When June arrives, it's Summer to me. The weather is perfect. The mornings are cool and the afternoons are warm. The plants seem to do their best and boast blooms of colorful flowers. June is a beautiful time of year.
First bird nest spotted this year. It's in a fairly low branch in a cherry tree lining the driveway.
Happiness abounds in Shaniel and Steve's garden.
One of my all time favorite blooms. Wisteria. It is growing in and creating the beautiful hideaway over the pergola... just as I had imagined.
June 3 - Dinosaur Park
The Mecham family invited us to go to the Dinosaur Park with them in Ogden. It was so much fun watching the kids play among the dinosaurs, dig up bones, and explore hidden and mysterious trails.
Summer Activity - Digging up Bones
Another summer activity to go with Dinosaur week. Books are the foundation to any activity in my book! Audrey helped the kids make bones and other fossils out of clay. After coloring and letting the bones dry, they were ready for play. Digging up bones was a super summer activity hit!
June 6 - Vocabulary Jar
Keeping the kids active through learning and creative play during the summer months requires thought and dedication. Starting out the summer was easy, but we soon tired from the amount of work and had to scale back some. I introduced the "Vocabulary Jar" on the second week of activities to go with Pioneers. The kids pulled out the word song and was encouraged to use it throughout the day. It was a fun addition to the summer activity.
Summer Activity - Pioneers
Making bread in a bag and shaking cream into butter was messy and fun. The kids spent the day with me making food and toys the old fashioned way. It was a great way to help them see how the Pioneers might have done things.
Whirligigs
Reading, singing, and making whirligigs was tons of fun. Grandma is lucky to have these munckins to play with.
What better way to round out Pioneer day than to cook hobo dinners in tin foil! One of my favorite things to eat.
June 8 - This is the Place State Heritage Park
Today was Jon Huntsman (free day) at This is the Place State Heritage Park. We explored pioneer homes, learned how the pioneers lived, watched the kids play, ate snacks from home and enjoyed free ice cream. It was a very hot day! I was glad to leave.
June 10 - Bird outside my window
The strangest thing today... a bird (pigeon) sat outside my bedroom window on the deck roof and on the sill all day long. Every time I went to the window to see if he were still there, he was! He would just look at me and stay content in his place. It was if he were watching over me. It was so strange. As silly as it sounds, it made me think of Steven. He loved nature and I couldn't help but think maybe it was him, in some odd way, letting me know he was with me. I don't know if it would have been for a particular reason, but I did feel that way. When Dave returned home after being gone all day, I told him about it. He went to the window and the pigeon slowing stood up, stretched his legs, walked to the edge of the roof, and was gone. Just like that!
June 12 - Cherries
Eating fresh cherries off the tree is one of the best early summer treats you can eat. Yummm!
Painting the New Cooler
Dave has consistently worked on getting the new cooler ready for operation. This week he is painting it. It's getting closer to being finished. He is so anxious to have it running.
June 14 - Summer Activity - Nature
The kids came up to grandma's house again today for a Nature Summer activity. They chased butterflies, dragonflies, and bugs with nets and got real good at catching them. We rode the 4-wheelers out in the orchard where grandpa showed us baby birds in their nest. We gathered items in nature and made rubbings out of them. We picked cherries. And the kids painted bird houses. Oh... such creative little kids they are! Such a fun day.
June 16 - New Swing Set
The Mecham kids got a new swing set for the back yard. It's a perfect solution to keeping them both busy and safe at home. Audrey's got her hands full with a new baby this year and this is going to be a great help to her.
June 17 - Hedgehog
This is a first! A pet hedgehog came to the Farmer's Market. It was such a strange site and when I asked its owner if I could take a picture of it, she was more than happy to let me. I've seen lots of dogs, but never anything like this!
June 20 - Summer Activity - Sea
Another Summer Activity... the Sea. We started our day out by going to SeaQuest, an indoor aquarium at the Layton Hills Mall. I like how interactive it is for the kids. They can watch colorful fish swim, visit with a mermaid, and watch a parrot show. They have interactive activities where you can go into a reptile cage and pet lizards and a bird cage where colorful birds land on your outstretched arms. That is my favorite part, but the worst for the kids. It scares them to have the birds fly around and land on them.
After spending the morning at the aquarium, we came back to the house and made ocean pudding cups and did a science experiment where we could watch gummy eels move around in water just like an electric eel would in the ocean.
June 30 - Birthday!
Alia made her mother a cake for her birthday. It was so cute! Audrey had a big smile on her face when she had the cake put in front of her with a bunch of bunched up candles to blow out. Audrey turned 31 years old today. She is not only a wonderful mother to her children, but a wonderful daughter to her mother! I sure do love this girl of mine.
Shaniel's Flower Pots
It's becoming a tradition... purple petunias in Shaniel's pots. Shaniel loved purple and she loved flowers. After I planted the flowers in her pots, I placed them on the bench on the back deck. I can just imagine Shaniel coming everyday to sit for a minute or so on the couch to enjoy the beauty of her pots filled with flowers.
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