Water, Water, and More Water

We have been combatting the heat of summer with all kinds of water fun.  The kids and I hit the Scera Pool one day as a reward for finishing all of their chores.  Camden seemed to be swimming well enough that I let him jump of the diving board for the first time and sure enough, he did great swimming to the side.  I was actually more nervous he'd get to the edge of the diving board and his fear of heights would kick in  and he wouldn't be able to jump, but he didn't seem to have trouble at all.  Carter begged and begged me to let him have a go, but his swimming skills hadn't seemed quite up to par.  Finally I went to the middle of the pool and told him he had to swim all the way to me from the edge and if he could do it, I would let him jump.  Well, he had never been able to do that before but with the motivation of watching Liv and Camden having so much fun jumping off the diving boards, he sure as heck swam all the way to me without any trouble.  So, I told him he could try it, and figured I could just jump in and rescue him if need.  But, he got right up there and jumped off and swam to the edge on repeat without any trouble.  Hurray for proficient swimmers!!!

Last year, Dad bought me an inflatable kayak for my birthday.  It ended up being on back order, and we didn't get it until the end of September when it was too cold to use it.  But, we have been super excited to finally use it this summer.  I invited a bunch of friends with older (and younger) kids to join us at the Springville Reservoir, and it was a wonderful day.  The Teenagers spent the day paddling my kids all around the reservoir while I sat and visited with all the Mom's.  I basically had to kick them out of the kayak to get my own little turn paddling around the lake.  Super fun day.  We are definitely hoping to repeat it some time soon.

Uncle Jon took us out on his boat at Utah Lake one evening. 


I brought the sandwiches as I always do.  The kids had a fabulous time knee boarding and on Uncle Jon's new tube.


We have hit up the new Orem Splash pad like 3 times already.  Super fun.  Here's Camden getting sprayed by extraordinary amounts of water.

Last Sunday, after church Derek drove us all out to the high Unitas to check out Upper Provo River Falls.  It's is just a short walk from the car.

 The kids loved putting their feet in the ice cold water.

 I stayed back to admire the Falls (since my knee has been bothering me) while Derek and the kids explored a trail up further along the river.


Last week we had the 2nd Annual Primary Water Activity.  We had about 80 kids from the neighborhood show up and 8 different water stations.


 Everyone seemed to have a blast, and I delegated out all the station managing tasks, so it was fairly effortless on my part.

This week one day when it was 100 degrees outside and Derek had tickets to a basketball game at night, I braved taking the kids to the Provo Rec all by myself.  They have some super fun slides outside, but both boys required an adult to go with them unless they could pass a swim test.  I decided that needed to happen in order to save myself from having to climb the stairs to the slide more times than necessary.  In order to pass the swim test, they had swim all the way across the wave pool without touching.  Camden totally did it!  Carter stood up just 1/3 of the way across the pool.  But, having only one kid that required me to go down with them made a huge difference.  We played outside for a while, then we moved to the indoor pool and slides.  The kids had so much fun and swam until bed time.  The only pictures I took were after the swimming was over--Liv stuffed in a locker, the kids climbing the rock climbing wall. 


Then, they convinced me to let them pay at the indoor play structure on the way out.  After all that, they were all starving and had to run through McDonalds.  It was a late, but fun night.