Iowa is fun

We've had a lot of fun here in Iowa City.  I don't think I've mentioned some of the fun things we did this summer, so I will now (our camera was broken so I didn't get pics of all of them).  Every 4th Friday our mall (which is a 10 min walk from our house) has a "Family Night" when the Children's Museum, Carousel, and kids' meals at the food court are free, along with free popcorn and a clown that makes balloon animals.  They also have a couple hours of discounted skating at the ice skating rink, so we've now experienced this Family night twice.  Last month I took the boys ice skating, thinking it would be really fun (which it was, in a "wow, that was fun after-the-fact" kind of way).  For starters, I assumed they would provide double-bladed skates for the little guys, I mean, who would expect a 3-year-old to skate on one blade?  Wrong-O.  They only had single blade skates, but I decided to try it anyway.  Before I could finish putting on my skates my boys darted out into the rink and were prostrate on the ice and wailing.  But I picked them up, secured one of them to the wall, and tried helping the other skate.  We rotated like this off and on for a while, which was pretty exhausting for mommy, especially for a mommy with a protruding belly.  I have to say that it was fun to see them, over the couple hours we were there, gain more confidence and better balance.  Before the night was over Spencer learned to skate by himself, doing a kind of shuffle motion with his skates, his arms out like an airplane and his bottom thrust back for balance.  Mikey never left my side, but we took lots of breaks in the hockey "time-out" box (I needed my recovery time).  I'd try convincing him it was fun to watch the other skaters, but he much preferred skating with Momma.

Some of the other fun things we've done are going to a free concert in the park (which they have weekly in the summer), lots of bike rides and jogs on trails, lots of playing on playgrounds, getting sand to add to our backyard sandbox (aka "Treasure-Digging"), and camping at a state park.  The camp-out was last weekend with our ward.  It was really fun to get to know our ward family better and for our boys to have one last campout of the season.  Jaron brought the boys' bikes and his skateboard, and after the campout was over he and Spencer rode the scenic loop around the park, with Mikey and I driving the support vehicle.  The park was really hilly, but the picture below doesn't do justice to the steepness of hills Jaron and Spence flew down (with Jaron's little skateboard wobbling like crazy!).  At the bottom of the hills I'd open the trunk of the wagon and they'd get a ride to the top of the next hill.  Almost as nice as skiing!