We Got This

Confession:  I lived in Houston and the surrounding area for over ten years before ever going to Miller Outdoor Theater.  ("Fresh Air!  First rate entertainment!  Absolutely free!")  The kids and I went to Hairspray, Jr last week and it was totally first rate.  I'll shake my head once at the missed opportunities of years of free theater and concerts and look to the future of more free entertainment in the great outdoors.

We arrived just early enough to get our pick of the lawn seats and merriment.

It was sweltering hot and we were soaked in sweat, but somehow it's okay to be hot and sweaty when it's expected.  It's the opposite of the yearly uncomfortable fall feeling when I'm too hot at the pumpkin patch.  I wanted to wear a scarf and corduroy pants while drinking cider and looking for pumpkins, but instead it's too hot and I'm trying to decide if I should give in and get a snow cone.  But in June, to be drenched with sweat, and sunscreen and the blazing hot sun- we know how to do that.

Luke Flirts with the Lunch Ladies

 In high school, the women who worked in the cafeteria would make egg salad sandwiches for my friend Luke, even though egg salad was not offered as any part of the school lunch.  My future sandwich shop is going to feature a special called Luke Flirts with the Lunch Ladies, which will be an egg salad sandwich and a Diet Coke.  If you want to substitute any other drink for the Diet Coke, there will be a $20 substitution charge.

Got It

 It's here.  Finally.  We made it.  Summer.

Kindergarten and the grand start of elementary school can now be checked off the list as Accomplished for Rush.  He came home a little sad about school ending, then spent the first few hours of his summer in that exhaustion that hits after you finish something major.  Based on the noise I'm hearing right now from two people who have already been tucked into bed, he's getting a second wind.

Tate emptied his bank last week to purchase the stuffed snake that he saw at the zoo weeks ago.  He couldn't stop talking about it.  Blueblackwhite is already enjoying lots of quality time with Tate.

In bigger news, the gorillas have arrived.

Holly's love affair with toothpaste continues.  This afternoon she walked down the stairs squeezing a tube of red toothpaste as she went.  We haven't used the baby gate for awhile, but I shut at the bottom to trap her downstairs while I cleaned up the toothpaste.  While I was getting a rag, she ripped down the gate.  It's a good-looking hole, very deep.

We're just going to hang a picture over that.  It's only June 4 and we might as well see what the summer holds.  We'll deal with all the repairs in the fall.

Summer Reading

Remember summer reading from high school?  That was weird.  Because when it's 104 degrees, who doesn't love sitting by the pool reading Daisy Miller?

Real Summer Reading:

A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Walking with the Great Apes by Sy Montgomery

anything by Carl Hiaasen

There will not be a quiz, but if you want to come over and talk about any of these books I will fill the blender with frozen watermelon and strawberries and keep the drinks coming.

What I Worked on with Peggy Olson, Part I

Or more appropriately titled:  Peggy Olson Would Not Want to Be My Friend

I've started my Mad Men binge, and it's like reading a loved book for the second time.  Plus, it's making me feel soooo productive.  I finished the applique on the Hawaiian quilt square and thought, wow, when I sit down and work on it, it really goes quickly!  It actually took like six hours because I've already watched a lot of tv.

Straight to Hawaii

Never in all my days have I had to deal with school in June, but here we are with Rush still going for the next few days.  Tate's free, Holly's always free, but until we meet Rush at the bus stop later this week, the real summer release hasn't happened.  We're so close.

The official theme of my summer is Party Like It's 1994.  We're taking all the best parts of summer when I was in middle school, but we're going to enjoy it because we're not spending it with any actual middle schoolers and their intense meanness.  We're keeping a bag packed with swimsuits and peanut butter crackers to be ready for the water at a moments notice.  The summer will feature homemade Casa Ole queso, recipe courtesy of the college student who drove us around the summer of 1994 and teriyaki burgers with pineapple slices .  Lots of Beach boys, a road trip to Florida, and minor league baseball.  We're going to be crusty and dry from sunscreen and chlorine when we lounge around reading library books in the afternoons.  We'll work in as much Hawaiian-ness as possible.

Last weekend was a "cleaning weekend" so we can spend our Saturdays doing fun things. That was more or less the most pointless thing ever, as I would turn around to face a closet, turn back around three seconds later and see that Holly had squeezed a tube of toothpaste into the carpet.  But it's cool; would a thirteen year old girl worry about that?  No, so neither will I.

I'm teaching myself to use a Weber grill today, so I should probably look up how to do that before naptime ends.  It's going to be the best summer ever.