This is the Place

Washing clothes -Kayleigh wasn't so sure as you can see.
Beating the rug
Happy boy!
Petting the very cute baby lamb

Kayleigh, Phoebe, and Grace

Such a cute little cabin

In a teepee

Landon on the little play train

Brother and sister

Drawing on the chalk board in the school

Phoebe, Grace and Kayleigh on the bunk in the ship (a new addition to the park). It was pretty neat! Not all pioneers came across the plains, some crossed the ocean-that's what we told the girls.

Kayleigh's gold that she panned for in the stream. Kayleigh loved this because she got to trade her candy in at the bank for a piece of candy. This was also something new this year, a neat thing I thought.

Kayleigh riding the mini train.

Kayleigh making her sand art.

Kayleigh with her candle she had just made.

On Wednesdays it is only $2 at This is the Place so my mom, sister and myself thought it would be a fun, cheap activity for the kids. I was amazed at what Kayleigh remembered from the last time we went! She immediately wanted to pet the animals and ride the train.

It was a boiling hot day but in the early afternoon it downpoured on us! Literally, it was crazy! I had an umbrella and I tried to keep it over Landon in his stroller, myself and Kayleigh. What was so funny is that Landon still got pretty wet but he was just laughing and enjoying it. Not me though, I was stressing over how dirty everything/everyone was getting. Oh well, it really was fine (I just need to learn to relax) and within about 10 minutes the cloud moved and it was sunny the rest of the day.

It's amazing how pioneers lived, those tiny little cabins with such big families. I don't know if I could do it! I am grateful that I live now. We enjoyed a fun day riding trains, petting very cute animals (so sad that the barn burned down this past winter!), doing little crafts and letting the kids play.

BoAtInG

Marie, Grace, Kayleigh and Michael

Last Saturday we went boating, courtesy of my sister's in-laws. My parents and little brother went, too, and we had a great time! We went up to Echo and it was a beautiful day. At first Kayleigh was really scared of the boat and going fast, but she slowly got used to it. She said "I want to go back to land, I want to go home." She didn't want to go on the tube either, but I said she had to at least try it, then if she didn't like it she didn't have to do it again. Can you guess what happened? She liked it! Fancy that! Of course, the boat was going VERY slow, but this way all the girls could enjoy it and not be scared or get that wet.

Once the kids had their turn, us adults had some pretty fun tube rides! We all got whipped around and it was really fun! I can't even remember the last time I was on a tube like that. We all got pretty good burns/scrapes on our elbows from the tube but it was worth it.

The past month we have been doing a lot of fun things and it kind of makes me sad for summer to end. I can't believe I'm saying that because I am not one who usually likes the summer (too hot). We have lots of fun things planned for the fall though, so it's okay I guess. Kayleigh will be starting pre-school here in a few weeks and we will be heading to Oregon on a family trip as well. Then come all the really fun holidays too, so we are set!

Feeding himself

The other day we were in a hurry geting ready to go and Landon needed to eat. I made a bottle and gave it to Kayleigh to have her feed him. She soon got him to hold it himself and he drank the whole thing holding it himself. It was perfect timing for a busy day! Now we can't always get him to do this, and I still like to hold him and feed him, but when I'm in a crunch, it's nice.

And unrelated to eating, in my post awhile ago about Landon sitting up I didn't include any pictures to document it, so here are some pictures of the cutie sitting up!

Daddy daughter campout

Michael was brave enough to take Kayleigh to our stake’s daddy daughter campout. It was held at North Fork campground. Kayleigh was very excited to go with just Daddy. They stopped and got KFC to take up with them for their dinner. They got their tent set up, ate dinner, and then enjoyed sitting around the campfire for a little while before they headed to bed.

It took Kayleigh quite a while (almost 2 hours) to get settled and used to the tent, but finally she fell asleep around midnight only to wake up at six and want to get up. They were the first ones to breakfast and then they enjoyed playing a couple of games provided by the stake.

Kayleigh was also lucky enough to get a pink doggy made out of a balloon. The guy making them had just finished as Kayleigh got up to the front of the line. She was so sad! As Michael carried her away crying, the guy decided he would do one more for her, she was very happy! She was sure to tell him thank you a few times.

