Let the Summer Begin!

To kick off our summer, we started out with a little cold... 

 It left this little lady very clingy, whiny and tired.  After that was over we dusted ourselves off and headed over to Kennacott Copper Mine to check out where Daddy works and the giant hole in the ground.  Add in some massive trucks and you have a hit with my mighty machine lovin' boys!

 To put into perspective how big the above shovel & truck below are, the truck is as big as an average 2 story house and the shovel is about 6 times that!  No tonka trucks here! (we have occasionally been detoured off  the main road to our house, when they escort a new truck bed up to the mine, it literally takes up the entire four lanes!  Notice the stairs up the front?)

 And apparently, the trucks and 2 mile deep hole, visible from outer space, isn't the only tourist attraction.  There are often a lot of Japanese tourists up here and they sure liked taking pictures of the kids (especially Ava for some reason)!  I thought that was pretty interesting.

My cousins were all so helpful with my short little munchkins, lifting them up so they could see and holding their hands so they wouldn't wander too far.  Such good, sweet kids!  I think it's because they have a pretty great Mommy!

 Checking out the different kinds of minerals, rocks and metals they pull out of the ground at Kennacott...

 Myself, I was pretty interested in how they used to mine... it was really fascinating to see just how much has changed since the early 1900's, and also how much has stayed nearly the same.  Technology is amazing!

 And you can't go to Kennacott without taking a picture in front of one of the giant tires from one of those massive haul trucks!

 Ava was not interested in being in the group photo.. but she is probably on some Japanese people's blog or facebook, LOL!

 After a dusty, but nice visit to the Mine we headed over to the splash park.  I've never seen my boys eat so fast in my life!  They knew they had to eat lunch before they could play.  Ava was so excited to wear her swimsuit (from last year!  That I got on clearance at Target for 98 CENTS!!  LOVE!!)  And even with three coats of waterproof 70 spf sunscreen, she still has a light "X" on her back!

 I never got a good shot of Ollie, he was always running away having a blast...

 It was through the water onto the towels to warm up then back again...

So much fun in just one day!  We are so looking forward to playing the rest of the summer!  We have some big changes (NO babies, not those kind of changes!) heading our way and it should make for an interesting summer!  Hooray for summer finally being here!!