Happy Anniversary... Months Later

We weren't able to do something extra special on or near our anniversary this year (though having our traditional anniversary dinner with our children is always special) so one day in August, Jeremy surprised me with our anniversary celebration. He took care of all the arrangements with the kids and did a good job making it a surprise. I had no idea.

He gently woke me up early that morning, had my clothes picked out for me to wear (it was a date, so of course he had my Jurassic Park shirt ready). He made me an omelette. I love his omelettes. 

Then he drove us up Nebo Loop to one of our favorite birding spots up there.

We enjoyed a relaxing time there and I got my target life bird- red crossbill. There were four or five of those. Yippee! 

We also had some nice closeups of other birds and critters.

There was a red breasted nuthatch that kept landing on branches right above our heads. Right above us. That was wonderful.

After we had a few hours of birding in that spot, we went up to Devil's Kitchen to picnic and enjoy the view. Jeremy surprised me again with our picnic food. Winco salads (it's our traditional date food, like my Jurassic Park shirt is my date shirt) and sodas in plastic goblets like we used for our anniversary picnic last year.

After Devil's Kitchen we headed to the Orem Library to do some writing/blogging. Sweet Jeremy, kept nodding off (he got up really early to make me that omelette) so we finally headed out to eat at Cafe Rio. Yumm.

Then we went home to take a nap because we were both exhausted. 

We woke up later and gathered the children to go out for a late night meteor shower. They didn't take a nap so were all tired while we were out there.

That was a great way to end a wonderful anniversary celebration. Thank you, Jeremy, for the sweet memories and for being the best husband I could ask for.

First Weekend of School

Since we survived the first week of school, the kids and I celebrated by driving Nebo Loop.

We stopped to hike to Grotto Falls. It's been a while (since August 2016) and it was on our Summer wishlist. We are still doing some activities on our list now that school has started but it's still technically Summer.

Jr. Jr. and Lucky demonstrated how to get the mud off your shoes.

We had a picnic at Devil's Kitchen and were silly.

Lucky got silly being "scared" of a wasp. 

Jr. Jr. was silly when the sun came out from behind the clouds.

"No. No. Push it away."

 

Nichole and I picked a time to get a picture of the two of us when the sun came out, too.

Nichole: It's too bright.

Mom: Must keep eyes open.

It was a great trip driving Nebo Loop.

It was World Honey Bee Day on August 21. I made Maple and Brown Sugar Pork Tenderloin from Six Sister's Stuff but with a roast instead. I wanted something that could be in the slow cooker while we were gone on our outing. It had honey in it.

I've decided I don't make pretty food. I make edible food. It's not nicely presented. Oh well. I'm not trying to win any awards. I'm just trying to feed my family.

 

That day was also Brazilian Blowout Day. We thought about making Brazilian Limeade but there were no recipes we really wanted to do so Jr. ended up making his mint lemonade.

Social Distancing for the 4th of July Weekend

Jr. had a couple days off of UVU Prep before the 4th of July. Plus there was the weekend. Here are some of the things we did while social distancing that weekend.
Thursday we went to a park for a walk and a story. Paul Ream Wilderness Park. This was a park we meant to come back to after visiting for Park Week when Jr. Jr. was a baby but we never did. Funny how things like that happen... or don't happen. 

Friday we went for a drive up Nebo Loop. We stopped at Devil's Kitchen. It rained on the drive up so by the time we got to the parking lot, there was only one other vehicle there and those people left as we were getting our picnic items out. During our time at Devil's Kitchen, people did come and go since it is a short hike and there were different levels of raininess. In fact, after we got our picnic stuff out, it started to really rain, enough that a few of the kids went to eat in the van and Dad and Mom started reminiscing about growing up in the Pacific Northwest. I realized I forgot to bring a big blanket to cover the stroller so I had to make do with the extra blanket I had in the diaper bag to protect Jet from the rain. He did all right.

When the rain stopped, the children in the van came back to finish our picnic at the table then we packed things away and went on our hike up to the Devil's Kitchen overlook. As Jeremy put it, "We're done with the dining room. Let's go to the kitchen." We were careful to keep to the side of the trail and tried to turn our faces away as people went past us. Then as we were at the overlook, a family came up and waited for us to come out to the main trail before going in to the overlook themselves. Way to take turns and social distance, people.

There was plenty to see from mountain chickadees to green-tailed towhees to squirrels to rocks. In fact, July 3 was Drop a Rock Day.

Lucky: Whoops. I dropped a rock.

It was a nice socially distanced outing for the family (and we got another reading badge from it).
Since July 3 was also Eat Beans Day and Jr. really wanted burritos, we made some when we got home.

I didn't mention it earlier, but Jeremy was outside Friday morning and got to see a hot air balloon floating in the sky.

Jr. helped menu plan for the 4th of July so here is some of what we ate.
To celebrate Sidewalk Egg Frying Day, we ate fried eggs for breakfast. For lunch we had chicken Caesar salad wraps to celebrate Caesar Salad Day. And as it was Independence Day, we had Patriotic Pasta for dinner along with watermelon and potato salad. The patriotic pasta was based on The Food Nanny's red-and-white mostaccioli like we had for April Fool's Day this year. We used red canned spaghetti sauce, white alfredo sauce (using the Guiltless Alfredo Sauce recipe from Our Best Bites), and we colored bow tie pasta blue. Red sauce + white sauce + blue bow tie pasta = patriotic pasta.

The pasta was sort of blue. Because we used blue food coloring on yellow pasta, it ended up a little green. Oh well. Some pieces were more blue than others.
Speaking of The Food Nanny, I used some of my birthday money to get myself The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner. That made some of my children very happy because we've used that book quite a few times since we had it checked out from before the libraries closed back in March.

After dinner, we roasted marshmallows inside with Jeremy's new heat tool (for bending PVC) to make S'mores. Yum.

That night we went to the sidewalk to watch fireworks. Because of Covid-19, Stadium of Fire was canceled. So instead they set up simultaneous fireworks shows in three different locations and set the fireworks off higher than they normally would so people could see them from miles around. We could see two of them from the sidewalk even if it was between buildings and over fences and they really were the same fireworks show. Pretty cool. The show lasted about half an hour and a local radio station played music to accompany the fireworks.

Here's Lucky jamming to the music.

Hey, Nichole, the fireworks are over there.

No, that's the moon. I know it's a lunar eclipse but it's not a total eclipse so you can't really tell.

There you go. Just in time for the finale. Wow. That's a lot of smoke.

Sunday, July 5, was Graham Cracker Day so we had s'mores ice cream and Hawaiian haystacks since it was also National Hawaii Day.

There wasn't as much physical distancing at the end of the weekend with a trip to the emergency room one night and the after hours pediatrician the next night. I don't want to go into details but even though Jeremy and Jr. had to be in close proximity to doctors and nurses, they both did wear their face masks and the doctors and nurses wore theirs.