Summer continues. Feeling pretty stressed most of the time and kind of ok the rest of the time. I recently got a new church calling in Young Women's - I've had a primary calling for the past 10 or so years. And I was feeling a little burned out on teaching primary, so a change is good I guess, but I feel like I'm on the learning curve right now.
We took a really warm walk at the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve on the 4th of July. The kids hated it and complained the whole time. It was kind of warm so I guess we should have known better. I bet its nice in the fall.
We saw some frogs.
It was about a mile to walk around this little boardwalk over the marshes on the shore of Salt Lake.
Frog spotting
In the evening after a super thunder storm we tried a few fireworks, until it started raining again.
We got a few things done.
We set off most of our fireworks the next evening since that is still allowed.
John and Emma have made lots of artwork
These are both portraits of me
Practicing on bikes a lot
Anna feels stressed when her room is not clean so she was happy to get it cleaned to her satisfaction
Matthew had a tennis class in July and the rest of us played at the park on some of the days he had lessons.
Grant can ride a two wheel bike without training wheels now.
I have guilt that I haven't worked with him on it more - a lot of summers our bikes have been packed up. But I really wanted to make sure he learned this summer and it didn't take him very long to get it.
Way to go Grant! John is eager to learn too now. He's almost there.
Emma fell asleep under this ottoman one day. It took us a while to find her.
Anna had master gardener class through Utah State University. She really enjoyed it. She likes plants and animals. She learned in her class that blueberries don't grow well in Utah because of the alkali soil. I wished I had known that before I planted two blueberry bushes. :). Here she is with her tomato plant from class.
We planted the tall tomato in the weedy garden. It is doing well.
More fun at the pool
Lots of hot days.
Visiting with cousin Clark - we were glad to visit with the cousins
John asks for waffles almost every morning but I usually only make them on weekends, or Scott makes them. I made them today. Yum!
I completed another online class through U of Michigan - Data Structures in Python (Computer Science class). Glad I completed it but I think I might wait until summer is over to try another one.
Mini graduation ceremony (online) for my course. :)
And then there is the yard. It turns out there is such a thing as too much yard. And I think we have it. I feel stressed and exhausted by the yard work. We went out of town for a week and one of the pumpkin plants died. It might be only mostly dead. The others look like they will make it. Some of our sunflowers looked weepy but perked up when we started watering again. It turns out plants like water. :). John grew two sunflowers from seeds in his kindergarten class and they are now taller than me. Sunflowers are my favorite and I can't wait for them to open. Grant planted some dwarf sunflowers from seed and they are doing well too, just much shorter.
I'm trying to focus on the positive things we have accomplished with regards to the yard.
We have really gotten the wasp population under control, along with a lot of other bugs.
We tamed a truly terrifying garden and now dozens of pumpkins are growing in there
We replaced dead trees
We have thriving tomato plants, strawberries, peppermint that just won't quit no matter how much we try to kill it and a variety of herbs growing.
I have a test flower garden in the back giving me lots of good data about which flowers I'm least likely to kill
We have raspberry plants that haven't totally died (thumbs up)
We have promising looking sunflowers although no yellow showing yet
I planted a hosta that had a good run although now the half of it that gets the most sun is looking a little brown
We have a guy coming to fix the flooding in a few weeks
Dwarf sunflowers getting ready to bloom
This plant was growing under our front window. I think it is a spurge. More and more branches died as it got hotter. We don't have sprinklers or drip lines to this part of the flower bed. I cut back the dead stuff and eventually decided just to take it out.
After our vacation (while Scott was out of town) I decided to try and plant some things. I moved most of the mulch to put down another layer of fabric weed barrier then planted some things. In this picture there are three hydrangeas under the window, two pots of multi color echinacea on either side, a new skinny lilac bush on the far left and two shorter echinacea plants (red). I'm planting a little at a time. On the day I put the hydrangea in the ground it got really windy right after I planted and whipped those poor little scrawny plants all around. Two of them seem to be surviving but the third (closest to Anna - you can see the white bloom leaning way over) just looks weepy and miserable. I haven't given up on it yet, but leaves on one of the branches are already dying. I'll keep watering and try to stake it up for a little while. Poor thing. I know the feeling. I wonder if they have something like garden stakes to help moms - I guess its called caffeine.
Another view of the sad hydrangea (closest white bloom)
It's leaves look a little more perky - maybe it can survive.
I also broke my watch doing yard work. Gah!!
The next day I put the large echinacea in the ground. I absolutely love those flowers. I've been wanting to have some in my yard for a long time. I bought them and they also had to survive the wind but they were in pots that day. I should have brought them in the garage I guess, but it seemed like they were doing ok. The next day they looked sad and half dead. I don't know if I watered too much or they were already going to die, but its makes me very sad. I planted them anyway. So for at least one day I can say I had echinacea in my yard. Maybe I will put this picture on my wall to remember echinacea day. I planted one more short red echinacea by the other two in front. And I have more plans. Although some times I feel like I just want to lay down on the ground and give up like that sad hydrangea. May we all survive the summer.
