Heat, water, and a robot vacuum…

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it."
-Russell Baker

What do you do when it’s the hottest week of the year in Texas?  You do your best to entertain kids without getting fried to a crisp outside.  Most of the time we come up with different things to do but sometimes the kids will invent their own games.  Isla’s favorite game this week was getting on Mr. Neato, our robot vacuum, and turning it on.  Ashlyn would help her get off only to watch Isla crawl right back up again and hit the button.

The ball pit is always a surefire way to distract the kids for 2-3 minutes.  This may not seem like the 10-12 minute setup time is worth it, but you’d be surprised how valuable a 2-3 break from the house being destroyed is.  Totally worth it.

Sunday morning we got the kids outdoors to run around by setting up multiple pools and sprinklers to keep them cool.  Isla got in on the action even though she was wearing a dress.  James was only injured once in the proceedings which is a personal best for him. 

It got too hot in the afternoon to be outdoors any more, but that didn’t stop Ashlyn and James from having fun together playing Ninja Robots in the living room.

I love Texas and all, but I’m counting down the days until Fall.

Tadpoles, swimming, and water balloons…

"Don't be a fish; be a frog. Swim in the water and jump when you hit ground."
-Kim Young-ha

One of the souvenirs from our trip to the river last weekend was a bottle full of frog eggs that Ashlyn somehow found while tromping around the creek.  Even though I’m against more pets in the house as a general rule, I was convinced to drag the aquarium out of the attic so that we could grow frogs.  I’m ok with it really, it’s a great learning experience for the kids as they get to watch something go from egg, to swim, to hop.

When not growing frogs, cooking, doing laundry, or running kids back and forth to various activities it can be good to take a break and simply play as a family.  These times need to happen more often.

Since it was Papa’s birthday this weekend we went over to the new house to break in the swimming pool.  The kids, as always, had a great time swimming around.  Even Isla was getting on the mix by jumping into the water and going under for a few seconds.  Happy birthday Papa!

Back at home, the kids went crazy at the house chasing each other around with strange masks they made at school.  Isla had fun getting in on the action at first but eventually needed to get away from a little “me” time.

This is the hottest part of the summer over the next few weeks so it’s hard to spend too much time outdoors.  When we do, water is almost always involved.  Today was another water balloon fight but when Ashlyn found a balloon that was squirting water out of it the fight broke down and they spent the next few minutes drinking out of it.  Kids.

A journey to the Hill Country…

"This is the best day ever!"
-Ashlyn

This will be a relatively short blog post despite the amount of activity that’s occurred since the last one.  We spent the last four days in the Hill Country with the Wolfe clan and we were so busy we really didn’t have time or ability to take many pictures.

Before we left we had to pack.  Isla was a great “help” in this step.

We had a cabin right by a spring fed creek.  The kids wanted to get straight into the water of course and they bravely waded into the cold and began to explore.

Isla is still a little small to go exploring but she had a great time splashing around by the shore.  Our biggest challenge was preventing her from eating rocks, which were very exciting to her for reasons that I cannot begin to understand.  Personally I felt the rocks could have used a little more salt, but maybe Isla is more into the natural flavors.

That evening we ate dinner at a cabin called “The Lodge”.  James and Ashlyn are still feeling patriotic after the 4th of July weekend and made red, white and blue patterns out of poker chips.  Isla enjoyed a game of billiards and then we all ate fajitas.

The rest of the weekend was spent tubing (no pictures due to rivers and cameras not mixing well), exploring the creek area, catching and releasing frogs, eating pie and doing some mini-tubing in the creek by the cabin.  The kids had an incredible time out there and it was good to see them have so much fun away from TV and toys.  Ashlyn declared that it was “the best day ever!” after swimming around in the creek and James agreed.

As fun as it was, there’s always something nice about getting back home.  I’ll end the post here, we have some unpacking to do and this time we’ll wait until Isla is in bed.  We don’t need her “help” for this part.