Antelope Island

This is the view as we were driving in on the causeway. The lake is on either side of the car, right up to the side of the road.

View from the top of Buffalo Point Trail

Is this Antelope Island, or Buffalo Island? Cause we didn't see any antelope!

Top of Buffalo Point Trail, eating lunch with our group of friends.

Bugs, please don't eat me! I know I'm cute and all, but leave me alone!

This is a brine shrimp costume that one of our little friends was kind enough to demonstrate for us. We learned a lot about brine shrimp, brine flies, and the few types of vegetation that survive in the Great Salt Lake.

Brine Shrimp babies cling to their mother as shown above.

Looking at the brine shrimp eggs. They look like little pieces of sand!

Listening to the ranger telling us about the sand at the Great Salt Lake. It is perfectly round, which makes it different from sand at most other beaches.

Dipping for brine shrimp!

Did you catch one?

Not yet! Elise and Kaleb both ended up catching a couple of brine shrimp and taking them home, but they died the next day. We were almost eaten alive by the "no-see-ums"... apparently it's best to go either a) early spring, b) late fall, or c) in the middle of a really hot month in the summer, when most of the bugs are dead. Even with bug spray, they still got us!

Gardening

My parents were kind enough to allow us a little spot of land to grow a garden in this summer. It has been a fun and good learning experience so far. The day we planted the seeds, the kids drew these signs to put in the garden. They illustrate the different plants we are trying to grow. We laminated and placed these signs in our garden by each row, but unfortunately the elements got to them and they are not as pretty anymore. Thank goodness for cameras!

Planting Day!

Time to pull the weeds and water...

And here are the first fruits of our labor! We have also had quite a few snap peas, but I forgot to "snap" their picture...

Mmm.... ToMAAAAAAtoes!!!! Cilantro,

Green Onions and Carrots

I love how much more flavor things have when they come straight from the garden! Oh yeah - we've been tending my great-grandparents raspberry patch as well, and it is yielding some fruit! I can't wait to help mom make raspberry jam this fall! :)

Thanks, Mom & Dad for sharing your field of dreams with us!

Town Days

Waiting for the parade to pass by!

Playing with a potato bug/roly poly

He always looks at people over the top of his glasses... I wonder if that means he can't see very well with them on?

Yay! Kaleb was brave enough to go on rides this year!

Pretty Girl #1

Pretty Girl #2

Pretty Girl #3

We were at the parade for about an hour and a half. Then the kids rode rides for about an hour. We went home for lunch and Daddy and Tessa took a nap while I took the kids back to the park for more rides and snowcones. We saw Jericho Road perform that night, and watched the fireworks show as we walked back to our van (which was parked in Booneyville)... which was the smartest move we made all day! We got home at a decent time instead of sitting in the parking lot for 45 minutes waiting for people to leave. Hooray for fun summer activities!

Wheeler Farm

Our first summer field trip was to Wheeler Farm on June 21st. We saw lots of fun animals, rode on an old wagon, and the girls chose to milk a cow. It was a fun time and we learned a lot.

Hummingbirds

Back in the middle of June or so one of my violin students discovered that we had a hummingbird nest right outside our front door. This first picture was taken on June 24th, one month ago.
According to Wikipedia "In many hummingbird species, spider silk is used to bind the nest material together and secure the structure to its support. The unique properties of silk allow the nest to expand with the growing young." We definitely see spider silk in this nest. There are also either chips of white paint or little pieces of paper. I never got around to putting a mirror up above the nest to see how small the eggs were. You can google images of hummingbird eggs. :)
It also says that "Incubation lasts 15 to 19 days..." which sounds about right for our nest. On July 21st as I was admitting students to the house I noticed two pokey beak-like protuberances sticking out of the top of the nest.
I wasn't sure if they were babies, and if they were, I wasn't sure if they were alive! They were perfectly still for a few minutes, and the mother was nowhere to be seen. We've been pretty busy every day for the last week or so, and we haven't paid much attention to the little nest.
However, as I sat and watched, I noticed movement! Sure enough, there are two little baby birds in this little tiny nest, and they are alive and well. I haven't seen the mother around much. Supposedly they stay pretty close by, only leaving for a few minutes each hour to get food. Seems like the babies are doing well, though. And it's so fun to have this little nature lesson right outside our front door!

To Be Thankful

This is something I should be working on. I'm not thankful enough. I know that there are MULTITUDES of things in my life for which I should be thankful.

Thankfully, I have many good examples of gratitude in my life. Here is one of the newest examples. Robert and I met this sweet lady when we were at the Oral Surgeon's office for the follow-up on his wisdom teeth removal. Robert was helping the secretary behind the desk with a computer issue while we waited, and the other lady that was waiting asked him a question about her blog. I can't remember what the issue was, and I'm guessing she got it fixed. She gave me her blog address, and of course I stuck it in my purse and sort of forgot about it.

About a month ago I found the scrap of paper with her blog address on it, and decided to check it out. You should check it out too! She has many fun topics that she posts on, but the theme of her blog is "10 Things that Made me Happy this Week."

I decided to become a follower, and then found out that she was compiling a giveaway basket to a lucky follower, to be chosen by random as soon as she hit a certain number of followers. Luckily enough, I was chosen! My basket arrived today, and it was a wonderful surprise.

So, here are 10 Things that Made me Happy Last Week:

#1 - The weather was nice almost every day!

#2 - I did yoga every morning.

#3 - My children were mostly good.

#4 - I took my vitamins, which helped me to be more calm, patient and productive!

#5 - Robert got some sorely needed yard work done.

#6 - I cleaned both of the cars out on Saturday.

#7 - We got to go on a date Sat. night!

#8 - I read a really good book - (Speaker for the Dead)

#9 - We paid off the first credit card in our debt snowball!

#10 - I received a basket of goodies from a complete stranger!

Thank you so much, Michelle, for sharing your recipes, ideas, hints, and especially gratitude with all of us in bloggerland! And thank you for my exciting goodie basket! When I opened it, the wonderful smell of pure vanilla bean permeated my whole living room! I can't to make vanilla sugar with it tomorrow. And I'm excited for all the other fun things as well! It was just the sort of pick-me-up that I needed. What a wonderful, sweet, generous lady.