Hot!

The summer so far as been so hot!!! The average high for June is 91 degrees, but it's been over 100 degrees for the past several days, and the forecast is pretty much more of the same for the foreseeable future. Our grass is dying. I got our electric bill in the mail today and, let's just say it isn't pretty. We could probably afford to all fly somewhere cooler for the summer for what it's costing us to keep this house cooled. At least we're not in South Florida stressing over hurricanes coming our way. (100 degree weather is even less fun in 95% humidity and no air conditioning because the hurricane knocked out the power for a week. Or two.)
The boys and I have a pretty fun summer schedule, though, despite the heat. We're only doing half lessons, which means math, reading, and piano every day, plus one other lesson-- language, science, history, or spelling, which we alternate. This gives us time for some other fun activities
Mosey is taking swimming lessons every afternoon and he's doing great. A far cry from 2 years ago which was pretty much a waste of money.
Tuesdays we go bowling at a local alley that offers 2 free games every day for kids during the summer. My boys hadn't ever really bowled before, so their technique is... lacking. And I can't really get up and show them how it's done! So I imagine the other patrons get some laughs out of watching us. Mosey's got a kind of spin-and-drop technique going on. He hasn't quite grasped the idea of trying to make the ball go *quickly* down the lane. His balls can be better described as sort of meandering. One of them even petered out and stopped in the middle of the lane. Still, he has a great time and that's all I care about.
Brigham does this running start, drop to the knees and slide technique, but he's getting pretty good. He told me this last time that he would only have fun if he could get at least 2 spares. Ah, my little competitive boy.
Joseph gets down on the floor, lines up the ball and then carefully *pushes* it down the lane. He has about the same level of success as Brigham, but he's a little better at rolling with the punches when the ball doesn't go his way.
I just have fun watching them and watching the old '80's music videos they've got playing.
Wednesday morning we go to the free kids movie at a local theater (so far we've seen City of Ember, Igor, and Journey to the Center of the Earth-- the boys' favorite so far), and then horseback riding lessons in the afternoon.
Thursdays are half-price at Extreme Fun (inflatable bounce-house kind of place).
These are a lot more activities than we normally do, and it's not that easy for me getting in and out of the car, especially when I have to get myself across a 120 degree parking lot! But on the other hand, these activities are great incentives for the boys to get their other stuff done.
The rest of the time the boys are having fun swimming, building with legos, and light-saber fighting. They try to get me involved with the light saber fighting, but I'm no match for them! I am really not cut out for sword fighting. This is why little boys need daddies. That's what Ben gets to look forward to every day when he walks in the door from work. :-)
We stumbled upon a new (audio)book series, Peter and the Starcatchers. They are prequels to Peter Pan, and really fantastic. Jim Dale narrates them and the 1st two at least are really good. The boys are begging me to download the third.



We also discovered a great game that a woman from our ward gave to the boys. Scrabble Slam. The game is played with playing cards with a different letter on the front and back. 4 cards are put down initially to make a 4-letter word, and then each player tries as quickly as possible to "slam" cards down, one at a time, to change one letter of the word, changing it into a new word. The first person to use up all their cards wins. We're not playing like that, though, we just take turns putting cards down. My boys are competitive enough with each other, and as played by the actual rules, the game would definitely end in tears, every time. They find great hilarity in spelling words like "fart" and "spit" and "dumb." Yes, they are boys.



So that's our summer so far!