Provo

Last month sometime, I don't even remember which week without looking at the calendar, the five youngest kids, Summer, and I (Stan was in California and Rachel was in Indiana) stayed with my brother and sister-in-law in Genola while we worked on getting Summer settled at BYU. There may also have been some (a lot of) fun going on that week, too.

I remembered that there were fish tanks in the basement of one of the buildings on campus, but I didn't remember which one, so I asked at the information desk, "Where are the fish in the basement?" She had no idea what I was talking about, but after we looked around the wrong science building for a few minutes, a more informed person sent us to the Widstoe building. Besides seeing the fish and crustaceans, we saw a student working in the growth chamber and I was able to tell the kids that that is what their dad did when he was at BYU.

We also went to the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum. More than one kid was confused when I excitedly told them that we were going to the Bean Museum. They caught some of my enthusiasm when they realized we were looking at animals instead of legumes.

I really like this picture of Summer, but I couldn't tell you why. Maybe I am just sentimental about anything Summer since we all miss her a lot.

There were walls of child eye level heads that lent themselves to the following silliness -



I also got to see some college roommates and had so much fun! Michelle fed us lunch and my kids played and visited with her kids. It felt so nice to be in her home and it was wonderful to see her and her family :)

Summer, Naomi and I also went out to a long, delightful lunch with Karla, Kathleen, April and Kelly. Summer understood that much better why I had so much fun in college after she hung out with these wonderful women for a couple of hours. My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing when we were done!

Some of the other, non-photographed things we did were to help Summer get a state ID, a bank account, books and food. We ate at the Creamery on 9th and at the Wilkinson Center. We went to the Museum of Art (no pictures allowed) and helped the girls who were moving out of Summer's new apartment clean the bathrooms (strangely enough, that was part of getting Summer her state ID!).

I started following a blog a couple weeks before our trip and the blog author was teaching a class the week we were there. I was SO excited to be able to take a class from Karleigh Jae! Here is the book I made.

It was sewn using a double needle Coptic binding. I hope I said that right!

I love the endpapers :)

The day Summer was in Freshman Orientation, I took the younger kids to Cascade Springs. The road was closed, so we went around the back way. It was kind of nice because I got to stop on the side of the road and show the kids some lilacs, one of my all time favorite flowers, which don't grow where we live.

The most exciting part of the day was seeing a baby moose, just a few feet away. We kept hoping we wouldn't run into its mother, and we didn't - whew!

We also saw a snake :)

It was a lovely day and a lovely trip, but it turned bittersweet as we said goodbye to Summer.

We can't wait to see her again!