They made it home on Saturday morning around 11:30 and poor Michael was very tired since he didn’t sleep very well, he never does in a tent. He enjoyed being able to do something special with just Kayleigh though

Cherry Hill

Since the 24th fell on a Saturday Michael didn’t have to work on that Friday, the day before. We wanted to do something fun as a family and decided to head to Cherry Hill, the greatest fun spot you’ll ever know! (That’s part of their add on the radio.) Since last year in the fall Kayleigh has been asking if we can go there. We didn’t tell her till the morning of that we were going, she was so excited!

With it being a holiday weekend it was pretty busy but we didn’t mind and still had a lot of fun. It has been years since Michael and I have been there and there were lots of changes and new things to do. Kayleigh loved the lazy river! She liked to sit in our lap on a tube and just float around and around. She also liked the little slide that went in to the kiddy pool and the water fountains she got to play in in Pirates Cove.

I took her down the big tube slides once but after that she was scared of them and even after much convincing and bribery, we couldn’t get her to go down again. Maybe next year…we’ll see. Michael and I took turns doing some of the bigger slides that our kids couldn’t do. Landon was a stud though and we took him down the blue slides three times! It ended up being very fun and we hardly got sunburned which was good.

Lagoon

Staci, Brooke, Tyler, me, Kayleigh and Suzy

Almost every time we drive past Lagoon on the freeway Kayleigh asks if we can go. In July we finally made our annual visit there. We actually ended up going two times, which was really fun. Our first visit was on a Tuesday which was a perfect day to go because it wasn’t too busy. We went with Michael’s sister’s family. Kayleigh liked having two cousins, Brooke and Tyler, to ride the rides with.

Landon did extremely well! The poor kid was sweating so bad in his car seat. I felt bad for him, but he was a trooper. The only rides he could go on were the train, carousel, and the ferris wheel. The worker almost didn’t let him go on the ferris wheel because he didn’t have shoes. C’mon people, he’s 8 months old and can barely sit up all the way! Second of all, he doesn’t even own shoes. They decided he could go on it though, how nice of them. He took a couple of small naps during the day and was happy to go home I think.

Kayleigh enjoyed all the rides she got to go on. This year she was tall enough to ride The Bat. I couldn’t believe that she could go on that but she liked it. Her favorite rides were the Dinosaur Drop and Ladybug Bop, basically the same two rides, just themed different. (These rides are small versions of The Rocket.) She also liked Puff, the classic kids roller coaster there.
We spent almost the whole day there, from opening to closing and we were sure tired by the end. As we walked out we bought some cotton candy. It’s basically a tradition for me to do that as I leave Lagoon. It’s something my mom always did with us and I love it! Kayleigh of course loves it as well and she asked all day for it and was so happy when we finally bought it. She was also lucky to get a stuffed animal surprise that Michael won for her by popping some balloons.
Once we got to our car to go home Michael quickly realized that the car keys were not in his pocket. Oh dear! He ran back to the park to check a few obvious places that they might have fallen out, but he couldn’t find them, darn it. After trying to decide what to do, Michael’s sister drove us to our house where we then called a lock smith to get into our house. Side note, an afterhours lock smith call isn’t cheap!

Just after midnight we finally got into our house and Michael was able to get my set of keys to the car and his sister headed back to Lagoon with him to get our car. They had to call security to let them in a service entrance since the parking lot closes at midnight.

So our night turned into quite the adventure! I am glad we could get our car that night though and that it wasn’t something worse. We’ll just have to share our one set of keys to the car now.

On the Saturday of that same week we got to go to Lagoon again, this time with some free vouchers Michael’s mom had gotten from her work. We sure noticed a difference in the attendance at the park from a Tuesday to a Saturday. Since we had already been though we didn’t feel like we had to get on every ride. We just enjoyed being there again and what we got to ride we enjoyed.

The bummer of that visit was the evening thunder showers that we had. It was a downpour at times! We decided to have dinner under a pavilion to try and stay dry. We waited out the storm and then continued to have fun on the rides.

We went a third time to Lagoon in August with my sister and her girls. This time we did Lagoon-A-Beach and then the rides. We also went on a Tuesday again, but it was busier than the last Tuesday when we went. Kayleigh once again enjoyed having cousins to ride with and it was another fun day at Lagoon!