July part 2

 After Patrick left, life went back to normal. It was still incredibly hot so we went swimming and played at a splash park a couple times. These pictures are from our first time at the Riverton splash pad and the girls loved it!

 July 20th was Draper Days. We went to Draper park in the morning and watch the dock diving dogs and walked around to see everything. This is Ellie being scared of the candy canon, but still really wanting that candy:

 Our kids are terrified of fireworks but Dan has really been working on it with them. Alta finally likes sparklers, and they both loved the little poppers that you throw or stomp on:

 We watched the fireworks from the Brower's back yard while Ellie slept and Alta screamed in the house.

Our neighbors have an apricot tree that produced like crazy this year. There was one huge branch hanging over our side so Dan decided to pick them all rather than let them fall on our lawn and rot (which is what was happening...our neighbors were more than happy that we helped them use some!). I made two full batches of fruit leather and 9 half-pint jars of freezer jam. The fruit leather goes fast in our house, but I'm so happy to have all that jam for the winter!

 July 22: Salt Lake Bees game. It was on our summer list and we had a blast. Ellie was obsessed with the bee mascot and did nothing but look for him the entire time. We almost made it to the end but left in the 8th inning.

 Little kitchen helpers. They went through a week where they were fighting like crazy and making dinner was a nightmare, so I enlisted their help one night and they loved chopping vegetables. Bad idea? I don't know, but there's was no fighting and no fingers cut!

 I went on a few early morning bike rides with my friend Anna and loved being outside before it got too hot!

 July 27: Ellie likes to ride Alta's bike while Dan holds on and balances her. On this day, Dan kept letting go and even though Ellie got mad at him, she went a little farther each time and soon was riding around the whole cul-de-sac by herself! 3 years and not even 2 months and she's riding a two-wheeler. Goodness.

 Alta was a little jealous of all the attention we were giving Ellie so I had to take some pictures of her too. Here she is doing an arch-up.

Little BYU girls. These shirts are hand-me-downs from Sierra and Katelyn and my girls love them! When you ask Ellie what the words on the shirt are, she says "BYU cougars shirt!".

 July 30: Zoo day! My friend Emma was in town from Virginia, so we met up with her and her kids as well as Angie and her kids. My girls are always so excited to see Sam and Lucy:

The last day of July was spent packing and getting ready for our road trip! Posts to come on that.