Ketchup

unless you're in the "Catsup" camp.  Really what I mean, though, is "Catch Up" which is entirely different, but boring in terms of blog titles.

I realize I'm desperately behind, so I'll try to throw in a few collages and catch up last month at least (I hope!)

Art City Days:
We love our little city's celebratory week.  First up is the Children's Art Festival.  We brought along two bonus cousins for the fun.  Always a beginning of summer favorite!

The next morning: The one parade the girls and I attend each year.  We drove down to the school and parked there, walked two blocks and sat in the gutter in front of some people who had staked out spots in chairs.  The girls raked in TONS of candy, gave fives to Cosmo the Cougar, our favorite college mascot.  We waved at princesses, clapped for horses and cheered for the pooper scoopers.  We like to sit right by the beginning where the parade doesn't have big gaps or waits, the candy throwers are excited to share the joy, and the marching bands still have their chops.  The parade lasted exactly one hour (the extent of my sitting-in-a-gutter patience) and we were home within 5 minutes.  Summertime bliss!

That night is fireworks time.  We discovered that at the corner of our property we have a PERFECT view of the magic!  They shoot right up and reflect off the top of the greenhouses a block down.  Does it get better than this?  I think not.

In lieu of energy-sucking migraine-inducing blow out birthday parties this year we chose to do a Birthday Activity instead.  Here's Lizzie's fun.  She got to invite two friends and they came with us on a family party.  We went to an inflatable jumping / sliding place and wore the kids out (while Michael and I read books / watched a show on the sidelines).  Then we grabbed ice cream cones at Dairy Queen and drove to our favorite duck pond.  The duck and geese were in fine form.  With a touch of patience the geese would take bits of bread right out of our fingers!  Then we drove back to a park by our old house and sat under trees to eat cupcakes and open presents (where there was no duck poop to avoid on the grass).  We were able to have our neighbors join us there too, which was perfect.  The girls walked the friends home from there and we went home for dinner.  A great time was had by all and nobody had to vacuum before or after!

Finally (for now), what is summer in Utah without water fun!  The girls have played in sprinklers, with squirt guns, water balloons, neighbors' sprinklers, our little pond... yeah, we've done water.  Our favorite creation, though, is the Kid Wash.  Michael made this for the girls to play in and it's been a hit.  We've already planned out changes we'd make to re-do this little toy to make it easier to clean, carry, and store.  Next post you may even see the benefits of this Kid Wash which have nothing to do with proving water and everything to do with avoiding water ;) 

I'll try to get back to the more regular posting.  We were down with air conditioner problems, sickness, then a nasty virus claimed my computers.  Still trying to get completely recovered from that one.  Thus the pictures are slow to access, process, and share.  I'm getting it going though!  Stay tuned :)