The Cook's Recipe for Life: June 2013

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Seven Peaks and The Splash Pad

We've been splitting our water time this summer between Seven Peaks and the splash pad at Pioneer Park in Provo. The girls love them both, and we've found the splash pad to generally be less stressful with 2 small children and a baby. The time and effort it takes to get to seven peaks and get into the water is quite a bit more compared to just stopping at the park and letting the kids run loose on the splash pad (excluding the time Lily ran off, but I've already covered that in a future post).
Crystal still loves the slides at Seven Peaks and Lily loves the splash pool, so we still pack up and head over there as much as we can. I love that we have season passes so we don't feel like we have to spend the entire day there. We just go for an hour or so and we still feel like we are getting our moneys worth!

Opening Weekend @ Seven Peaks!

This is how J likes to go swimming! Get in his swimsuit and stay OUT of the water!

Friday, June 14, 2013

Crystal's swimming lessons

I have to say I was extremely disappointed in Crystal's swim teacher this year. She didn't attempt to teach them anything new at all, and as a result Crystal failed the class and has to take it over again next year (well that's what the paper says, but with a little work we are hoping to teach her what the person we paid to teach her didn't). For 2 weeks she stood in front of them and told them to bob their heads and do 'ice cream scoops' and 'rocket ship' which don't get me wrong I know are teaching them skills to help them swim later on. But the goal for the class was to float UNASSISTED. She only worked on floating for about 30 seconds every day. And there was no teaching involved. It was 'k lets back float' and then she'd stand there while the kids sank over and over again (or did nothing cuz they are 4 and easily distracted). When she did pay attention to what Crystal was doing, I'd hear her say, 'look you're doing it on your own. You don't need help.' Crystal was so close to reaching the goal, but the teacher took no interest in helping her along. I didn't pay her to see what she could already do, I paid her to teach her something new! Anyway, I'm done ranting now. Crystal really did an amazing job and was so much braver in the water than last year. She was the only one in her class to jump in the pool on the first day! I was so proud of her!

This was one of the few times she practiced with them one at a time (the second or third day of lessons)

She even went down the BIG slide all by herself!

Swimming Update: We went to the pool today to get in with Crystal and help her with her floating. It only took a few simple instructions and she was floating on her own!!! But we really need to work on her ability to hold her breath. lol. She can only stay under for about 3 seconds in her front float before she has to come up for air!

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Lunch with Grandpa

One of the wonderful things about living in Provo is that I'm significantly closer to my Grandpa Sitterud! Growing up we spent most vacations making trips to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Orangeville, Ut. I have fond childhood memories of my time in Orangeville with my Grandparents and my cousins. But the 6 hour drive kept us from visiting as often as we would have liked! Living in Provo, I'm only 2 hours away and he makes trips here every once in a while for appointments. When he has time, he will call and we'll meet him for lunch. I LOVE that my children know their Great Grandpa Sitterud! On this particular trip, Grandpa Sitterud was able to meet Jacob for the first time!

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Idaho Falls Fun!

I drove to Idaho Falls with the 3 kids all by myself over Memorial Day weekend! The drive went rather smoothly, only stopping once in Malad for a potty break! I was pretty nervous about the drive so I was glad when the girls cooperated and J slept the entire ride there! We arrived at my parent's house Sunday evening in one piece!

Monday we spent the entire day helping my little brother and his family move. His wife was 8 months pregnant, so we stuck around to help unpack a few things before we left. Monday evening we spent at Ty's parents house! They had a bbq and awesome dessert for my mother in law's birthday! She spent the entire day making it all happen... I told her working all day was no way to spend a birthday!!!

The rest of the week we spent some of our time at work with Grandma Gordon. J was a lot of help! But we spent most of our time with my sister in law who was due to have a baby any day. The girls loved spending time with their cousin, Millie. We even went to the zoo one day! I carried J around in a front pack carrier - that kid is getting too big too fast! We were only five minutes into the zoo, and Lily tried joining the Wallabies in their enclosure. She had jumped one fence and was climbing the next one when I caught her. Jumping fences with a baby attached to you is NOT ideal. That little girl is going to be the death of me some day! About 15 minutes later she tried climbing into the tiger enclosure. I think had I not grabbed her leg and pulled her down that she would have come face to face with a very large cat that day! At the end of the day the kids had had a ton of fun, and this exhausted momma was just glad her middle child was still alive and whole!