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<\/a>with the results. We also assembled shade tunnels and grew some beautiful dahlias. As with any good project, I already have plenty of ideas for improvements next year, first and foremost on that list, planting all the best cutting dahlias in one section and the the more ornamental varieties in another section. This year I found myself trekking back and forth from one side of the yard to the other to assemble bouquets, and assemble I did! This year I gave out 146 bouquets to friends, family, neighbors, the school…even some strangers. The elementary school front office benefited from a fresh bouquet each Monday and I didn’t even bother to count how many I cut for enjoyment in my own house. The first flowers this year bloomed late June and produced enough for a first bouquet by the 4th of July. Then they proceeded to bloom their little hearts out until it froze right before Halloween. Dahlias are a joy. I might try a couple more varieties next year and have now added enough canna lily tubers to do a whole section of yard. It may be time to expand the garden once again as I’m negotiating box space with Jason who wants to grow boring things like tomatoes and corn. (This may as well be a dahlia appreciation post but we also grew tomatoes, giant sunflowers, pumpkins, and a box of random produce re-homed from one of Jason’s coworkers).<\/p>\n. <\/p>\n The kids enjoyed a pretty typical kid summer filled with lazy days, fireworks, screen time, swimming, (and swimming lessons), 7-Eleven slurpees, playing with friends and helping out around the house and yard. This was a the first summer I felt confident letting them meet up with friends a few blocks from our house at the school or park without a parent chaperone so that was some added freedom both for me and for them. I’m thankful for all the kids’ friends and parents who also invite us to do things and get me out of my hermit ways.<\/p>\n We didn’t do any major projects this summer but a couple houses on our street replaced driveways and\/or curb strips allowing the boys get an up close and personal education on how cement is poured. It’s funny to think they hadn’t really experienced this previously as growing up on the farm I felt like we were always pouring cement for something. My memory is probably a little skewed by the time we poured the entire cement cow yard, but I feel like I’ve watched more cement being poured than your average human.<\/p>\n In other summer developments I’m happy to report that after a couple of weeks of swimming lessons in a friend’s backyard pool, the older 2 boys can mostly swim. Let it be noted that our boys are not little water bugs so some Koenig genetics must have come through in that respect. Andrew is *close* to submerging his head under water. At least he’s no longer arguing about washing his hair. Hopefully we can do some lessons for him next summer and get him actually swimming as well. We set up our backyard pool as usual and the boys got some good use out of it once again. It took longer than most years to heat up this summer so there were some VERY cold swims early on. I’m not sure when the novelty of having the pool will wear off, but hopefully the entertainment lasts a few more years.<\/p>\n In late July we vacationed with the rest of the Koenig family in California at my SIL’s Airbnb. It’s a wonderful set up. I wrote a whole post about that trip HERE<\/a>. Spoiler alert: the one unexpected vacation memory was returning to Utah with Covid for the first time. It was the first Covid experience for Jason and I and we returned to Utah just in time to host the annual block party (outdoors, masked, and at a distance) and then I personally crashed and slept for a couple days. Covid symptoms overall weren’t terrible, I just had a mild case of ALL of them. The big difference I noticed between Covid and a common cold was I was more achy and hot\/cold and SO TIRED. I can’t remember the last time any illness made me achy or gave me a fever so that was a big indicator it was probably Covid. For 2 days (days 9 and 10) I wanted to do nothing but SLEEP, which was very unusual. It may have been lessened if we hadn’t just vacationed for a week, drove back to Utah, unpacked, and hosted a block party while trying to recover. Hopefully we get a break from Covid for a couple months (or years) after that exposure.<\/p>\n Covid recovery ended just as the back to school push began. I felt like the entire month of August absolutely disappeared. I guess as least there were pretty flowers? \ud83d\ude09 Here are some more summer pictures and I’ll leave back to school for another post.<\/p>\n (Patio picnic, rose trimming help, Andrew practicing in the pool, tomato juice helper, Harvest Days Parade, Steph and Jason seeing Ben Folds at Deer Valley, and boys playing with the hose)<\/p>\n We also did some updated family pictures this summer:<\/p>\n I’m writing this post much much later than I anticipated. Why? Well summer was fun and then went out on a CRAZY note…more on that later. So what’s been keeping me so occupied? These kids for one! School ended, summer break started off with a family reunion in St. George and then it never for one minute slowed down. 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