Lavender and Pond Scum

Today my friend Helene invited my kids and me to go out to Mona to the Young Family Living Farm. I've seen this place as we've driven to St. George before-- fields and fields of purple. Today, we decided to check it out.

The whole place smells like lavender-- which, to tell you the truth, is not my favorite scent. They sold lavender ice cream and lavender lemonade. I didn't try either.

Sorry about all of the over-exposed pictures-- I forgot my filter and it was a BRIGHT day. You'll notice 6 kids-- 3 are mine, 2 are Helene's and one (Kyle) we had to import so that Mike could have a buddy.

I've got to get me one of these stocks. What a great time-out place that would be!

They have a medieval village there with some really cool toys. This is a giant swing made of a huge barrel.

This is a human-powered merry-go round. As all of the kids wanted to ride, I guess it was a "mom-powered" ride.

When we got tired, Mike decided to give it a try.

They have two activities that you can pay for down there-- a rock climbing wall and paddleboats. I tried my darndest to get my kids to choose the rock wall, but to no avail. Of course you had to have someone over 12 in the boat, so against my better judgement, I found myself in a paddle boat with a wet booty. Here's my self-portrait in the boat.

My friend Helene was not as reluctant as me and talked me into it. Unfortunately for her, the bad luck / klutzy karma that usually follows me around somehow stuck to her today. When she brought the boat in and went to jump onto the deck, she hadn't tied up the boat and it slipped right out from under her. I was watching and it was like slow motion-- I knew what was about to happen, yet was powerless to stop it.

Her feet stayed on the boat, her hands were on the deck, and those two things were quickly traveling away from each other. Suddenly, Helene found herself in scummy pond water-- which DID NOT smell like lavender.

Here's the thing about my friend Helene-- and the biggest sign that she is several thousand steps ahead of me in the journey to heaven. Had that been me, all 6 kids would have come away from the day with a new vocabulary full of 4 letter words-- especially considering the fact that she had her camera in a bag around her waist. Helene just laughed. No bad words. No bad attitude. Just soggy clothes.

If you're wondering, I didn't get a picture of her in the water-- I wanted to, but instead helped her out. I did get this of her when she was safely removed from the scum.

I'm really sorry that Helene got dumped in the water-- but I do have to laugh that it happened to someone other than me this time. Usually I have to write these posts about something dumb that I've done...