Weekly Wrap-Up.....Summer Wrap-Up

This isn't a weekly wrap-up so much as a Summer Wrap-Up. We started our summer making a summer bucket list. I'm happy to say that we got most of the items on our list accomplished.

Monday of this week we held a family meeting and looked back over the summer bucket list. After realizing that the items that were left were nearly all outdoor activities, and since the weather was way too hot to really enjoy being outdoors, the kids and I decided to start school early. We'll take a two week Fall vacation in September to finish up our bucket list.

So here is what we did from our bucket list and how it worked out for us:

--go to China: We went to two Chinese restaurants, one of which had some really interesting interior decorating. We made our own Chinese food at home. We got a souvenir from China (courtesy of a co-worker of the Jedi who really traveled there this summer.) We are planning on making a Chinese craft or art project, but haven't yet.


--go to the Children's Museum: yes :) We went down with Tia Smurf and a friend of hers who was visiting from out of town.

--go bowling. A local bowling alley offers a kids bowl free program in the summer. We're planning on going a few more times with friends through August as well. (Yes, that absolutely counts as p.e.).

--learn orienteering and go Letterboxing. This was awesome. Awesome enough to warrant its own post, which I shall get around to doing soon.

--go on the slip and slide. We took the slip and slide with us and spent the afternoon with Smurf and her little baby Bean and her 6 year old nephew. A great time was had by all, and we left a muddy swath down the front lawn of Smurf's aunts house. Ooops.

--set up a sundial. Earlier this year, we painted our sundial stones with Tia Smurf. We painted 12 stones, each with a number, and, just to be fun, the art of each stone was supposed to co-ordinate with something from the corresponding month on the calendar. In our front yard, we have a big brown circle of nothing left behind when a fir tree died last year. The tree stump is still left in its center. This June, we took a sunny day and had Toa of Boy stand on the tree stump every hour on the hour. Then we put a paver where his shadow fell. (So the number 8 paver marked his shadow at 8 am, the 9 paver at 9am, etc.) Voila, a sundial which can be read by a small child when he's standing on a tree stump.

--go to a waterpark. I love our local parks. For a couple of dollars a child, we get access to a wonderful wet playground. I took pictures, but my computer has hidden them in an undisclosed location. Bad computer.

--go to the movies, Toy Story 3 in 3D, and
--meet an alien, We might be counting the three-eyed aliens from the movie for this. Or we might be dressing one child up as an alien, the other as a reporter, and video taping an interview with an alien.

--climb a tree. Again, have I mentioned that I love our local parks? The pics from this are still on my phone. I need to ask the Jedi how to get them from my phone to my blog.

--make homemade ice cream. Mmmmm....strawberry-banana ice cream on the Forth of July. Happy Birthday America! Later today, we're picking up cream and ingredients for another batch of ice cream. Did you know that this Sunday was National Ice Cream Day? Mommy is campaigning for peanut butter-banana this time.

--make chocolate. We made small heart shaped brownies in the toaster oven. We had heard on KLOVE that morning that it was Chocolate Day. Chocolate Day deserved to be celebrated with chocolate of course. However, Sweetling wants to make small chocolate candies, not chocolate brownies, so we will be doing this again in the fall.

Bonus activities. These weren't on our original list, but we did them and the kids insisted that they be added to the list.

--catch a lightning bug. Always a summer favorite.

--play Bingo. We just happened to be at the library when a big kids Bingo game was beginning. No bingo prizes were won, but Toa had a great time.

--get caught in a thunderstorm. Mommy thought we could be in and out of the store before it hit. Mommy was wrong. Instead, we sat at the entrance of the store, with no power, playing I Spy and snacking on the groceries we had just bought rather than get drenched running to the car. And, even if we had made it to the car, it was pouring such buckets and the wind was so bad that we couldn't drive in it anyway. Better to hang out in the store and stay dry than to sit wet and miserable in the car till it passed.

--ride a roller coaster. Toa and I put our hands in the air. Sweetling thought we were crazy, though she did love the roller coaster. At the same place, we also took...

--a ride on the "Electric Rainbow". This was Mommy's less than brilliant idea. Sweetling said afterwards that we are never doing that again. Sweetling is right. We are never doing this again.

--ride a Ferris Wheel. Well loved by all.

--beat Mommy at checkers. This is not to be taken lightly. Toa of Boy worked very hard at accomplishing this. Finally, he did manage to shut me down, literally, for one game by completely blocking all my checkers. He has since tried for a second victory, but has yet to obtain another one.

--walk across a river. Well, not on water obviously, but across a railroad bridge from the late 1800's turned into a pedestrian bridge over the Muskingum River.

Finally, here is what we still want to do. Most of them must wait until the temperatures come down.

--go to COSI. (This has nothing to do with temps, just gas prices.)
--visit Serpentine Mound.

--see some buffalo. (Big Bone Lick State Park in KY)
--see Pig Island.
--go miniture golfing

--Acorn Land again!!! (Any nature walk through the woods during which time we collect acorns counts, apparently.)

--make apple pie (I'm not turning the oven on in this heat. All our meals are stove top or toaster oven only.)

--go to a mall (So far this summer, we went to Tri-County, Cincinnati Mills, and twice to Northgate Mall. But according to Toa of Boy, none of these malls count because they don't have a Lego store in them.)

--visit a historic village (likely, this will be the Sharon Woods Historic Village. We skipped Pioneer Days there last weekend because it was 87 degrees and full sun.)