My Pals Who Live In the Oceans and the Seas

I have been wanting to visit the Living Planet Aquarium for a very long time now.  It has moved from its smaller building to a new and much larger building (a long time ago), and I have been wanting to see the new place!  So my bestest friend Nicole and I decided we should take our kid together.  That will be fun! Her oldest son ended up staying home, but she brought her three daughters.
My kids were all like, I don't want to go! And Kaleb complained because he had already been there twice on school field trips.  Well, boo hoo!  I didn't care and took them anyway. Because summer was almost over and it was on my bucket list.  Seriously, I believe I got to do one thing on my bucket list this summer.  And I only had three things on it!

 If you look closely at this photo, you will see just how thrilled they are to be there.

 He had fun.  He just has to be cool.  You know, because he's a teenager now.  Don't call him a kid.  He doesn't like it.  Neither did I when I was his age.

 The frogs are my favorite.  I love frogs.

 I took a selfie, so you would know I was actually there. ;)

 Riley got a fun lecture about letting me take his picture when we go places.  Because when we go places (and we rarely go places), I am going to want to take his picture and he is going to let me and he is going to be nice about it because I am him mom.

 We ended our trip with some Panda Express and went home.  I love everything about that place though.  Except the price of admission. ;)  I had fun.  I think they did, too.  Even if they don't want to admit it.

And now, for your listening enjoyment:

I Stretched My Hands Out To the Sky

"July was a good month," I said as I erased the white board calendar I use to keep track of appointments.
"It was?" Kurtis said curiously.
"Yes. I turned 36, I got to see my brother and family came over, the boys got to go to their scout camps...It was a good month."
"I guess it was a good month."

So that sums up July.  I did not take pictures while my brother was visiting.  I should have.  But on my birthday, it rained (I love the rain.), and there was a double rainbow.  I did take a picture of that.

 It was a beautiful day.

 I was also sent a couple pictures of Zach and Riley at scout camp.

They were gone a whole week.  It was quiet.  I missed them.

They had a lot of fun.

And now, for your listening enjoyment:

And Then From That, They Grade

The end of the school year brings a lot of activities.  Some of them I want to attend.  Others I really don't care to.  But I love to visit the state capital building!  I didn't get to go with Zach.  Didn't get picked to go with Riley either.  So when I got picked to come with Kaleb's class I was so excited!
I took lots of pictures.  I take pictures of everything.

 A beautiful shot of the capital building.

 First we went to the Pioneer museum across the street.

Where this beautiful stained glass window is in the room where we met to hear all the rules about visiting the museum.  The only creepy thing about it is that their faces are grey.

 I was given Kaleb and three of his friends to look out for.

They thought the guns were cool.

 And the swords.

 Ship art.

 Horse-drawn carriages.

 Covered wagons.

 Fire wagon!

 Fire hat!

 Old-timey toys.

 A giant Bible.

 This table is really cool.  It was made by W. W. Flanigan.  Over 100,000 pieces of 248 varieties of wood were used in its creation. Also no stain or paint was used.  These pieces are all the natural color of the wood.

 A midwife.

 Tiny shoes are so cute!

 The first room you walk into after the lobby.

 A school room.

 After that museum, we walked up the street to the east side of the capital building to eat lunch by a statue.  So I took some pictures of the capital building as I walked.

 This is where we ate lunch.

 This statue is more of a monument to Utah history, really.  It's also a fountain, so after eating, the kids played in it.

 And I got bored waiting and took a bunch of pictures of scenery.

I will spare you most of them.

Kaleb!

 There are two lion statues guarding the Capital building doors.  

This one is named Integrity.

 A replica of the Liberty bell is inside.

 Murals depicting Utah history are on the walls near the ceiling.

Statues in the rotunda.

 The dome of the capital building.

 A statue of Brigham Young. Our tour guide described him as not being very nice, but mostly out of necessity of getting the pioneers across the plains alive.  Somebody had to tell everyone what to do.

 The Governor's office.

He wasn't there.

 These are what make the building earthquake proof.

 The view from the Capital building.

It was a really beautiful day.  The clouds were gorgeous.

And now, for your listening pleasure: