Helllloooo Summer... May 27, 2008

This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend.  In my mind, this is the weekend that Summertime officially starts.  This is the last week of school for lots of kids, the outside pool at our gym opens, people brush up on all their barbequeing recipes...Summer is here.  At least supposedly it is.  It rained all weekend long.  Even with the rain we managed to have a bunch of good times together; long weekends are so nice.

Saturday, for once, we worked in our yard all day long.  For a few years now we've been the house in the neighborhood known by having only ONE tree and no bushes or flowers to keep it company.  We named our tree "Max".  We figured if it had to be a lonely tree, it might as well have a name.  Well, Max has lots of "friends" now and more to come.  Chris, Noah, and I literally spent all day long planting 8 trees and we still have 11 bushes to plant.  We planned to finish up on Monday, but it was too rainy.

Sunday after church we made cookies together.  Noah stood on his stool with his apron on and "helped" me.  Mainly he stayed busy licking the beater and watching me finish up, which neither of us minded.  In the past Chris has been the official beater licker in our family, so he's having to learn to share with Noah.  That night Grandma and Grandpa came up to visit.  We had fun showing off our new trees, talking, and the best part was sitting with my mom while she and Noah read a story together before bed.  For Christmas they bought him a collection of the "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" books and it's one of Noah's favorites to read.  It was fun to watch Grandma read it to Noah and have him finish the sentences for her because he knows the books so well.  Another fun thing was showing off how smart Noah is.  With a little help he can name five or six colors and count to 15.  Such a smart little cookie...

Monday, Memorial Day, we took Noah to the Air Force Museum like we did last year.  We had a good time and one of the veterans there who volunteer even let him and Daddy walk up inside one of the helicopters.  All the way home Noah told us he was a pilot.  When we asked if he flew airplanes or helicopters, he said helicopters. 

We finished the day by going to a bbq party at Chris's Aunt's house.  Noah got to play with some of his cousins and some of our cousins' kids, which was his favorite part of the day.  He loves to play with friends, especially cousin-friends.

So with the begining of Summer being here I started thinking about all of the fun things that we want to do this summer and I made a list.  (I'm a list person.)  Noah is such a perfect age to be able to do so many things this summer and we've really been looking forward to all the fun we're going to have.  Here's my list of fun things to do and look forward to this summer:

Ride the SS Shortline train in Kaysville with Noah a whole bunch of times, go to a Dinosaur Museum, ride the Heber Creeper, ask Grandpa Parker to take Chris and Noah fishing on his canoe, go canoeing, go camping, go on lots of hikes, go cabin hunting (Chris and I have decided that someday we want to buy a cabin), ride the Gondola to the top of the mountain at Snowbasin, go on dates to the movies, pay a beehive to babysit Noah once a week so Laura can go to the temple and finish up some family names, go on walks around the neighborhood after dinner, ride Grandpa Buckholts's bus with him, play in our little swimming pool in the backyard and take Noah to play with his cousin Gwen in her big pool, Stake Lagoon Day, Zoo with Aunt Desi and cousins, celebrate Mommy and Daddy's birthdays, visit with Heather (Noah's birth mom) again, spending more time with Grandma Buckholts now that she's done teaching school, plant more things in our yard, spend time with baby Andrew, ride Frontrunner, to to baseball games, have more family time because Chris isn't so busy at work, maybe one of my sisters or sisters-in-law will have exciting news that they are pregant again...and maybe at the end of the summer we will have a new baby in our family!