Merritt Memories

This year seems to have passed so quickly. Can I just say, my life recently seems to be in fast forward?! I'm not sure if I will ever get used to it, but I have no choice. My kids are back in school. Kate is in first grade! During the day it's just me and Becca. I remember when Ryan started kindergarten I felt that I would have little kids forever! Well, Ryan starts jr high this year. Looking back, it didn't seem long at all. Next year Becca will be in kindergarten! What on earth am I going to do with myself? Dustin has reminded me that I can get a job. I have thought a lot about that. The problem is my children are in year-round school. Kind of hard to schedule around. Plus, I don't know if I want to enter the work field so quickly. I do want to go to school, but maybe just a class here and there until my kids are older. I am excited to have a little me time, I'm just not quite sure what to do with it. I am a little sad that this part of my life has arrived so quic...

On July 17th we took the kids to Deer Creek Reservoir with our friends the Corderos. The kids had a lot of fun just playing in the water. They had a water gun fight. The kids also found a large floating log. They turned it into their very own canoe. Very resourceful! There wasn't much of a beach. That was a bummer for me, but they had fun playing in the rocks! There's absolutely nothing wrong with building rock castles, right? :) Here are just a few of the pics I took:

Last week we took the kids an outing to the park. I wanted to get some snapshots. It was a little of a struggle. Kids are never as cooperative as you would like when the camera comes out, at least mine aren't. But I think we got some cute ones. Here are a few. I took 75, so I can understand my kid's frustration!!

The days when you take the time to do absolutely nothing, sometimes turn out to be the best days. No hurry, hurry, rush, rush to get somewhere. Often the kids get so excited to be going somewhere they loose commonsense and start misbehaving. We decided on Monday we would not be doing anything. We sat in the front yard all afternoon. The sun was shining and it was hot, but not unbearable. The clouds would come often and block the heat. If we needed a fast cool down we grabbed a Popsicle or two. The kids found buckets and sponge paintbrushes. We filled the buckets with cold water from the hose. They worked tirelessly painting our wooden fence. Soon they were just drawing pictures, eventually, a water fight! We ate our snack picnic style. We noticed some hungry ants. They decided to feed them our Ritz crackers. We watched as they carried their food storage to their home. It didn't take long for the kids to notice the roly poly bugs. They are such nice bugs to let others hold them....

On the 6th we had our first official summer field trip. We took the kids up to the aerospace museum in Ogden with our good friends the Corderos. They loved it! At first glance I thought it was a few airplanes in the yard and a tiny little museum we could walk through, but that place was HUGE! The kids' favorite part was definitely the education center. Everything was hands on for them. They enjoyed dressing up and pretending to be pilots and astronauts. They also had some simulators. Ryan hung out there. He loved flying the planes on the game he was playing. One of the best parts was being ab;e to enter "The Jolly Green Giant" helicopter. Most exibits were off limits. The kind tour guide allowed the kids to actually walk up the ramp and sit inside. the helicopter was used in Vietnam. Paratroopers leaped from the same ramp! We had a great time. On the way home we stopped and paid a long, over-due visit to Dustin's grandma. We had a very nice visit. Here are "a few...

We woke up excited to celebrate our nation's birthday. The city that Dustin works for had some fun activities planned and a parade later that evening. We were lucky enough to have front row seats and parking spaces, thanks to Dust's connections. It's not a huge perk, but it was nice to be at the front of the parade and able to park close. They spent the afternoon watching K9 officers perform, witnessing the landing of a helicopter,and being a cop and taking down a "bad guy". We ended the afternoon with bounce houses ad snowies. After a short break, we returned to Sandy to watch the parade with our good friends the Corderos. Parades are rather funny in Utah. In West Jordan it is nothing but a form of business advertisement, in Sandy it was all political! But there were a few fun moments. The kids nearly tackled each other for the candy. This year we were lucky and got chicken nuggets from Chic-fil-a. So, I guess you could say we attend the parade for the freebies!!...