Action Packed Summer Vacation a.k.a. Memorial Day Weekend

School finished on Thursday. UVU Prep began on Tuesday. That meant four days for Jr. to fit in as much family fun as possible.

 

Friday, May 28. This was our list of holidays for that day: Whooping Crane Day. Brisket Day. Cooler Day. Don't Fry Day. Hamburger Day. Road Trip Day.

Hmmm. How to fit all or most of those in?

First of all, Whooping Crane Day.

"Whoop. Whoop."

Do you get it? Do you get it? Look carefully in the background of this picture. We planned celebrating this way for weeks before the holiday.

National Road Trip Day. The kids and I went for a drive to Big Springs and went for a walk and looked at bugs and birds.

While we were driving, we saw cows in a field. It was National Hamburger Day. We went home to grill them (not the same cows) because it was National Don't Fry Day.

National Cooler Day. There wasn't room in the fridge so I put a watermelon in a cooler with freezer packs and took it out of there to cut up to go with our backyard BBQ.

We felt pretty good about getting most of the holidays on our list. The last one, National Brisket Day, we wouldn't be able to until Jr. Jr. asked, "What does brisk mean?" He listened to the definition then got up to run briskly around the yard saying, "I'm going to brisk it." Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!

We also had s'mores because c'mon, backyard BBQ.

 

Saturday, May 29. We celebrated my birthday.

The kokanee salmon experience was kind of a letdown last Fall so we went to see June suckers in the Provo River closer to the lake to celebrate my birthday. The fish were bigger than we were expecting (I just thought they were going to be little minnow-like things. I was wrong). 

We went for a little walk and did a little birding while we were there. 

We also looked at flowers and bees. It was so fun to see the bees with the pollen on their legs (remember to click on Nichole's pictures to see them larger).

Later Jeremy made me my birthday dinner (with orange soda, of course) and we had cake and sherbet.

What I asked for for my birthday I got for Mother's Day so what I asked for for Mother's Day I got for my birthday.

We love The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner which I got last year and use it so much, I wanted The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner Again. Yay!

I also wanted to try out a dough hook (or dough whisk) since I've heard good things about those and that you can use them for so many things. I'm still trying to make up my mind about what I think.

Lucky gave me a Lego sculpture. Each time someone does a chore I can take a piece off and when all the pieces are off we can play video games.

Sunday, May 30. Kids made dinner.

There was quite a bit of creativity going on for Creativity Day. For Water a Flower Day, Nichole forgot to water her flower outside but she made bread so she watered flour. Tee Hee. Dad helped Lucky make a flower out of pieces of red bell pepper. Jr. used lemonade and a mint tea bag to make a sort of mint julep (non alcoholic of course) for Mint Julep Day. Jr. Jr. made chocolate chip waffles for us. Thanks for dinner, kids.

Monday, May 31. Memorial Day.

It was Utah Day. The kids and I went hiking in Alpine, Utah, to see poppies. We brought Daddy along.

There were lots of bees interested in the poppies. These bees had different colored pollen on their legs than the bees we saw Saturday.

The kids all wanted to take pictures with the camera so they had to take turns. We also saw different birds and some snakes.

To continue with the Utah Day celebrating, with dinner we had funeral potatoes and lime green jello with carrot shavings (Utah people should get it). We didn't have fry sauce, though. Ha Ha Ha. We also had smiley face pizza for National Smile Day.

So that was Jr.'s action packed Summer vacation before he started UVU Prep again. I hope he enjoyed it.

Prep Boy

The kids finished their online schooling for the school year. Jr. started online schooling for the Summer. Last year, Jr. participated in UVU Prep at the UVU campus. Since the campus is pretty much closed right now, they decided to do UVU Prep online this Summer. I would say the one child who was best at online schooling was Jr. He was the one who helped his other siblings figure out computer things. He is in his element. He gets up in the morning and gets to sit at the computer and we don't have to drive him to UVU every day. It's too bad, though, that the field trips are all virtual and that his face to face interactions with others are only done on camera. And he has to figure out what to have for lunch instead of it being already decided and provided for him. The other kids have been sleeping in since it is Summer vacation for them.

Last Days of School! Last Days of School!

It's hard to pinpoint an exact last day of school this year where the kids would normally wear their backpacks and go to school, say goodbye to their teachers, and come home ready for Summer vacation.
Working from home, they all finished their schoolwork at different times and went to pick up school items at different times. So even though I got decent first day of school pictures back in August for three different start dates this school year (for Jr., for Nichole and Jr. Jr., and for Lucky), I wasn't able to figure out when to do official last day of school pictures this year. I obviously didn't think to do it back in March before the schools closed because nobody knew it was going to be for the rest of the school year and they closed before we knew they were going to close.
So... anyway... let's get to the point. Here are some things that happened the last few days before everyone was expected to be done with school completely for the Summer.
Our elementary students went to say Goodbye to their teachers and get little goodie bags from them but no hugs even though they were terrific teachers. In fact, Lucky could be heard to say three times on the short drive home, "I love Mrs. A__."

The elementary school teachers had another parade as a final farewell. Students and their families were encouraged to make signs and decorations to show support. When they drove through our neighborhood this is what they saw.

Jeremy built the school mascot and an apple for the teachers out of balloons. So I guess here are the "last day of school" pictures for Jr. Jr. and Lucky.

Since the high school seniors didn't get a real graduation this year, the high schools in the area set off fireworks the same time on the same night for them. We could hear them coming from a couple of different high schools and we could see them from the closest one. We did have to walk down the sidewalk to see between the house next to us and the one next to that since there were trees in the way when we tried to watch from our backyard. Not complaining. One, I love trees. Two, we didn't miss much because where we did get a view was a very short walk away.

Thanks, Jr., for taking pictures of the fireworks so Lucky and I could watch them together.
So that is how school ended for us this year. Definitely unique.