Best and Worst of Summer 11

Summertime finally hit Idaho the last couple weeks. So you can imagine telling the boy that it was time to go back to school, just when the weather decided to comply, was cruel.

The flowers bloomed their prettiest, the garden is starting to come on, and everything is prepped for an Indian Summer with a frost or two during the night to make us recall why it's hard to grow anything here.

Since it is technally over, I had to go pack through Padre's Pics and pull some for my "Best of Times Summer 11".


Jaden demonstrating how little room available in the car for him and I in the backseat prior to camping. I held that watermelon on my lap to Island Park. Man it was worth eating up there!



Shooting out of the tube at the water park. This one has significant meaning. One night we had to miss going to this awesome park as part of a disciplinary consequence. All the kids at the Hershey track meet got tickets to go the night we registered. Well, unfortunately for me, I had to keep the little athlete from going. We'd decided on the consequence for not doing a job and he didn't realize that he actually would be super sad missing this event. I think I about broke down crying as we drove all the way to Rexburg and all the way home to the sound of his lesson. Ugh. Not a paren't favorite thing. I tried to explain the terms he was agreeing with knowing it would only end in tears. How much easier it would have been to have done the job! Guess kids are like adults- we have to learn the hard way!



In an appeal to help kids stay active, the company holds a yearly track meet. You can try out for three events at a local track meet in order to compete at the state level. I think it's a great thing for kids but now, anytime I see him wear that shirt,



I just want chocolate. (using the ginormous marshmallows Padre found at the store. We made S'mores over the BBQ. Way easier than trying to go camping and try to do it!)

Seeing the few pics Padre took of my little team, made me smile.
Coaching baseball was worth the effort. There was one child, besides mine, that really made me choose to coach in the spring. The child had a handful of moments that were worth every miserable minute in the wind. Those were moments when a kid caught a ball, hit the ball, or ran home that made up for losing a game.

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My favorite: When one of my kids found a bird feather, stuck it in his helmet and kept it there like Dumbo, believing it would help him fly. Granted it fell out on his run towards first and he was upset about losing the magic feather, but it made a believer out of me.

Another favorite pic is me nagging them... my lil scout had to do a project for his Leave No Trace badge so he taught them to "leave it better than you found it." Which meant that I had to remind J to tell the team after each game,to pick up garbage. I am so glad I am graduating from coaching little league this year!



After meandering into our neighborhood, this moose got hit with a dart gun which injected whoozy medicine in it. He ran past a couple of girls at a lemonade stand, danced around our cars and then toppled down out in front of the nextdoor neighbor's lawn.

We'd just returned from an overnighter in the tent to see the tall, wobbly spectable. I have to admit I was a bit flabbergasted, in that we had been up in the woods and hadn't seen, or heard, one wild animal. Unless you counted the cow and it's calf that came around our tent in the middle of the night. I could have sworn it was a moose but was reassured that there was a cattle herd north of the campsite.

Had that herd not walked through another one of our campsites a couple weeks later, I wouldn't have believed it. Any large animal sniffing and snorting within a hundred feet of me is reason to stay alert all night.

I can't help but feel glad that the new third grader is over to the school, the camping gear stowed away for another summer, some merit badges under his belt and a cool breeze signifying football season.