July 2022

July brought lots of fun to our little family. We tried to go hiking every week and soon realized Carter's desire to hike is inconsistent- sometimes he wants to run up the mountain and says things like "this is Narnia" in awe and other times he whines and complains loudly requiring lots of motivating endeavors from his parents. Jefferson on the other hand loves hiking to lakes or waterfalls especially given the incentive for a boys night point- 4 points =video games with dada. We made it to Donut Falls, Stuart Falls, Bear Lake 400 yr old tree and outlook, and Silver Lake. Mama and Aunt Marce got up early one July day and did a big hike to Lake Blanche. It has been so lovely to be in the mountains so much this summer season. We celebrated the 4th of July with our neighborhood annual breakfast, and the West Bountiful parade and carnival with cousins. We enjoyed lots of Daybreak concerts with friends. Jefferson lost his front tooth and got his first visit from the tooth fairy. We had a Bear Lake adventure with the Meeks and had lots of fun playing football and baseball in the lake, discovering the secret ingredient for the Unbelievable burger, swimming overlooking the lake, cooling off with raspberry shakes, hanging out in the condo, paddle boarding, some Bridgerland adventures, and wrapping it all up with Aggie ice cream- yum. Carter and Mama had a movie in the park date night with his favorite stuffed animals and he loved it. Brad and Mary had a date adventure and biked to Bridal Veil falls and then took Grandpa Dennis out to ice cream for his birthday. We had a super fun Lagoon day with Josh and Mary and kids. Jefferson was much more adventurous this year and even went on the Spider with Uncle Josh and Carter was so cute holding baby Alec's hand on his first big roller coaster. We have spent lots of days at Lifetime rock climbing, playing at the pool, and mini summer camp activities and are super grateful to have the club so close to us. Our favorite Jeffersonism this month is that he has decided to make rock and roll signs in every picture that is taken. Our favorite Carterism this month is when he is rock and rolling with Jefferson and decides to take his shirt of and says "I'm going Slither." It was even funnier when we were hiking and he saw some guys hiking without shirts and loudly said "they're going slither!" The boys have also decided that the door handle is the perfect height pretend microphone and sing into it while playing their pretend instruments together. They keep us laughing. And for the moment we are keeping brother squabbles at bay by skipping the who did what first/say sorry drama by simply saying "Make peace with your brother and shake hands" and 99% of the time it works Hallelujah!  Just a few more weeks and then it is back to school. Grateful it has been such a fun fun lots of time spent outside summer.