Fall Festival – Ogden Nature Center

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Kim Halloran-Fry

…or (Little) Girls' Night Out. We like to take a couple kids at a time out for special fun events that might be more relevant to just them – a particular movie or concert or whatever. When their daddy was out of town Alannah and I took the little girls to the fall festival at the nature center. Brendan was on the fence and decided against going in the end.

The nature center is one place that always feels like home to me. In all our freakishly mobile married life we have never lived in the same place a second time.

Ever.

Never, ever.

I can't really stress enough how different it is to be back in a place you once lived very long ago. Many things have changed. The nature center has not. We came every month when the older boys took classes here. It is something of a comfort to me to be here again. A rare concrete link to that other life.

On this night there was cotton candy and game playing and wildlife shows until well after dark. Very exciting when you are 8. Or 48. : )

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Kim Halloran-Fry

The little girls daily schedule is very gentle and undercommitted. (thank goodness!) Instead of a fixed list of activities we try to do a 'fun day' on a regular basis. This week we took them to the State Fair. It has been years since our last visit and they have no recall at all.

This was a perfect iconic fair day. Animals, exhibits, rides, and fair food. Fabulous break for all of us.

Thats my guy. Nope, you volunteered. You're stuck now. ; )

Saturday in the Park – Ogden, UT

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Kim Halloran-Fry

Before the road trip we hit the Ogden Arts Festival on a hot, sunny afternoon. Live music, great booths, and a fabulous vintage fashion fair. Back story – I was something of a hippie kid. Summer weekdays in Milwaukee were sticky, sweltering, grimy. If you hung on til the weekend you'd hit a festival – all summer long. And we did, my single 20 something mom and I. I can still feel the heat radiating from the fairgrounds cement and smell the hops from the brewery as we passed by on our way to the lakefront. (If you drove through in that era, you know exactly what I mean : ))

Summer of '15 in Ogden is uncannily similar, right down to the shoes and the stickered vans lining the streets downtown. If there was a soundtrack for summers like this it would be this. And for the record I heard them perform this live though not in'73.

I hope your summer is filling up with happy hot afternoons and sandals and sizzling food on paper plates.