience" so it was still simple but this is how it turned out for Family Home Evening this week (when we finally got around to doing this activity).

Jet picked a family member to come with him to the "circus" because he had two tickets. He kept changing his mind so I don't know who finally came with him but it doesn't matter because again it was mostly for him.

So... he (and his guest) presented his tickets to whoever was taking them. We had "Entry of the Gladiators" (the epitome of circus music) playing while they watched Jr. Jr. juggle light up balls. 

Lucky made Jet a balloon animal. 

Jeremy filled the stock pot to the top with popcorn. 

We also had more gummy sharks (because Jr. Jr. requested them) and some peanuts. 

At one point I looked at the kids on the couch and said, "And there are the clowns." Tee Hee. They're so patient with me.

Actually Jeremy showed the kids a picture of him with clown makeup on and I complained about how I never liked clown makeup when it was requested for shows. Yeah, we can do circus things.

We watched the movie, The Greatest Showman, because... of course. I didn't fall asleep and watched the whole thing.

FSY

Jr. Jr. missed some of our celebrations last week because he got to go to FSY. Luckily this time he wasn't "assigned" a place and time so we got to choose and chose for him to go to BYU like Nichole and Jr. went years ago. Much easier when it's so close.

Anyway, I dropped him off Monday so he missed the bird show at the Provo Library but I picked him up Saturday morning so he didn't miss the "drive-in movie" that night.

I got to BYU at a good time to pick him up but on the way back... the Utah County Marathon was happening so that affected traffic. To make a long story short, we drove down to Springville while he told me about FSY and we took the freeway back up to be on the "home" side of the race.  

Jr. Jr. had a good time. He even put together and performed a juggling routine at the variety show.

I'm glad he had another good experience. I love that kid so much.