Prilla's Page: End of Summer

Why is it that even though school starts, it doesn't seem like summer is really over until Labor Day? The weather is already starting to change, and we can see the leaves in the mountains changing. We even have a few leaves in our yard starting to change colors. :( I'm not ready to let go of summer, but it is quickly leaving. So we knew we needed to fit in as much fun as we could during the last week of summer.

There is a park in Spanish Fork that we have been watching being built all summer long. We have driven past it at least once a week all summer to see if it was open yet. And finally it opened the weekend before Labor Day. (Why is it that they wait until summer is basically over to open up such an awesome park???) We took a day after school and went over with Holly and Dillon. They have a splash pad and a huge playground! The kids started in the fountains and then moved over to the playground. It was amazing to me the difference in Hallie from the first time we went to a splash pad to this time. She was much more adventurous this time and loved exploring the fountains.

One of the biggest reasons we were so excited for this park to open was because of the bucket swings! They are the same ones that they had at Morgan's Wonderland in TX which are great for kiddos like our Granty. One disappointment we found was there are no seat belts to these swings like at MW, so we had to really watch that Grant wouldn't slip out. Hopefully they'll add these at some point. Since it's a new park, there were lines for these new cool swings. So every time we would get the kids off to let another kid have a turn, Grant would keep saying "more, more, more"! He loved it and didn't ever want to leave!

The swings are even good for adults that act like children :)

We will be spending a lot of time here next summer!

Over Labor Day weekend we went up Hobble Creek Canyon with some friends and family. Saturday night we met Dee and Dave up there for dinner. They took up their trailer and set up a tent for us to use. We had a yummy dinner and Mikkele and Dee made us some yummy apple and cherry turnovers in the dutch oven for dessert. We came back home that night because my family was in town visiting and would be leaving the next morning.

We went back up Sunday morning and visited with Dee and Dave again before they had to head home to get ready for work the next day. They were kind enough to leave their trailer and tent up there for us to use. That night we had the rest of the Gallier family come up for dinner as well as our friends, the Walker's. We enjoyed some sloppy joes, hot dogs, and of course some smores!

That night, Jeremy, Grant, Hallie, and I slept in the trailer and Ryan, Mikkele, Kamrin, Dillon, and Connor slept in the tent. Or I guess I should say attempted to sleep in the tent. It was so cold that night! (We found out later that the state had record lows set that night.) By 4:30 a.m. Ryan and all the kids were out by the campfire trying to stay warm. It was a long night, but we had a lot of fun. Mikkele keeps asking when we are going again!

Hallie had a great time playing in anything that she could get dirty with...which was just about everything! She was covered from head to toe in dirt when we got home. But she was a happy content baby!

Here's some other random pictures from throughout the summer that I haven't included in any other blog posts:

The annual Utah County Fair demolition derby.