There is a big swim meet in our neighborhood today. My son and his friend decided to sell bottled water. In two hours they have sold 36 bottles.
Visions of grand things bought with the money are already dancing in their heads.
We made these yesterday. Three days after July 4th. Not that the children cared. Cookies are cookies no matter what the theme.
While I would love to say I made them myself, slaving over the oven in the oppressive heat, these cookies were a little kit that was sold in the grocery department of my Target. They were also an impulse buy along with the slip ‘n slide.
The cookies did their job perfectly, which was to kill some daylight.
My 12 year old son was very concerned with getting his flag cookie “perfect” He counted out 50 tiny sugar stars and painstakingly drew 13 red stripes with red glitter frosting. He proudly showed it to us as a model of artistic perfection. Then one of his siblings pointed out that there are 13 stripes all together, red and white, and that the stars are white on a blue background, not blue on a white background. Ah, sibling love… keeping you humble one critique at a time.
The little kids employed the cookie decoration technique of putting as many decorations on the cookie as possible. And then adding a few more.
Upon hearing that it was raining Miles ran outside and threw his arms up in the air like he hadn’t seen rain in months.
Oh, wait, he hasn’t.
And just as quickly as it started, the rain stopped.
Yes, that brown stuff he is standing on is my back lawn.
I grabbed the slip ‘n slide off the shelf at Target as one of those stereotypical impulse buys.
Does anyone plan on buying half the crap that makes it into their cart?
I always wanted a slip ‘n slide when I was a kid, but my mother said it would kill the grass. And possibly cause grave bodily injury.
Luckily for my children we live in Texas in a drought season so the backyard grass is already dead. And I believe children are far more sturdy than my mother did. Injury on the slip ‘n slide is pretty far down on the list of things my children do that will break them, nestled comfortably between double back flips off the diving board and walking.
I should have known that my children would turn it into a contact sport.
Why just run and slide when you can run and slide and wrestle!
And there is always the hose, in case the slip ‘n slide didn’t get you quite water soaked enough.
Omitted from the series of photos are my own turns down the slip ‘n slide. Some things are better left undocumented.
Did you know that we are in a drought here? I will admit that it is sometimes difficult for me to remember that it isn’t just one sunny day after another. It is strange how quickly I have become accustom to not checking the predicted weather reports before planning any sort of outdoor activity. When I lived in CT it seemed as though making outdoor plans meant that it would most definitely rain that day.
It happened that last week we drove all the way to this state park that I had heard was beautiful, with waterfalls and great swimming holes. We had a later start than normal and everyone was antsy to get there, eat some lunch, and swim until their legs and lungs gave away.
We arrived there and when greeted by the state park ranger at the entrance we found out that the water was so low swimming was near impossible. And on top of that the bacteria count in the water was so high going into the water was not advised. So basically we drove for an hour in 100+ degree weather to find out that swimming was out of the question.
We were told that we could still enter the park to picnic or hike. A suggestion which I am pretty sure made me laugh right out loud. Hike? in 100+ degree weather? With children? Do I look that crazy? Because even exerting myself in air conditioned environments is not the least bit appealing to me.
So we left and went to our old stand-by, Barton Springs.
I took this photo on the way home.
Summer is kicking our asses. In a good way.
