June Days

We are enjoying our summer! The heat has definitely set in with temperatures stepping up to the mid-nineties but we've managed to find our escapes - whether it is spending the hottest part of the day playing indoors, running through water outside or escaping into the nearby mountains.....

Nola is smiling more all the time and has begun to laugh/coo more frequently. She had her two month appointment last Friday. Three immunization shots in the thighs left her wailing and a bit out of sorts for several days - thankfully that has passed and she is back to her calm, sweet self. Her growth seems to be starting off like Finn's, and he definitely has his Dad's build. It will be interesting to see if she continues to follow Finn's growth tradjectory or ends up more petite in stature like her mom. For now she is long and lean: 25th percentile for weight (9.94lbs), 50th percentile for height (22.5) inches and 75th percentile for head circumference. Only time will tell....

Finn is my great helper. He is ever enthusiastic about rushing out the door in the morning to see if the chickens have laid any eggs then reports to Daddy when he gets home on whether it was a "two egg" or a "three egg day". Finn eagerly takes kitchen scraps out and makes great effort to ensure the hens receive equitable shares. Today we gave them a treat of mozzarella cheese. One of the girls has been laying thinner eggs and Finn wanted to make sure she got her calcium so he tore the cheese into small bites and strategically dispersed it to their anxious beaks.

We are working hard to play catch-up after such a late start to gardening this year. Chris assembled a great sprikler system for the expanded garden bed this weekend. With the regular watering (and the warmer temperatures) perhaps things will start taking off and our seedlings will not frizzle in the sun as soon as they pop out of the soil. Finn wanted to participate in putting the sprinklers together and testing them out. The past few days he has been out there next to me poking beet seeds into the dirt and covering them over so they can germinate, checking on how many potato plants have poked out of the ground, looking in awe at the purple sweet potato sprout just emerging, grabbing the trowel to transplant a pathetic eggplant so it won't be crowded out by the potato. It is so fun to hear him say, "I like feeling like a farmer"!

Rapidly rising summer temperatures and copious quantities of snow melting out of the Wasatch range have the local rivers raging. Finn has always loved the outdoors as much as we do and Chris knew that the striking power and velocity of a roiling river escaping its banks and crashing over rocks/trees was something that would completely enthrall Finn. He was absolutely right. Sunday we headed up Big Cottonwood canyon and hit the Mill B South trail (toward Lake Blanch) for our first hike with Nola and really the first hike where Finn had to do all his own footwork instead of being in a backpack. He did absolutely amazing, hiking over 3 miles, all-the-while his enthusiasm for everything around him overflowing infectiously. We didn't make it to Lake Blanch (we never expected to) or even to that magical spot just ahead that would provide us one last "good view" or even find "a shady, private place, with a rock to sit on, aspens, ripe strawberries and a lake to nurse Nola beside" but we enjoyed all we saw and our time together as a family. I can't wait to get out for our next hike!