FREE printable park passport!

hello from beautiful Franklin, Tennessee!

I was crazy enough to fly from Utah to Tennessee ALONE with my four children this week. It went pretty well (minus the literal sprint from one terminal to another to make our connecting flight, which had finished boarding before we even landed. We did make it, though). Now we are enjoying swimming in the neighborhood pool every day and catching fireflies every evening with Grandma Lisa and Grandpa K.

It's a pretty magical place!

If you follow me on Instagram, you might remember me sharing this picture of our park passports a few weeks ago. 

We broke them out last week for our first official park day of the summer and even brought them to Tennessee so the girls can review any parks we go to here.  Last night we hit up a fun local park called Pinkerton Park (more commonly known to the locals as Tinkerbell Park).

The playground is an old fashioned wooden one, similar to Castle Park, one of our favorite parks back in Utah.

This park is decorated with rainbow turrets, Peter Pan, and Tinkerbell.

There's also lots of fun musical playground equipment!

Around the perimeter of the park is a walking trail with exercise equipment. This beautiful bridge crosses the river, the perfect place to stop and throw rocks in the water below.

If you want to download your own park passport, head on over to The Salt Project for my guest post and FREE download!

Friday field trip: giant book mural in SLC

I've designated Friday as our field trip day this summer. We kicked our summer field trips off with a quick little trip to downtown Salt Lake to see the giant book mural.

This is one of the coolest hidden gems in SLC. The kids ran right over to start exploring the different books. Most of the books are adult books (Gone with the Wind, The Scarlet Letter, The Grapes of Wrath, On the Road), but there are a few children's books represented as well (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Winnie the Pooh, The Wizard of Oz).

The mural is on one of the walls in a little courtyard tucked between a few office buildings and a parking garage. There's plenty of shade and it's off the beaten path so not too many people see it.

Isn't this a sweet picture?! 

Unfortunately, as soon as we started lining the kids up to take pictures, a security guard came out to tell us NO PICTURES ALLOWED! Sad, huh? I guess the mural is on the wall of one building, but the courtyard is owned by a different building. Luckily we had already taken a few!

To find the giant book mural: go to 222 S Main St, Salt Lake City. There is an alley directly south of this building--go through the alley and the mural is in the courtyard at the end of the alley.

Welcome summer!

Hello summer!

I am having so much fun planning summer activities for my kids, transforming our backyard into the perfect summer hangout, and making salad for dinner basically every night.

Oh, and drinking lemonade. Lots and lots of lemonade.

If you're like me and you love good fresh lemonade (not the powdered stuff!!) then this post is for you!

I have the easiest, most satisfying fresh lemonade recipe to share. I've seen similar recipes floating around Pinterest, but here's my take on it.

1. Quarter six lemons and add to a blender with 1 1/2 cups sugar and 10 cups cold water. Yes, you're adding the lemons quarters whole--no peeling or juicing required! You'll probably have to do this in two batches--my Ninja jar was just slightly too small. Blend for about 30 seconds.

2.  Press the mixture with a wooden spoon through a very fine mesh sieve to strain out all the bits of pulp and peel.

3. Enjoy--preferably on your back deck or patio and from a mason jar! I drank mine while planning my two week menu with my favorite magazine, Cooking Light. 

This is the perfect lemonade to make big batches of and keep in the fridge for all those summer times that you just have to have a glass of lemonade--it's also great for lemonade stands!

I'm glad I made this the SUMMER OF THE BACKYARD because it is coming together really nicely. I can't wait to show you our back deck (or as I like to call it, our outdoor living room), our soon-to-be expanded treehouse, and our new fire pit!