It has been too long since I have written an update on our goings on. So here are some quick high-lights from this past summer that seemed like it would just never end!

June brought us the end of school and the whole gang back home. This June was the most enjoyable month of summer for me since about 2015! It gives me hope that some day I might just enjoy the entire summer again! The best parts of June include Carter’s baptism (See this blog post) and the acquisition of two insulin pumps. No more shots for us!

July was when I got done with summer. ha ha! Usually I can last until my birthday, but not this year. I think a big factor in July’s difficulty was Portia’s adjusting to her new life on an insulin pump. It is just really hard for a six year old to accept that she will basically be connected to a device for the rest of her life. But we did do at least one fun thing I can find a picture for! We completed our summer tradition of reading a Harry Potter book and then having a party and watching the movie! This year was book 4.

August was our month of trips! I went to visit Christina and Colton in New York City! I had never been before, and I had never visited Christina in one her out-of-state home before, and I’m so grateful I finally got to do both! It was so fun to see New York from C&C’s perspective and have some quality sister time!

We also joined the Monson family for a reunion at Bear Lake! Lots of beach, pool, and cousin time!

The three oldest kids went back to school in August (Helen started after Labor Day). The kids all seem to like their teachers quite a bit this year. And I got to go to Portia’s class to talk about Diabetes. That seemed to be helpful for Portia feeling more normal at school, which is a blessing. <3

And though summer weather certainly didn’t cease with August, that is where I will wrap up the chronology. But there were two presences that really characterized the good parts of this past summer for me. The first was the fact that we got season passes to Lagoon! The second was my beloved garden!

When Josh suggested we do Lagoon passes back in March, I thought it sounded decently fun. But I have actually just LOVED our Lagoon summer! It has been something that the kids look forward to each and every time we go. It has been a fun date for Josh and me a couple of times. Going to Lagoon for us is just enough work that we went seldom enough for it to stay novel for the kids; but easy enough that we really only spent however long we wanted to there and didn’t feel bad about just going home when we were tired. And though we still have lots of little kids with varying interests and abilities, I still have all the good feelings every single time we go! We have gone to Frightmares twice now, and it is the BEST! If we happen to get passes again next year, I would be totally fine with that!

And the garden! I feel like gardens are some of the most magical things in the world! I love visiting flower gardens; but I definitely do not (as of now) have the patience and diligence to really cultivate one. Maybe someday… But a vegetable garden is something I could do this year. We decided to do raised beds because despite my 5 years of trying to improve our West Jordan ground soil, I never could get things to grow very well. We started with seeds inside in about April, but we didn’t give them enough room to grow and so they didn’t really work. But we bought some plants and we planted some seeds straight in the ground and we have been abundantly blessed by our garden this year! My biggest dream was pumpkins. I wanted an entire pumpkin patch that we could share with all the cousins and neighbors, etc. We didn’t quite get that; but we did get 3 pumpkins that were ready for the first day of fall. And we have two more that are beginning to turn orange. Five pumpkins is basically a patch, right? Besides pumpkins, we had 3 varieties of tomatoes, bell peppers, and golden zucchini (because they were out of green at the store). I’m so pleased with everything we have gotten!

One of the things I loved best about having a garden this year was that it reminded me just how good God is in providing for us all of the time. When I buy produce at the store, I just think of it as a given that I can exchange money for food for my family. But with the garden, I was reminded how everything is in the Lord’s hands. Will my plants grow? Will they produce anything if they do grow? All of that is in His hands. Naturally there are steps to take to ensure one nurtures the plants appropriately; but I am new enough at the gardening game that I could really see just how much God did to provide us with our bounteous harvest! And I loved remembering, each time I prayed over our garden, that it truly is our loving Heavenly Father who provides all the zillion things I take for granted every day.