Screen Free Week 2026

Last week was Screen Free Week. Let's talk about highlights from the week.

Monday through Friday, I went for daily walks to Bridal Veil Falls, including on a day when it was raining. I just took an umbrella.

 

I listened through several audiobooks.

One day I walked beyond Bridal Veil Falls and walked along the Provo River Parkway for a bit. I kept having to dodge little inchworms hanging from their silken threads. I tried to get some pictures using my hand as a backdrop (without touching them) but I couldn't get it to focus on the creatures.

Finally I gave up and started walking back. After a bit I looked down at my sleeve and saw a little inchworm sitting there. I was able to get pictures and a video of it (because my sleeve was a good backdrop) before I picked up a stick to encourage it off of me.

I found another one that I also got off. When I got back to the van, I took off my vest and brushed myself off but I didn't have any more of those little caterpillars on me. That was fun. 

 

May the Fourth, I took a couple kids to the library with me. We said Hi to Libby the Librantula (twice) and picked up some books.

There was a display in the children's section for Star Wars Day, so I picked up a book to read with Jet later.

We ate "sand"wich people at home. 

I wished my friend a Happy Star Wars Day and she let me know they were watching one of the movies.

We didn't watch a movie because it was Screen Free Week but we played a card game that night for Family Home Evening.

May the Sixth was No Diet Day so I told everyone to "Fend For Yourself" for dinner. 

 

May the Seventh was National Tourism Day so we ate Greek Pitas.

I wore my slug shirt I wore on our Pacific Northwest trip a couple years ago. Jet carried around Timothy, the banana slug we got from Mount Rainier on that trip. Jet and I both wore brown shirts and black pants that day.

May the Eighth was No Sock Day. I wore my socks some of the time but took them off other times.

It was also Fintastic Friday. We had Sharkleberry Fin Koolaid and Jeremy brought us home gummy sharks.

That night, I introduced another person to the movie, Seeking Persephone. It's a monthly tradition. This person, however, has read a lot of books by Sarah M. Eden so she is very familiar with the book this movie is based on as well as the series (and a related series).

I know it was Screen Free Week, but this movie watching was postponed from when we were going to watch it in April (I got to watch it with my in-laws). The kids were okay with it because they got to watch a movie during Screen Free Week and eat cucumber sandwiches and drink herbal tea.  

 

Other things from Screen Free Week:

Snuggles

Jet  showing that he learned "Skidamarink A Dink A Dink" at school

Jr. Jr. letting Jet play with the train he built at school (how cool is that)

 

Jeremy finally getting a haircut

Roses blooming 

I'll blog about Saturday and Sunday later. Those days were big deals. 

More July Holidays

Let's jump into catching up on more July holidays.

July 7 was Father Daughter Take a Walk Day. Jeremy was not available that day so I took Nichole for a walk into a store to get hair stuff and makeup. Girl time. Woohoo.

It was also Macaroni Day so we had macaroni with our dinner.

July 10 was Teddy Bear Picnic Day. We had a picnic with teddy bears and non teddy bears on the living room floor. We made sure to invite Eeyore so he wouldn't be sad. Jr. picked a lovely location for us- Ordon Village.

We ate chicken patties for Cow Appreciation Day on July 11. Reminded us of a certain chicken place's advertising.

July 13 was Embrace Your Geekness Day. I like to call it Embrace Your Geek Day. I made sure to get a picture embracing Jeremy while wearing my Jurassic Park shirt.

The kids played chess with a Legend of Zelda Chess set.

July 14 was Mac & Cheese Day so we had shells and white cheddar and added macaroni.

It was also Shark Awareness Day. I bought gummi sharks for this holiday but forgot to get them out so we had them along with gummi worms on Gummi Worm Day, July 15.

 

We celebrated Nichole's birthday in July. We quickly turned the fan off before there was any candle... situation.

Summer Reading!

I was going to write about all our Summer Reading adventures in one post but changed my mind. Here's the second post.

We continued to do service and received service. Made cookies for neighbors. They made us fried squash which we had with our dinner one night.

Later when someone was going through a hard time, we gave them chimichangas so they wouldn't have to worry about dinner.

We made so many chimichangas. Some to eat, some to freeze, some to give away. This picture is of the chimichangas in our stock pot. You know our stock pot- the one we used to use to make a seven times batch of taco soup? Yeah, that stock pot.

Took all of the kids to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. It was Jet's first time there. And... dinosaurs. He loved it, especially when it was time to dig for fossils.

He even got into calling out, "Oh no, it's going to eat me," for a picture in front of the megalodon. Tradition.

Nichole got some good sketching in, of course. She's been wanting to go to that museum for a while, too.

One of the reading activities was to have someone read a book you recommend. I recommended Spindle by W.R. Gingell to Nichole. It's the first book in a series and Nichole is already farther along than I am in the series now. Lucky recommended Wizard for Hire to me. I loved it. I just finished the second book in the series and will definitely read the third. After I read the first one, that meant everyone (except Jet) had read that book so Lucky put together a trivia game for us to play based on it. It was fun. Jr. Jr. and I were on a team and Nichole and Jr. were on a team. We had team names and even team handshakes. Later, Lucky was able to give the trivia questions to Jeremy so he was able to be involved. Book trivia was another Summer Reading activity.

I'm sure I can't remember all the activities we did but it was another great Summer Reading Summer.

We went to the Orem Summer Reading Finale. They had Polynesian dances including a fire dancer. I was telling one of my children about torches and fire because of my experience juggling fire. Yes, I have juggled fire. Jeremy used to juggle fire in a lot of his birthday party shows.

Jr. and Nichole both won prizes from Orem. Nichole put a lot of tickets into the one she won. Jr. put one ticket into the one he won. He has that luck when it comes to drawings.