Here’s some life advice that I’ve been giving variations of to myself: don’t let things bother you that don’t really matter. I get caught up on things like getting chores done, polarization and violence in the news, regretting how I spent my money, and disappointment that I have yet to achieve some of my goals. But I would rather not let that bother me and instead live the best I can and try to do good.

We’ve had fun with cousins visiting, including a quick trip to Cabella’s. Curtis had the opportunity to go hunting with his cousin for the first time. He shot a deer and had a close miss. I was able to spend some time with Evie at Meadow Hot Springs and Cove Fort when we dropped him off.

We also took a free day and went up to Kennecott to see the mine, as well as went to the nearby Copperton Park and Butterfield Canyon. It’s worth a visit, although none of my kids were all that excited about it.

I’ve been wanting to try something new, and when the opportunity came to go fishing with my extended family, I decided to give it a go. It’s not entirely new, but when I went to renew my fishing license, I realized I hadn’t had one for about 15 years. I also bought and tried out a tenkara rod, and that is very new to me. It’s been fun. I realized I didn’t stop fishing because I disliked it; it was simply something that I stopped doing when I was busy. Now that the kids are old enough to fish and not spend the whole time untangling lines, I think I will continue to go.

We went out on Strawberry Reservoir to fish. Lots of the family had football, so I took Evie and Henry. We caught a few rainbow trout and took a couple home to eat. We also camped for a night and got to see huge kokanee salmon.

Between all the football, we went on a fall drive to Cascade Springs. It’s an excellent family hike: all of my kids didn’t want to do the full hike, but as you start walking along, before you know it, you’ve already done it.

We also stopped and looked at Bridal Veil Falls. We drive by here all the time, and rarely stop to actually take in the view. I am so blessed to live so close to such beautiful things, and it is easy to start seeing them as boring, instead of the wonderful things they are.

I felt like going to a local pond, so we did. And it was awesome. Thanks to bribing some older kids with fast food, I got everyone there, and we all enjoyed ourselves. For teenagers, that meant sitting in a camp chair and playing phone games, but some nature is better than no nature. We got the paddleboard out, swam in the pond (we did check the website for water quality first), played on the playground a bit, and went on a short walk around the lake. I think a fishing pole got cast a couple of times too.

I need time in nature to feel like myself. Small, local adventures like this are perfect to fulfil that need.

In other big news, I sent my last kid to her first day of school. She did awesome, walked in with a smile on her face and had a good time. She’s ready. I got a bit emotional: I just sent my last little one away to school. It’s a big deal, but a good milestone to reach. (Another huge milestone is having no kids in diapers anymore. There’s only happiness in that one. And taking down the crib, which I do not need to keep, but I did store it because I had the same crib for all five kids, and I can get sentimental sometimes.)

It’s been a weird transition time. The boys are off at school all day, and I’m home with Evie—except she’ll start preschool next week. Change is never easy for me, and I’ve felt a little directionless. Sometimes, I’m excited for more time to work on the goals I have, and at other times, I don’t do much of anything. Anyways, the kids are all adjusting really well to school. Evenings have been full of taking kids to rehearsal (Henry), football (Curtis, whose team is undefeated), basketball (Peter, always), and a bit of flag football (Peter again, and Zack).

I did go on a bike ride with my sister in Park City, hiking with Joe at Gloria Falls, and we took the kids to a petting zoo in Oakley

Earlier in the summer, I decided we needed to go camping at least once, so I reserved a campground in Bear Lake. We quite enjoyed the mini-vacation up there. We spent some time on the beach, visiting family, stopped by the Hobbit Caves in Logan Canyon, and pet the animals at Zootah.

The rest of the summer was a couple of normal adventures, like swimming and getting ready for school. Here’s our list of things we did this summer!

Most of the kids are now in school, and we are just waiting for preschool to start for Evie. They all seem to have great teachers and schedules, and I think it will be a great year. The first day of school was more exciting because Zack had a birthday!

Summer has been going on for a while, so I no longer take pictures of most things. The kids and I went to Solitude and rode the ski lift and hiked. It was incredibly scenic…and I took one picture of a moose, except you can’t really see the moose in the picture.

I also went backpacking with my sister. We hiked for about 10 miles up the Yellow Pine trail just at the start of the Mirror Lake Highway. It was a fun challenge, and we had a lake to ourselves while we camped overnight. We visited Provo Falls and attemped paddleboarding the next day.

We’ve had cousins over, visited parks, the Ogden Dino Park, and Toad Fun Zone, and gone hiking a bit. Summer is…well, many of us will be ready for school to start in just a few weeks. I love spending more time with my children, but I miss the structure of school and the need to always be figuring out what to do with the kids. Summer break is winding down. The kids have started football practice, and Curtis made the A team for the first time in tackle football! Class schedules are coming out, and school will be here quickly.

We met up with Joe’s family in Island Park. The vast majority of the family was there, which rarely happens. We crammed over 50 of us into a very large Airbnb. We had a lot of fun. The first day was just driving and getting used to things. The next day, we went to Yellowstone. We intercepted with the family sometimes, but mostly explored with our own little family. We’ve been there quite a bit and picked our favorite spots, plus a few new ones. We did Great Prismatic Spring, Old Faithful, drove by the lake, saw bison at Mud Volcano, and hiked to the brink of lower and upper falls. It was a nice visit.

The next day we went tubing. Tubing can easily go not as planned: going much slower than anticipated, shallow water, thunderstorms, stuck cars, grumpy kids…and you are stuck in a river without much else you can do besides just go down the river. So my advice is to pick a very short route if you’ve never done the run before.

We stopped by Mesa Falls, Yellowstone Safari Park, and Lava Hot Springs hot pools on the way home, which was all rather relaxing. It was great to see family, but it also ended up being an exhausting vacation. Good to be home.

I wanted to complete a physical goal, so I came up with the idea of doing a “triathlon” on the fourth. We biked for a random distance, 7 miles, which ended up further than expected. Biking is fun. I went with my husband, and we both towed a kid along. We did a mile run because running is not fun. This was a race with a couple of kids and my husband, which I lost, and we also had to go rescue Zack, who made a wrong turn.

Later in the day, we canoed just under 4 miles down the Jordan River. That was the most eventful. We canoed with my sister’s family. We had done the route before, but wind and rain made it more difficult. It was quite beautiful, lots of birds and great scenery. Finished the day with tons of fireworks.

We also celebrated Evie’s birthday. She loves birthdays and enjoyed opening presents and playing with her friends. When I asked what she wanted for her birthday, she would say cake. But she likes the idea more than she actually eats cake.