July 2012 Round-up ~ DesignZ by DeDe

Since I have decided to take a little break from Life 365 this year, I have decided to participate in monthly Round-Ups instead! I've been following The Scrapbook Lady for years, and I have always admired her Round-ups. It was about time that I give it a try!

JULY 2012

So I got behind on this challenge and July is just a blur - I'll try to at least remember some of the things we did! We did do a couple of big outings and so this is going to be a picture heavy post!

What fun things did I do with my family and/or friends?

We had a great 4th of July with Cody, Becki, Mallory (and Becki's sister, Ashley). We started the day bright and early and went to the Hot Air Balloon Festival. We had never seen it before and now I think we are definitely going to have to make it a tradition!

We went early enough to see the balloons get blown up. It was so interesting to watch! Beth loved all the colors and it was just really neat!

And then to watch them all float off into the air was an awesome sight!

We then headed off for a leisurely breakfast at IHOP. Then we went to the booths/parade. We didn’t really watch much of the parade, but we enjoyed walking through the booths and seeing the fun items for sale. Beth picked out a beautiful Japanese fan and JJ got a double lightsaber. We also had some delicious Strawberry Mango drinks! The kids got their face painted. Beth’s was a beautiful sparkly glittery rainbow and JJ got a full pirate face. Unfortunately, the lady painted right in JJ’s eye and he was not thrilled about that.

We then went back home and went swimming in the trailer park’s pool. We had the pool to ourselves most of the time and it was really fun - although we all got sunburned.

We ended the day with Firecracker Floats! A fun-filled Independence Day!

July was also home to our Smith Family Summer Camp. The kids really enjoyed all the fun activities we did every day - Reading, writing, Crafts, Library outings, lots of time at the water park, researching and playing on the computer, exercising, helping mom with housework, etc. They loved earning points and had so much fun turning them in for even more fun outings with the family.

JJ had summer school every week day. Beth attended a 2 week Science camp that she adored. The kids took a 2 week swimming course and Beth discovered she was a fish! She is so into swimming now and its so fun to see her enjoy it and be brave and actually SWIM!

And we got to take a weekend trip to Vernal and stay with Uncle Cody, Aunt Becki, and cousin Mallory. Grandpa, Grandma, and Uncle Clint came too. We had a houseful, but we enjoyed every minute of it.

We began our trip with a stop for a late lunch at one of our favorites in Heber - the Dairy Keen. They have the regular hamburgers, fries, shakes kind of of thing - but they also have this fun electric train that runs on a track over your head. We enjoy eating and watching the train. Joey is never really into ice cream - but he loves the chocolate shakes at Dairy Keen so we had to get one!

We finally arrived in Vernal and enjoyed dinner as a family! We stayed up rather late playing board games, laughing and visiting.

The next day was full of activity. We started with a hike to some indian petroglyphs. My dad has always had a interest in History. Many of our vacations focused on seeing indian ruins and drawings or ghost towns or other historical sites. Because of that - I think my siblings and I have just been instilled with that same kind of interest. My daughter is now really interested as well and so this was a really great outing for us! It was overcast so it wasn't hot and we enjoyed visiting and just kind of took it slow. We spent a couple of hours and it was really fun!

After our hike, which ended in a bit of rain. We had packed a lunch and so we headed into town to find a park. As we approached a big park in Vernal, we discovered a car show going on. Of course, we had to stop and look at cars. We also had our lunch and played on the playground. They had the most interesting and fun playground equipment and even Joey couldn't get enough of it. There was a particularly fun spinny thing that used your own balance/and weight to automatically send you spinning. Joey loved it. I just feel bad that I didn't get a picture of him spinning!

Then we visited the dinosaur museum. The fun dinosaurs at this museum were created and located in my hometown of Orderville, until bought and taken to Vernal. So it was a must-see for us to go and say hi to these critters!

We then headed back to the apartment for dinner, tv, board games, and more visiting. We finished off our fun-filled day with shakes at Sonic and more board games!

It was a fabulous weekend and I'm so grateful for my family and the chance we had to spend such quality time together!

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