Labor Day weekend and The Shakespearean Festival

I'm sure Dad might have a few more photos on his phone of Labor Day weekend. We drove up to SLC to hang out, but Mom stayed in St. George to work the weekend away with Grandpa in the Emergency Department. So thus these are the only two photos she has available at the moment...one of her taking a ride on the Kokopelli race route and Iva and her buddy Chase at the aquarium. We had a great weekend.

The Tuesday after Labor Day, Mom got a text from her good friend, Ginae, who lives in Cedar, offering her two free tickets to see Shakespeare in Love at the Festival. Mom jumped at the chance, but couldn't find any grown ups who were able to go with her. So she took ME. Mom was a sweaty mess from just teaching a Group power class and the play had some adult content, but it was so much fun. I enjoyed it. I didn't understand all the jokes, but Mom kind of explained a little bit and I was the only kid in the audience. I hope we get to go again!

Until next time City Pool.....

It happens every year...the time really does come and we have to say good bye to our beloved city pool. We had to do it a little earlier than normal this year because we were going to spend Labor Day in Salt Lake. 

We spent many hours on those pool stairs.

And consuming cheetos on the lawn.

We were all sad when it came time to leave. We can't wait for May!

The Narrows

We had so much fun on our little hike up the River Walk (and we had paid the entrance fee at Zion which gave us six more days to use it) that we decided to come back and take Dad. And this time we dressed to get wet and hike farther up into the Narrows.

We also took a path that was just to the side of the River walk that kept us right next the river and was the path less traveled.

Here we go! The start of the Narrows!

Iva was pretty nervous and understandably so! In some spots it looked like she was going to be getting wet up to her waist!

We were pretty impressed with how far up we made it even though it wasn't super far but we were the ONLY little kids we encountered. In fact, a nice German tourist asked to take pictures of our family because he was so impressed.

Family selfies rarely go well anymore!

We headed back along the trail and once again had our favorite river spot to ourselves! This time we were in swim suits so we spent more time in the water!

Look! We made it to the other side!

This is how deep it got for us!

The Eclipse and some hiking!

This year on August 21 the United States was set in the path of being able to experience a total solar eclipse. St. George was just out of the path of the 100% eclipse, but we were still at like 89% or something. The schools were being really weird about it and so Mom went up and checked us out of school to experience the eclipse. Mom had remembered at the last second that she actually owned a pair of solar eclipse glasses that she picked up during the last one (that was only a partial eclipse) like five years ago! The day proved to be cloudy in St. George and we thought we might not get to see the eclipse at all, but just as it reached it's peak the clouds parted! 

Mom had us use the pinhole trick to see the eclipse. She remembers this trick from when SHE was in fourth grade and saw a solar eclipse.  Can you see it there on the paper plate? That's what the sun looked like!

We all took turns with the glasses.

And then Mom showed us that our shadows were getting all kinds of wavy and distorted. It also got a little bit cooler.

It was pretty neat. Nothing like the full eclipse that some of our friends and family got to experience, but maybe someday we will experience that.

The 21st happened to be a Monday which meant Mom didn't have to teach that night OR work in the emergency department. A real treat. She decided we needed to go on an adventure and clear out of the house while Dad was teaching. So she loaded us up in the van and drove to Zion to take us on a hike. We loved the shuttle.

We settled on taking the River Walk trail up to the beginning of the Narrows. This meant we got to ride the shuttle THE WHOLE WAY.

Sam was such a trooper in his back pack. But Mom says he was getting heavy.

We discovered this lovely spot along the river that had access, but NOBODY was playing there. We took advantage of it.

We played the "how deep does it go" game. Luckily there were no losers!

Sam thoroughly enjoyed throwing rocks. Some as big as him.

It was so fun. We are so lucky to have Zion so close!

Regular life...

Once school is in session life starts to feel regular. Mom enjoys a few more naps with Sam (at least I think she does. I'm at school!)

It took us an extra couple days again, but we did manage to celebrate the start of school by going to city pool again. It's always nice because we have it to herself.

Mom actually managed to reserve the pool for the Panorama PTA and we threw a back to school party for all the students. We had a boundary change over the summer and we were much bigger and wanted to make people feel welcome. We even had free snow cones!

Poor Iva had an incident in the car involving a finger to the nose....

And Mom discovered why our water bill was higher and our grass was dying anyway. It took her another week to figure out all she needed to do was simply screw the sprinkler back on. Face palm!

Back last year, Mom signed up to run the Kokopelli Triathlon and had to defer her entry because of a conflicting date with a training. So that meant this summer she had to try and get herself training for that triathlon. Last year she could have done it with her sisters and Dad, but this year she was going to have to go it alone. This meant we got a few days out at the lake so that she could get in an open water swim!

We love summer time. The sun charges us up and the water is so glorious. And being together as a family rocks.

I should probably mention that Mom also signed ME up for this triathlon. My first open water swim too! So we BOTH had to practice swimming. I wore a life jacket though since Mom was going to go far out.