Summer 2021

 Where to start? Well, first and foremost, William and Daniel got education assessments by our fabulous educational psychologist, Conrad. I LOVE Conrad. I aspire to be like him one day. He is empathetic, a good listener, very informed, insightful, and spiritual. I feel so blessed that he has been the education psychologist for all of my boys so far.

Shockingly (not) they are both dyslexic.

(Oh my goodness, I just got this photo from the internet, and I didn't notice the misspelling until RIGHT NOW....yes...yes I'm dyslexic as well.)

Interestingly, both of them had supper low spelling and letter-word identification, BUT their "applied problems" were in the superior rage! Go Rightstart Math! I'm sure that is the reason for their success.

It was pretty funny: As Conrad was diagnosing William, he comes up to me and says "Have you ever noticed that William has trouble concentrating? Have you ever thought that there may be a chance that he may have ADHD?" 

"YESSSS"

So yeah, William is now diagnosed with ADHD as well.

So nice to have these assessments so they can get future help if necessary.

As for summer though, the main thing we did was camp. We mainly camped with the Peavoys and Mein-Wildes. I'm so glad we had something to get us away from COVID monotony. 

We camped at Writing on Stone (one of my absolute favourite places EVER.) But be warned. In the morning there are RATTLE SNAKES! 

And Daisy May which rained for a little and brought out all the HUNDREDS OF SNAKES-not the rattling kind or the poisonous kind-thank goodness. The kids were in heaven.

When we would camp, Ezra and Daniel would get out their fire sticks and do a fire show for us. Daniel got one for his birthday, and he is loving it! Ezra has been so kind in teaching him.

I also had a WRITER'S CAMPOUT!!!! So fun. I wrote more of my mom's book and did yoga, and just had a blast.

The morning before this campout I became a Canadian citizen! I'm so excited! Now I can leave Canada (no, really, one of the things that got me to finally become a citizen was the fear that I might be out of the country longer than what a permanent resident allows!)

We also went camping in BC!!! I was sooo excited to travel a bit. We drove to the coast and camped with my nephew's family. It was so serendipitous because we really wanted to camp with Dustin's sister at Englishman Falls, but everything-all camping, hotels, air bnb, EVERYTHING was booked up. Then we saw my nephew and he said he was camping at Englishmen and had an extra spot for us!!! It was only a few spots down from Dustin's sister! It was fate!

It was so good to see family and be on the coast. I missed it.

One of the main reasons we went to the coast was because our friend, Brother Redd invited us to sail with him on his group's boat!!! We needed this experience, and it went better than I could have imagined. I realize how little I know, but it was so great!

And we were also able to learn a bit about ocean fishing from my knowledgable brother-in-law. We caught four fish! Actually more, but we had to throw them back! I was so happy!

It's been a weird summer. Some parts of it were record heat. We were able to escape to Wally's beach when that happened.

But one time we went to the spray park on a hot day and William climbed UP the water side and got his teeth knocked out.

And then, after all that heat, Cardston fasted for rain, so we had some crazy hail that flooded our town. (Maybe that's not too weird for here.)

But thankfully, COVID restrictions lifted a bit, and we even went to library activities and the movie theatre! 

I guess this hasn't been too educational a summer, BUT Daniel did plant a garden,

And Dustin taught the kids how to make epic jello molds (very educational.) 

Maxwell sold freeze dried candy to make some money:

The four youngest had Acting classes that they LOVED with the Carriage house Theatre company. Hyrum played a steller store keeper, Abraham played one of the three little pigs, William played a duck with a pizza, and Daniel played the big bad wolf getting falsely accused. 

Those four also had swimming lessons which they all loved:

And our kids learned a bit more about how to ride horses thanks to their cousins:

Last but not least, It was William's birthday

And that's about it! 

Wow that was a long post for what was actually a pretty uneventful summer!