Does this make me a bad parent?

These are my kids two new favorite songs...

Summer is flying by!

Well, it is HOT here! In the 100-110 range.
I suppose its always this hot but,
I tend to forget about it every year around January when its in the 70s..

We've done a lot already this summer.
Kicked it off with a little pool party for the kids' friends in our tribe:


Then went on an annual camping trip to Flagstaff,
enjoying some cooler weather; and drumming.

Some friends from Utah came down for that:


Spent time at the splash pad at the Zoo with Aly:


Celebrated Aspen's 15th Birthday!


Had a visit from Grandpa Scot


Went to the aquarium at Tempe Mills, Sealife




Then took off for an extended TX visit.
We went to Austin first, visited UT:



Then went to San Antonio for a weekend and saw the Alamo!


On the way home, we stopped and stayed at Balmorhea State Park:

Its about half way between Austin and Tempe.
It is a spring fed natural swimming pool where 1 million gallons of water flowing through
an hour. It was built by the CCC in the 30's. It is huge and the depth ranges from 3 to 25ft.


It has a constant year round temp of 72-73 degrees.
Leigh jumped off the high dive


I think we're gonna spend the rest of the summer in the pool. We're off to a pretty good start.

Come September, we're off again! Back to PA!

....And while we're on the subject:

A classic but one we try to view frequently here:

Making more changes

Already using reusable bottles/jars..
Thin I'm gonna start the move away from the large water jugs in our dining room.

From the maker of The Story of Stuff:



Anybody want to buy a crock?

Doing, doing, doing

We have had some busyness here lately. We're planning our months a week at a time.

In the last few weeks, we learned about Egypt and the kids have a "mummy in progress" on our kitchen cabinet.



They got up at the crack of dawn one day to 'assist' with a balloon launch





And then they planned, created decorations for and hosted a Valentine's Party for their AP Group.









I took them bowling for Valentine's Day also.




Having good times.

Lisa Leonard Design Giveaway

Lisa Leonard Designs, Check her out! She has some great hand hammered jewelery for all. She also does baby spoons, key chains and rings.

my favorite is the My Heart necklace.

This woman makes the most beautiful jewelery and now she doing a giveaway at Walk Slowly, Live Wildly

Go over there and leave a comment to be eligible to win!

Counting Down...

We are great fans of 'counting down' On my IGoogle, I have several countdowns; trips; birthdays; visits, etc...
SO Advent is only another reason to do a countdown!

We had a few options this year.
A friend gave us a Playmobil Advent calender. It has a bunch of little tiny Playmobil figures and pieces.



Everyday you open a box and voila! One more piece of the scene is revealed and placed in its place..
Leigh folded up all of the boxes and put this one together herself.






We also are doing a Blessing Box this year. We were gonna do it last year and time got away so we started it early and were able to get it done in time to start the day after Thanksgiving.
The idea is that you red a card everyday about something you are blessed with that a lot of people are not and you make a little contribution depending on how. you are blessed.
For example:
Are you glad you have indoor plumbing? Give 5 cents for every roll
of TP in your house, counting all the stored away rolls.
and
In some countries of the world, most people cant read. Are you
thankful you can read? Put in a penny for every book in your home.
It also brings into play math and money skills.

Then we have a regular cardboard one that I got at Target on the after Christmas sale that Carson is doing for fun.

He even shared with Talia...



Oh yeah and chocolate one that is similar to the cardboard one....
Other friends are doing some really cool things too.

We were talking about maybe doing these type of countdowns for other occasions. We sometimes do like treasure hunts with clues.