This summer, we spent a little over a week in Utah with family.  Me and the kids drove all by ourselves!  Between my sisters and I, we jammed packed the week full of activities.  It was nice for the kids to spend time with their cousins, help my parents pack up some boxes so they could move and attend a family reunion.  

Color Me Mine.  Grant made a snake. 

Maggie made a piggy bank.

Zoey made a penguin

Touring the Taffy Town Factory.  Did you know that Salt Water taffy is actually a low sodium candy? It's called "Salt Water" because when it was first sold on the boardwalk, the sea mist would give it a salty taste.  It's not actually made with salt water.  

We all had to be semi-sterile to tour the factory. 

Mrs Cavanaugh's Chocolate factory. 

We don't have any drive-in movie theatres near us so we were glad to go to this one in Utah, even if we had already seen Despicable Me 2. 

The Tracy Bird Aviary with our friends, the Linton's. 

We attended the annual Butterfly ceremony to honor those who have passed on. 

The butterflies are supposed to "fly away" but it's kinda cool when they stick around for awhile. 

A cool show about bubbles.  Grant got picked as the volunteer to go inside a giant bubble. 

Cousins Laura and Garrett got a turn too!

Maggie's turn

Zoey's turn

Zoey successfully completed her 2nd year of swim lessons!

Grant really got into body surfing this year at the beach.  It was fun to watch him take off in the water!

One new thing we did this summer was attend the Monday night summer campfire at the Santa Monica Mountain's visitor center.  The park ranger would put on a little program and then we'd make s'mores.  The kids loved it!

We did an interesting and new thing this summer.... Crayfish trapping!  The crayfish (or crawdad or crawfish) have taken over the Santa Monica river and are endangering the natural population of the Chub fish.  The Santa Monica Mountains Ranger's offer a program where the you can go help catch these invading crayfish.  We actually met up with 4 men who use information gathered from this experience for their university studies.  

This is what the crayfish traps look like in the water. 

We were going to collect them in this bucket

This is the chub fish, which the crayfish like to eat. 

I didn't care so much for touching the crayfish... 

But all of the kids got used to it.  Maggie even got used to their pinching, which didn't hurt too much by the smaller crayfish. 

With every crayfish we caught, we were supposed to measure it's length.

That's a big one Zoey!!

We were also supposed to report if the crayfish was male or female. 

Grant is measuring his crayfish.

All these crayfish trappers deserve a slurpee!

The Endangered Species club

I think overall, we caught about 300+ crayfish.

Good job, Grant!