This week we passed the half-way mark of summer vacation. 11 weeks total . . . 6 down, 5 more to go. As usual, summer is going by too quickly!
I've been documenting our big vacation for a while now and I felt like it was time to get back to the present and show what we are up to right now.
A typical summer day looks like this
We wake up for scriptures and prayer at 6:30am. No sleeping in around here. Although, 6:30am does feel like sleeping in when compared to my 5:15am alarm during the school year!
Then the kids start working on their jobs. Usually, they have everything complete by 9 or 10 am. Sometimes it stretches until lunch time or later depending on how focused they are.
After lunch we go swimming
I usually hang out in the shade reading a book or catching up on blogs on my iPad.
And we listen to the constant buzz of the cicadas while trying to stay cool in the 100+ heat.
After a couple hours of swimming we end it with a popsicle or cold watermelon. We come back inside and the kids watch a movie while I do computer stuff.
And that's about it! Wake-up, chores, swim. The end.
This week we checked a few things off our summer fun list. The kids cooked dinner one night. It was a 3 course meal -- Anna made quesadillas, Payton made pizza, and Conner barbecued some hot dogs. They loved it.
They also made Suudsu -- a drink featured in Strong Bad's emails (Strong Bad is an online animated character that they absolutely love. We have 6 Strongbad DVD's). To make Suudsu simply combine skim milk and gummi bears.
Verdict -- not as awesome as they thought it would be. But they sure were excited to try it!
This week Scott and I went on a tuesday night date. It was a Josh Groban Concert at the movie theater via Fathom Events. I figured this was the next best thing since I can't make it to any of his concert dates this year. His new album, All That Echoes
Anna and I hosted craft group for some of the 7-9 year old girls at church. They made a butterfly canvas, ate lunch, and went swimming. The project turned out super cute -- I'll share it later.
One morning the power went out. With a forecast of 105 things could get interesting! We rely heavily on our AC units (there are 2). Luckily, the power wasn't out for long. Meanwhile, we had to turn to non-electronic forms of entertainment. ;)
The real exciting stuff came on Friday when monsoon season arrived with a bang. After dinner, Scott and I sat in our room with our shutters open. We have a pretty good view of the valley and we could see a storm in the distance. One thing you have to know about desert storms is that they are very localized and very intense. From the sight of it, we knew that someone was getting dumped on. Then we watched as it gradually moved closer and closer to us. The wind picked up in a big way and pretty soon there was dust, leaves, and debris flying everywhere. Cue the thunder and lightning!
It was intense! Probably the wildest storm that I have seen here, and we had some pretty wild ones last summer. By the time it reached our neighborhood it was dark but there was lightning all across the sky. (740 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes that night). At one point we went onto the front porch and to watch and listen. The storm was literally right on top of us -- the thunder cracked and boomed and shook your body to the core! It was crazy! Wind gusts up to 70mph and hard, blowing rain . . . this was a storm.
As you can see the kids were a little freaked out.
We tried to assure them that everything was okay. It was fun!
And it was fun, until I went to one of the windows and discovered that it was all wet . . . on the inside. And the window sill was full of water. I went around the house with towels and discovered 5 more windows with puddles of water -- in the tracks, dripping from above, and trailing onto the floor. Yikes! The next day I spent time re-caulking all of those windows. When a slightly smaller storm hit last night we still had water leakage in at least 3 of those windows.
Luckily, it doesn't rain too much here. But we are going to be on our toes until monsoon season ends (October-ish)
