Thursday, June 22, 2006

Summer of Andrea







































Remember that Seinfeld episode where George decides he's just going to do whatever he wants for an entire summer and he calls it the "Summer of George?" That's how I feel so far this summer. I am just playing all day and taking this extended road trip and I am having so much fun. It feels like the Summer of Andrea. (My kids just happen to luck out because they enjoy most of the things that I decide to do!) :)

This week, we went to the free summer movies and watched Polar Express with our friends. It was so fun to get Christmasy for a couple of hours in the middle of the summer.

We went to the water park yesterday. I am LOVING that place. Brandon is, too. Whitney has her good days when she has a blast and other days when she tells me, "Let's go home, Mommy."

Today we had playgroup in the morning. We did the coolest thing. We got to go to a butterfly farm. It is the most random little business that's out in the boonies and really hard to find with a tiny little sign off the road. But it was a great experience once we found it. The owner did a presentation at the beginning all about the life cycle of the butterfly and how you can tell a boy butterfly from a girl and the difference between moths and butterflies, etc. He SO reminded me of the guy from Napoleon Dynamite who owns the kickboxing gym where Kip wants to train to be a cage fighter. He was big like that and talked like him. I kept waiting for him to say, "Do you think anyone laughs at me because I go home to Starla every night?" But he didn't.

After the presentation(where I learned a lot!) we got to go into this little net-enclosed butterfly room. It was too hot, but was still awesome. He told us not to touch the butterflies with our hands, but gave us little cotton pads that were soaked in something the butterflies liked and we could catch them on those pads. It was trickier than it sounded, but I managed to catch a couple for the kids. They both loved holding them, but weren't really patient enough or still enough for the butterflies to stay long.

When we got home, we ate lunch and Brandon wanted to swim out in the little plastic pool in the backyard. We haven't done that all summer. Andrew will be happy to hear that we used it because we don't have a garage and it has been sitting in the shed all year, being a big annoyance. The kids probably had as much fun in there as they do at the water park. (I didn't because I just tried to sit in the shade, but still roasted while they swam.)

We started making purchases for the road trip yesterday. Found some good stuff at the Disney Store on clearance and a few books and toys at the Dollar Store. They also had some children's books on CD there. It's amazing what you can get for a dollar sometimes! I'm sure they'll be super cheesy and I can only hope that the CD will be in English. :) But, hey, it's just a dollar.

2 comments:

Laurie said...

The boys are asleep so I'm indulging in some blogging for a few moments and was glad to see you had just written. The kids are so cute. I'm glad you post lots of pictures. The butterfly pics are great. What a fun field trip. I'm glad you are enjoying the summer. Seems like the kids are at great ages to have fun. A water park sounds wonderful. Good work taking advantage of the dollar store!

Jayne said...

It was a fun morning. I love the way the Butterfly farm is tucked away down a country road just outside of the city- even if we did get a tiny bit lost!