My kids have been out of school for two weeks, and I can already see this summer flying by. I wish I could slow down time just a little bit, but it seems like we're always rushing on to the next thing. The girls have packed their bags and are counting down the days to visiting our family in California. Landon has become a little annoyed at all of their planning. To get back at them he's been altering their countdown board when they aren't looking. The other day he erased the word "girls" and replaced it with "boys" so that it read "4 more days until the boys leave for California".
We've been swimming a lot since school let out. My kiddos finally agreed to let me give them swimming lessons this year. I've worked with them some in the past, but it's never been very structured. I've always had a hard time wanting to pay someone else to teach them when people used to pay me to teach their kids how to swim. They've accomplished a lot during the last two weeks, and it's been fun to watch them progress. And, now for a snapshot of some of the other things that have been going on at our house lately:
Kaylee's Caracal Project
During her last month of school Kaylee had to choose an animal to research. The final project was to create a diorama about the animal's habitat. Kaylee chose a wild cat called a caracal. Her diorama turned out super cute. It's a good thing I took a picture of it before it went to school because it was completely trashed by the time she brought it home.
Farewell Friends
A family in our ward that we've gotten to know pretty well moved back home to Washington State at the beginning of June. It was especially hard for Kaylee because Carissa was one of the only girls her age at church. We seriously have a huge ward, but the only kids that are Kaylee's age are boys. It drives her nuts!
Landon loves coconuts (or so he thought).
One day while we were at the grocery store, Landon spotted a coconut and insisted we buy one. I told him I would buy one if he promised to at least try it. He promised, so we brought it home. Coconuts are not super easy to open, so I went online to try to find some sort of a demonstration. We drilled a hole through the center of it, and Landon decided he wanted to stick in a straw and sip out the milk. At first he thought he liked it, but then came the aftertaste. He was not so fond of the aftertaste. We all took a sip, and none of us ended up liking the taste. Once the milk was drained we took it out to the back patio and smacked it on the concrete a couple of times. It cracked right in half. At that point Landon wasn't super interested in trying the meat, but he did. The consensus was that Landon does not like coconuts - just things that are flavored with coconut.
Baby Bunnies
When the lettuce in our garden started disappearing I went on a mission to discover who the culprit was. Turns out it was a mama bunny, and her babies were growing up in our garden box! This is the last picture we took of the last baby before it went off on its own. So cute!
Our Garden
Our garden has been fairly productive this year. We grew some corn and actually got to eat a few ears before some weird caterpillar infested it. We have a small watermelon in our fridge that is waiting to be sampled. I would have liked to have let it grow a bit bigger, but Landon and Kaylee misunderstood me when I asked them to cut off a melon that had split open. They thought I had told them to get the good melon before it split open. The photo is of the melon when it was teeny tiny. Our garden has produced tons of jalapeno's, so Ainsley and Landon decided to pick all the ripe ones and try to sell them one Saturday morning. They made $0.75 which was pretty good considering they were selling them for $0.05 each and our street has very little traffic.
Book Club
Kaylee was invited to participate in a book club this summer. She's a very good reader but has a hard time finding books she wants to read. I thought the book club might be a good idea to help her find some new book ideas. The first book she read was "Because of Winn-Dixie". She loved it. She hosted the second meeting and chose to read "The Magician's Nephew" for her book. She and I both love that book, but I've heard quite a few people say they thought it was boring. That seemed to be what most of the girls in the group thought. Oh well, we still had fun reading it together and creating silver apples for snack.
She won't make it to any more of the book club meetings since she'll be out of town, but I think she's still going to read the other books that have been chosen. I'll call that a success.
That's a wrap! Summer Randomness complete.
