The County Fair is the week before school starts. We went on the first night (because it happens to be a discount night for the carnival rides). See if you can spot the two youngest in this train ride:

There was a lot of animals after the rides. We like to compare our chickens, and our rooster is huge. Which is awesome, because it is the freezer now and will be dinner soon.

The boys and I went and visited the Church History Museum in Salt Lake, and also visited cousins there. The only complaint the whole time was having to leave.

Later in the week, we went and found a fun Geocache. It was a multi-cache with four different stops. It was full of dead sticks and thorny plants, so we really had to work together to do it. Even the little kids were a benefit as they could fit into the tight spaces. Joe found the first, Peter the second, Liz the third, and Curtis the final large one. It was a great experience for everyone except for Henry. He was tired.

I had a half-formed idea in my head. I couldn’t quite articulate it for awhile. I was watching a youtube video, and in the video he mentioned something that helped me finish the idea. That idea was the contrast of ideas vs inspiration.

Ideas: a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action. Going to the internet for ideas is draining. There are so many ideas out there: people to copy, projects to do, paths to take, ways to think. Many are good ideas, others just strange, and some are completely false. Ideas encourage us to copy a specific course of action. The ideas I often find often just leave me feeling discouraged, because my implementation will never quite measure up. It doesn’t lead me to be creative: copying others is never creativity.

Inspiration: the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. I can get inspired from the Internet. The things I read or watch often inspire me to develop my own ideas. Inspiration doesn’t lead to copying. It helps me clarify and form my own unique ideas. I usually find inspiration in strange places, often from sources that are doing things drastically different from what I want to do. (Like getting inspiration for writing a gardening book from someone building a marble machine.)

So when I’m on the Internet, am I looking at ideas or am I gaining inspiration?

I have boys. They tend to wrestle a lot, and it often turns into fighting.  During one incidence, the boys were fighting. I sent them to their room. Peter really cried about that, but he finally went. Then I went down and talked about what happened, mostly just trying to listen. He didn’t like that. But then at one point he looked at me and gave me an “I love you” in sign language, and it went up rapidly from there.  One thing I said to Peter really stood out: “You felt bad because you weren’t making good choices. But now you feel good because you are making good choices.” He seemed to get it too, and that doesn’t often happen.

I wanted to go camping one more time before school started. On a Thursday night, we headed out to Willard Bay. Our campsite was gorgeous. We made dinner over the fire, walked around and played at the beach. And the kids actually slept pretty well that night. It was an easy, little adventure.

When I started the summer, I knew I was signing up for too many activities. Playgroups, two storytimes, swim lessons, summer camp, and garden club. It was hard to choose so I errored on the side of too much, knowing I could just not go. But when I already have something scheduled, I go.

We’ve had a great summer. But part of me wishes we would have had more time to go hiking, explore places, got out the sprinkler outside, invited friends over, or just do nothing. I took the attitude of doing what was in front of me, without a lot of planning. A lot of fun things in the summer take planning, though.

Should I have planned more or better? I don’t know. I enjoyed many things we did this summer: spending time with family, going to crystal hot springs, or the lake, having lazier days at home, geocaching. Next year, though, I think I want to be more intentional with what I do and make time for the things that I think are the most meaningful.

Curtis was nervous and excited about soccer. The night before he kept asking repeatedly when his soccer game was. He did pretty well for his first ever game. During the practice beforehand he did a great job of dribbling and scoring against another teammate. At the game, he didn’t kick the ball much, but learned a bunch and got all sweaty.

We’ve been watching Peter (who is getting a break from playing soccer after goofing off a bit too much last time), and it’s a bit hard to go backward. Peter’s age was finally getting it, and now we are back to telling kids which way the goal is. I do think Curtis has a lot of potential to be really good at soccer, so we’ll see how it goes.

We went to the lake to play at the beach and swim . Peter was brave enough to jump off the dock. I was brave enough to go up to my waist in the water. (I don’t like cold water so this was an accomplishment for me.)

The boys and I went up to Willow Park Zoo in Logan with friends. They’ve made some improvements since we were there last, including a new petting zoo. We enjoyed seeing all the animals and petted turtles, snakes, goats, sheep and a rabbit.

There’s a friend in this picture. He’s hard to find. My boys are often overbearing.

At the park after:

I’m often far too task oriented. And then when I’m not working on my to-do list, I’m often reading a book or on my phone. But not all the time. Sometimes I forget about everything I have to do, I don’t worry about how tired I am and take time to dance with the kids. I watch as my little toddler copies every move I do. I let the kids run under my long legs again and again and again. I’m just present and enjoying my family. That’s joy.