Wanna talk about the weather?

Okay, in reality I’ve had about all the weather talk I care to endure.  Yes, I was part of it yesterday (because really, it was something phenomenal) but I did have other topics of conversation to supplement the “it’s how hot today” discourse. 

So, as you may have heard (unless you don’t believe in any form of communication devices) it was hot here yesterday.  Not ‘wow, it’s a tad warm out today isn’t it’ but ‘oh my freakin’ goodness did you know it was 104 outside!’.  Yes, you read that correctly 104 degrees (although the sign next to my son’s school said 108; of course the one a block away said 100.  Silly signs), it was officially the hottest day on record.  I’m basing the 104 temperature on my parents thermometer that they have on their deck and on the reading my friend too with her Fluke Thermometer, both of which are good enough for me.   It was actually warm enough that I didn’t let the boys go outside yesterday.  I decided it was just better to be safe for a day.  Both of their schools actually cancelled all outdoor activities in the afternoon for the past three days because of the heat.  Really?  I truly think Mother Nature got a little confused with her geography and sent the sun to the wrong place.  All I’m saying is that when my relatives in California and Texas are experiencing weather that is 20 degrees cooler than here, that’s just wrong. :)

Anyway, there is my obligatory weather talk. :)  Yes, it was hot.  Yes, all of us are fine.  Yes, it was only a cool 98 today.  I’ve never seen people so excited for the temperature to be in the mid to high 80s which is the forecast for this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, the boys are really looking forward to the events coming up.  All but two of their cousins are going to be in town (so far there are 14 total for those of you scoring at home) and the boys are planning to play, play, play starting tomorrow night. 

It should be a lot of fun.  I’ve been trying to show them pictures of the cousins so that they have some idea who is who but the boys don’t seem to worried about it so I’ve given up.  The one thing that is really cute is I asked them to try and name all their cousins and, naturally, the only ones they could name were the three they see on a fairly regular basis (they couldn’t even remember the name of the fourth one of that family who was recently born).  As they finished naming them I asked if that was all and K suddenly goes “And the 5 year-old. Kai!”  You see we had read on the blog about this particular cousin’s 5th birthday and for some reason K was very excited that his cousin was turning 5.  So we will have the three regular playmates and the 5 year-old; I guess the rest will just be extra.  :)

Last weekend was the Cub Scout Space Derby for K’s pack. It was a fun comedy of errors and as least the kids had a good time and the parents seem to take it in stride.  We had planned everything down to a tee.  Nothing should have been off, everything should have run smoothly, and that should have been our first warning.  People showed up late (not a little late, but laaaate), the rockets weren’t built correctly (hey, ours resembled that remark) and then it started to rain.  We’ve figured it out.  If there is ever a drought we just need our pack to schedule an outdoor event.  It worked in May when we hadn’t had any rain for 19 days or something.  We schedule an outdoor event and it pours.  Not a little rain that day but “honey, have you seem my blueprints for that ark” poured.  The next morning, bright and sunny and no rain for weeks again.  Saturday, no rain for weeks, we get everything set-up, start to put the first race on the rack and….rain.  Granted, not a lot of rain but when you are dealing with balsa wood rockets racing down monofilament line it doesn’t take a lot of rain to cause problems.  Luckily it only rained for about 10 minutes and then everything was back to normal (well, you get the idea).

K’s rocket didn’t do as well as we had hoped.  He and I missed a few crucial directions and I’ve decided that if he is going to stay in Scouts (which he says he is) I’m going to have to invest in some tools.  Using sand paper and steak knives as the main devices to craft the rocket wasn’t the easiest route.  Oh, and I need  a small tape measure so that I can gauge 1/16 of an inch because given the fact that all three of his wings fell off I’m going to say he and I were a little off. :)  We won’t even go into gluing the nose piece on which meant that the correct number of rubber bands (ie: the engine) couldn’t be loaded resulting in K’s rocket having one less band than everyone else. 

As you might have guessed we didn’t win.  However, we didn’t lose and there were plenty of other rockets that had issues too.  K was a little disappointed, as were some other kids, but once they realized that no one had a ‘super’ rocket and everyone started to laugh at the mishaps, the kids loosened up and just started to have fun. 

Coming up – it’s Birthday Party Season for D’s class.  There is someone’s birthday every weekend in the month of August so far.  I had no idea.

There’s my rambling for today.  Hope you are all doing well!

The good, the bad and then it got ugly

Things are moving along mighty fine here.  This is a very (did I mention very) busy week for us.  In addition to the normal schedule of leaving at 7:15a for Y Camp/PreSchool/Work we have Twilight Camp for Cub Scouts.  Camp is held from 6p to 9p M-Th of this week with a family picnic and egg launch on Friday.  That schedule translates into meaning that somewhere between the kids and I getting home at 10p every night and Friday before we leave for the daytime activities we need to design and build a container that will hold a raw egg, allow it to be slingshot through the air and not have the egg break when it hits the ground.  No problem {she says while rolling her eyes}  Oh yeah, and I have to make a dessert for the potluck.

During Twilight Camp (which is an absolute blast and something we highly recommend if you are a Cub Scout) K is off doing things with his den and I have volunteered to help with the TAGs.  The TAGs are all the brothers and sisters of the Cub Scout boys.  We have crafts and snacks, etc for them everyday and it is so much fun.  I will say that chasing after 30 to 40 kids every night in 88 degree weather is…warm.  I come home and feel like a grimy, dusty, sweaty salt lick. 

