Outside While We Can

My kids are off track. Yes I know that everyone else just started school. But we just stopped. Last week we did a lot of birthday related stuff. It was a fun week but it was busy. This week I didn’t have anything planned so I decided that we would stay in our pajamas until noon and hope that no one came to the door. Actually I didn’t plan that- but that is what happened on Monday. Tuesday I had stuff going on but it didn’t involve the older boys. Wednesday we had a boring morning. The main excitement was doing the jobs for the day so they could play computer. All of a sudden realized that I needed to plan something. This is their summer. I wanted them to be outside and playing. I wanted to go and do things that they would remember when it is winter and we are stuck inside.

Thursday we left early in the morning and went to the South Valley Water Conservation Gardens. I had never been there and wondered what it was like. It was nice. It was small but they have lots of construction so it will be bigger next year. It has a lot of gardens that show what kind of plants you could have to conserve water. It wasn’t a very long outing and we got home in time for Chase’s nap. But the kids ran around and got some energy out. It was fun.

Because of the success of Thursday’s activity I was feeling a little bit braver. It is hard to take a two year old and a 7 month old places. But it is easier now that Chase does not need to eat as often. I just take care of Alex. Chase is pretty easy going. On Friday I decided to go to Liberty Park. They have this fun play place there. It is really hard to describe. It has 7 different “rivers” that come down the “mountains” and end in the “Jordan River” and then it goes down to “The Great Salt Lake” This is supposed to teach kids and celebrate the Salt Lake Valley water system. There really are 7 rivers that come down the canyons and make their way to the Great Salt Lake via the Jordan river. I wish I had a picture to show you but… I dropped my camera into the bathtub last week. The pretend rivers are fun to throw a ball in and watch it and race it down the hill. The lake is a fun little (12 inches) pool to play in. OK, I admit it, I was not quite sure I would be able to handle the four kids. So we picked up Andre on the way and he took a long lunch break. But once we were there the kids were great. So we stayed for a few more hours after dad left.

Saturday we decided to go on a little hike with the kids. We went up Big Cottonwood canyon and went to Silver Lake. This is the easiest hike you could ever go on. It has boardwalks for the wetlands and it is almost all flat. There was a forest-y area that had squirrels and some ducks came up to visit us. It was so beautiful. I don’t have any pictures to show you because I threw my camera in the bath tub last week. The kids had a lot of fun reading the signs that tell you about the vegetation or the animals and stuff like that. We read a sign about beavers and then we saw a beaver dam! I don’t know if I have ever seen a beaver dam before. There were no beavers there though. The older boys learned a lot of things- like what a wetland is, that there is 33 feet of snow on that lake in the winter, and that our water that we drink starts up there in the mountains. We saw a map that shows the Wasatch Mountains and the seven rivers that flow down the river and become our drinking water.

Jaxon wanted to know what the pool of water was that all the rivers led to in the water play-place at Liberty park. I told him it was the Great Salt Lake. He asked if we could go there.
After church today we decided that we would try to go see the Great Salt Lake. On the way to the Salt Air state park area Andre and I talked about when we had gone there as children. I said that when I went, it was in the middle of flood season. I realized that we may not even be able to see the lake now because we have been in a drought for a while. Then we realized that a storm was brewing. We thought that it would be ok because we were just going to drive up, see the lake and then leave. We got there and saw the lake waaaaay out there. Of course the older boys were going no matter what. We started walking and I started to get worried that I was carrying the baby and my two year old out to the middle of nowhere when it was going to dump rain on us at any moment. The wind was kicking up and I started feeling rain. We still had a long way to go until we got to the water. We kept walking for a while then it started raining a little bit more. I just didn’t feel right about being out there with the baby so Andre and the boys kept going and the baby and I headed back. It took forever to get back and the storm was getting closer. I got back to the Salt Air building and right then the wind came with a vengeance. It was blowing really hard. All the people who were at the lake started running back. I drove the car as close as I could to the walk-way and waited for the boys. It was blowing really hard. I was worried that Alex would be crying because he doesn’t like even regular wind. They got to the car and the older boys were laughing they were so amazed at how strong the wind was. They told me all about a sand storm they walked through. Alex got in the car and he was all smiles. Andre had made it really fun to run in the wind. Alex did fake screaming to describe how he felt in the wind. In fact all the way home Alex would give little fake screams every time we said the word wind. The older boys kept saying, “We’re going to die!” over and over. It was actually a fun time even though it was so weird. Andre said that in 30 years they will take their kids there and tell them that all they remember about the Great Salt Lake is that it is really windy there.

Tomorrow we want to go to the Jordan River. There is a path along most of it. We will ride bikes, ride in strollers and play along the river. This is if we don’t have another wind/rain storm. So then we will have gone to the mini version of the seven rivers in the valley and then go to see the real versions of some of those things. The older boys are really liking learning about all of these things.

When I threw my camera into the bathtub, I tried a couple of different rechargeable batteries but the camera just didn’t turn on. Yesterday I went shopping for digital cameras. I just looked at pricing and looked to see what was available. Today I got new batteries (non rechargeable) and put them in our camera- just in case. I turned it on. It worked! Yea! I don’t have to buy a new camera! So I took a couple of pictures at the lake. They are not good pictures because it really was too stormy to stop, dig for the camera in the bag, make everyone stop walking and smile. So I took a picture of them at the lake when I got back to the building. It shows the LONG walk out there. You really can not see them out there but if you follow the trail (bright white stripe of salt) out to the edge of the water- you may see a dark spot. There are about 30 people out at the lake. Then I took a picture from my car. You might be able to see Andre in a red shirt carrying Alex. Jaxon is in a white shirt and Tanner is in a red shirt. Or you might just see the black clouds descending. It was an adventure to remember!