Independence Day Celebration

In keeping with our July 4th tradition, we met up with Shaunasee and her family to see the Sandy City parade and fireworks. It was really hot this year and for fun the City set up a water hose spraying water with a large fan behind it as kind of a "mister on steroids". Emma and Trace had so much fun playing in front of the fan and by the time 10 minutes had passed, they were both soaked! Of course, in the high temps, they dried in no time, but it provided some much needed relief from the summer heat.

Fischer and Trace waiting for the parade to begin.

Fire Trucks are the best!

Out of this world

As part of our weekend celebrations, we decided to take Trace to the Clark Planetarium in downtown Salt Lake. It had been quite some time since Kevin and I had been there and it was fun to see the new location and all the new exhibits. Trace has recently switched from wanting to be a "peace off-i-fer" (police officer) to wanting to be a "scientist". He puts on a white jacket he has, his long black gloves that belong to his Darth Vader costume and some 3D black-rimmed glasses that we had lying around, and calls that his "scientist" costume. We saw a couple of laser light shows and explored the whole learning area and even picked up a few things at the gift shop. Such a fun time!

This is a picture of Trace "on Mars". 

Oh, now he's on "the Moon".

The cloud simulator was lots of fun!

Safe Splash

Since Trace loves swimming so very much, we decided that now that he's a big kid, he should have some official swimming lessons besides the "Mommy and Me" class he took when he was a toddler. I ran across a really neat program that teaches kids how to swim on a semi-private basis and focuses on safety swimming. They have classes once a week for 30 minutes and you simply pay a monthly fee. The kids start in the beginning class and stay there until they master all the skills to move up to the next class. Trace took to it immediately and moved up to the second class quickly. He even got a ribbon for passing the skills needed to progress. The lessons are taught at the local gym and they keep the water pretty chilly, so after watching him shiver for the first couple lessons, we bought him a wet suit and he's much more comfortable now. The best part is that he loves it and looks forward to class every week. 

Gymnastics

I asked Trace one day what sport he wanted to play in the summer. I suggested baseball, soccer, basketball and even golf. He said "Hey Mom, I got a great idea, how about I do nuffing". What?! That little stinker! So I pulled up some videos showing him what different things look like and I stumbled across a video of girls tumbling. I showed it to him and he said "okay, I'll do that". So I found a local 10 week class at a nearby city recreational center and enrolled him. I talked to him beforehand about how there may be a lot of girls, but he'll be just fine. He didn't seem to mind, but when we got there, there was more boys than girls in his class! So cool! It was really fun to see him learn the correct ways to do a somersault and cartwheel. He had a great time and we may have to do it again sometime soon!