To cap our week off we have a Pack event.  It is our Cub Scout Space Derby.  I will admit that it was poor planning on my part that necessitates that between now and 9:30a on Saturday we finish our rocket.  My mind double booked me.  Even knowing we had Twilight Camp this week I was still thinking that we could put the finishing touches on it during the week.  (I’m such an idiot sometimes).  Oh yes, I also need to make a potluck dish for this event.

Once this week is done, next week calms down a bit and it looks like we will get to see most of the boys’ cousins at the end of the month.  Very exciting.

So to recap.

The Good

My friend just had a healthy baby girl this week

Twilight Camp is very fun (the wood crafts are spectacular)

Helping with the TAGs is so fun

We’ve had McDonald’s twice this week (that would be on the boys’ good list)

Space Derby is going to be really neat and exciting

The three of us are getting nice tans

The weather is beautiful

My friend just moved into her new house

We went to IKEA last weekend and Mom bought the boys these cute little nightlights that stay on for 6+ hours once fully charged.

 

The Bad

The long days are starting to show with the boys’ behavior

I need to figure out, and make, two dishes for potlucks (Friday and Saturday)

Where the heck did all these freckles come from!  Seriously, my face isn’t ‘tan’ so much as it is just a ton of freckles running into each other from all the sun this week

The TAG leader’s son broke his arm today and may need surgery so she wasn’t there tonight.

Hot Weather + Herding Children = Sweaty and Tired

We’ve had McDonald’s twice this week (on Mom’s list of bad) and we have one more night to figure out something to eat without coming home

 

Oh yes and it got Ugly

I arrived home Wednesday night to learn that we are actually on the power grid of the houses behind us.  Why is this ugly and how did I learn that you ask?

Picture it, I arrive home after 10p with two tired, dirty boys who need a quick bath/hose down and then to go to bed.  Ideally in under 20 minutes.  I also need to organize and pack the lunches/snacks/water, etc, refreeze the ice packs and get the water chilled for tomorrow and print up some things for the TAGs.  Again, ideally this would all be done very quickly so that I could go to  bed before the sun starts to come up.

Wait for it… 

While at Twilight Camp I had received a call from J saying that the power was out.  I called the power company and found out that there was an outage in the area and they were working on it.  As I drove home I was ecstatic to see all the lights on our street were on…wait, except for our house.  You guessed it.  The people behind us and our house still do not have any lights.  Oh goodie. 

So I am sitting in the dark contemplating how to get stuff done for tomorrow and more importantly how I’m going to wake up without an alarm clock.  

PS: Now you also see why the IKEA nightlights are on the Good list.  They are great.  They aren’t too bright, but they give off a glow that allows each of the boys to see in their rooms without the light on.  Grandma Rocks!

PPS:  As you might have guessed I wrote this Wednesday night but couldn’t post it because of the whole no electricity/no internet thing.

A relaxing day

4th of July this year ended up being a very relaxing day.

A highlight of the day was receiving a phone call from my brother-in-law that the newest addition to the family had been born at 6a that morning.  Yea!  We now have two 4th of July babies in the family, how cool is that?

About 4p Mom and Dad came over for hamburgers and strawberry shortcake.  The boys played in the pool, did a few sparklers, lit some snakes and generally ran around having fun like kids should.

As it started to get dark (I had thoughts of not keeping the boys up too late) we went outside to do our fireworks.  We had just a small pile but it was all the things the boys love and they had a great time.  We had parachute men, snakes, pop-its, turtles, sparklers and two fountains.  All very fun and perfect for us.  D was old enough now to really participate and while he was still a little jumpy the first time the fireworks made noise, he really enjoyed watching them and didn’t run away.  K had a blast watching them all!

By the way, this is what your hands look like after you’ve played with all the ashes that the snakes make:

As we were outside doing our fireworks we noticed that there were a number of big fireworks going on around us so the boys and I went inside, they changed into their jammies, we grabbed a blanket to sit on, they grabbed their blankets to wrap up in and we went outside and sat on our front lawn to watch an impromptu fireworks show.  It was amazing the number of big fireworks going on around.  We probably only stayed outside about 45 minutes before the boys got tired and the smoke started to get to me, but it was a great time.  The boys both snuggled up with me and we all were highly entertained by the beautiful fireworks.

Once we came inside D was still more than happy to play and I had a hard time getting him to settle down for bed.  K, not so much

Yes, that would be K after he fell asleep in the chair while watching his Dad play on the computer. 

By the way, K adamantly denies that he fell asleep in the chair, even after I showed him the photo.  He asked why I’d take a picture of that.  My reply was “because it was funny”. :)

Today we stayed around the house and really didn’t do much.  The boys played outside and in the pool.  All three of the guys in the house dumped our giant Lego bin out on the floor and built some cars, ships, men, and various other Lego products.

As the boys were playing on the XBox together it struck me that K is really starting to see his baby brother as a person (still an annoying person to him at times, but still) instead of just this little ‘thing’ that follows him around.  K has started to ask D his opinion on things instead of just telling D what is going to happen.  Now, granted, his questions are usually phrased something like “you want to be a Wampa, right?” but it is still progress. :)

Here is one more shot of the boys playing in the pool.  I asked them what they were doing.  Their reply “Being kitties”.  Of course, what else could it have been.

Here is hoping that everyone else had a great and relaxing 4th of July weekend too.