Heber Valley Unplugged.

Wasatch county hosted a fun summer long activity for the kids called Heber Valley Unplugged.  We didn't participate last summer because our lives were crazy enough moving, renting, building a home and being pregnant!  But this summer with the kids a little bit older it was a perfect fit.

At the beginning for the summer the kids got a lanyards with a booklet of 101 activities to do in Wasatch county that encourage the kids to be active and "unplugged" from electronics {as a bonus most of the activities were free of charge or were offered at a discounted rate}  It was dreamt up and brought to life by a local dad {who in my opinion is brilliant}!!!

Each activity was sponsored by a different local business, after you completed the activity all you had to do was stop by that business and get your "brag tag" - which are shown above - to add to your lanyard.  All summer you would see kids walking around with the lanyard around their necks!

{it also helped promote/support local business, that's a double win}.

I was planning on doing a few of the activities but as it turned out we had so much fun doing them that we earned about 50 of the 101 brag tags.

As an incentive for the older kids to participate {because they were not as excited about earning a brag tag as the younger kids} each week there was also a $100 drawing for those participating and at the end of the summer there was a $500 drawing.

One of Truman's favorite brag tags was this one pictured above, he earned it by playing ball at the rec center for one hour with Bodie and Gregg.

Showing me all his favorites!

Another favorite was bowling which he waited and did when Ira and Eliot were in town.

 Bodie, Truman and Eliot at the bowling ally.

 One afternoon we had these seven boys from our neighborhood over to play and make candy. 

Jake and Bodie

Luke and Truman

One of the brag tags was to make your own candy.  I had the boys make these pretzel/ rolo/ m&m treats.  Then we went to our local candy company {which our cute friends own} to watch them make candy.  They boys loved seeing how the candies were inspected as they came off the conveyor belt.  We got our brag tag and some free samples:)    

 Another brag tag was finger printing at a local insurance office.  When Hopkinsons came to town this one was on our list of tags to get.

The kids were each finger printed and then we filled out valuable information cards to have on hand.

Brilliant!

One afternoon Grandma Quinn treated us all to lunch and free shakes at Dairy Keen.  We earned our "eat a shake" brag tag!

This was our "get caught" doing something GOOD by a police officer brag tag.

Blurry picture of the kids but, this was at Robert Duncan's art gallery where we had to show him an art project we had done.

One day with these friends we climbed the crater steps {we had to count how many there were} and then we went on our tour of Midway to earn some brag tags.

 We completed the Wasatch Country Library reading program for a coveted brag tag.

 We brushed our teeth faithfully for a week {which is HUGE for us} and got a free brushing kit, balloons and of course the brag tag.

 We made s'mores {actually we made s'mores a lot this summer}.

 We went on this scenic drive, we had to take a picture of our family on the drive and what we saw!

 We thanked a veteran, my grandpa Quinn, my kids great-grandpa Quinn.

 We made a list of brag tags we could earn when our cousins were in town.  One or two afternoons in July when our family was all here we ran around and collected a bunch - I wish I had a picture of it - even Lauren and little Tagg ran around with us!!!

 

 We had to wear crazy hair one day.

We went on bike rides to earn brag tags.

 Playing soccer was a brag tag ... we got that one covered.

 We swam a bunch and that learned us a few brag tags.

 There was a brag tag for trying paddle boarding, we tired to go while on vacation but it didn't work out.  The local business gave us one for rafting the Provo River instead!

and we went to the rodeo ... just to name a few of the activities!!!

{I am tired just thinking about everything we did}

Bodie showing off the tickets he earned to enter for prizes.

It made for such a fun summer-long activity.

It was fun to make plans with friends to earn brag tags or to spend an afternoon running around collecting ones we had already earned.

We also had the opportunity to try new things that we might not have.

There was a pizza party with lots of prizes to end the summer and the 2014 Heber Valley Unplugged campaign!  The kids loved the party.

I was actually asked to talk with and give some parent feedback to the people who created the program.  It was kind of fun, and we will see next year if they take into consideration any of my ideas :)