Last day of school

Today was the last day of school for these two. 

Sawyer is finishing 5th grade and Hayden is finishing 3rd grade. 

Hayden had a great year of academic progression. He is on reading level W, has become a fan of writing now, and has his multiplication and division facts passed off! 

Sawyer is a whiz at math, and is also reading level Z. I have volunteered in his class this year, and I can see he is also quite the social butterfly, to the point of sometimes forgetting about classwork. Balance brother. Balance.

Tennis lessons

McKinley is too old for swim lessons, so summer means tennis lessons instead. She just wrapped up her summer lessons. She didn't want to play on the jr. team this year, so we just did lessons. But I think next year I'll make her do matches :)

Personal Progress

McKinley has been working hard on earning her Personal Progress this summer. For her Faith project she decided to do various art pieces of temples. Her first three pieces were drawing and painting some temples. This last piece she decided to learn to use my camera a bit and take pictures of the Draper temple, then edit and print them. Here is our favorite shot of the day by McKinley.

Homesteading

Our cherries are ready! It is the first year our tree has produced fruit.The birds got to many of the cherries, so we'll have to put a net over it next year.

I never took a picture of our little chicken coop. So here is our little red barn. All the chickens are in there together now, and while there has been some pecking order squabbles, everyone is learning and still alive and kickin! No eggs yet. They should be old enough around September/October. 

Hayden was the only one small enough and big enough to climb the young tree without breaking it and reach the taller cherries.

We let the chickens out to come and eat the bugs around the garden. McKinley likes to hold them. Josh kept trying to get his Lightning McQueen chicken, but he wasn't fast enough.

The youngster chickens try to hang out by themselves when they can.

St. George 2016

Time for the annual St. George-Van Leeuwen trip! We took off on Thursday after school and pulled in to the Green Valley Resort Condos around 8:40. We let the kids swim until just before 10:00 pm. It was a yucky 105 degree week, so most of our days were spent in the pool where it felt more comfortable. On Friday we swam, then shopped for some swim gear we were missing and food for the condo. We ate lunch, then swam again. After that swim session we went with everyone to Finding Dory. When asked if they liked it, the boys said "sure". Josh wanted to play my phone and/or leave before it was over. McKinley loves it though. Then we ate at the Pizza Factory per tradition. So yummy! On Saturday we went on a fun hike to the lava tubes and explored a little cave. Then we swam at the condo again where we had a little birthday celebration for early summer birthdays. After swimming we ate dinner with some of the cousins at Outback. 

After dinner we tried a new adventure to check out a local site. It's a natural spring near Littleton, AZ about 45 minutes from St. George. It was actually an interesting site, but the colorful local population was less desirable. It was definitely an alcohol consuming, bong passing crowd. Really. We saw it. We left soon after that. Oh, and Sawyer stubbed his toe pretty good and left a nice blood trail for us to follow. But now we know what "Little Jamaica" is like :) 

Hayden really wanted to go to the Sand dunes in Snow Canyon, so around 8:30 pm we spent about an hour in the sand dunes with the boys while McKinley shopped with the girls.

Stone Slop

Hayden's class did a little theater performance in class. Hayden's group did Stone Slop (a fun variation of stone soup). The little hand poking out of the curtain is Hayden with his masterpiece puppet. I happened to be helping out in his class today so I got to see the show.

Wax Museum

Hayden had his 3rd grade wax museum today. He was Steven Spielberg (because he loves Jurassic Park). He is definitely rockin' the look!