Our Family - Summer Activities

 by Cheryl Merrick

We had a lot of fun in the summertime when the kids were out of school. After a couple of weeks, the kids were bored with just playing with friends, so during the summer mornings I did school with each child, then in the afternoons we watched a Disney movie.  I also gave cooking and sewing lessons to our kids and the neighbor kids. Having some structured activities in the day helped the days go quickly. 

In the summer they also had work to do outside. David did mowing. The kids picked fruit and helped dry or can them. They picked and sold our sweet cherries.  The kids each had a little garden where they could grow what they wanted. Usually they planted peas which they sat there and ate when they became ripe. 

Sometimes the kids and I rode our bikes down to the park and had lunch, and some days we went on field trips to museums and other fun places. Everyone liked to go to the library especially in the summer when they had their reading program with prizes. We took our red wagon into the library with us and each of the kids chose the books they wanted to read. Since they all loved to read, and we quickly filled our red wagon up with books.

There were also baseball games, bike rides down to the park for dinner, swimming lessons, backyard tent making and sleep-outs, picnics, bike rides, hikes in the canyons, and rollerblading.  We also made an obstacle course, drew chalk drawings on the driveway, made tree houses in the cherry trees, made the large old kitchen sink into a cooking pit, made bike jumps, had a basketball standard, made a sandbox, and grew gardens. Dan dug a deep hole in the far back which became his fort.  

We painted and did crafts in the backyard. We made a zip-line to ride on, Garrett hung two rope swings from our trees. One was in the small yard with the sandbox and swing set for the little kids, and the other one was hung from the large old walnut tree in the backyard. Garrett also made a tower out of the telephone poles the phone company took out when they moved the lines closer to the house. 

Sometimes we did special things such as going camping in American Fork or Hobble Creek Canyon, at Fish Lake, or at Bryce Canyon. We also loved our yearly day at the Lagoon amusement park in Salt Lake and going to the Folkfest in Springville for Julene’s birthday. 

There was so much to do in the summer, and we loved being outside. We really had a great time in the summer.