August Adventures

Once upon a time, a few friends and I met up at the park down the street. It had been sprinkling, but the storm seemed to be moving away and it was delightfully cool for August. We even responsibly checked the doppler radar to confirm that the storm was moving away from us. All was fine and dandy and the kids enjoyed frolicking in the drizzle. Then the rain. Then they became a bit concerned when it worked its way up to torrential downpour. We were stuck under the gazebo in a full blown monsoon, and the winds were picking up to the point where none of us were actually dry in there anymore, and half of us had tiny babies. Luckily two of us have husbands who work from home that came to rescue us. 

 

Isaac might as well have been straight out of a swimming pool. He thought it was great fun. 

Eventually the clouds parted, making some great afternoon weather for prickly pear picking! Annie is doing gymnastics this year and loves wearing her leotard around. 

I had the tube held in the up position by a rubber band attached to the handle while waiting for it to get up and going. Unfortunately, the rubber band touched the hot metal and melted. This resulted in about a quart of steaming magenta juice spilling all over the kitchen floor and under the stove before Isaac came to alert me of the catastrophe. 

Documenting Isaac's scrabble phase. Breezy, Mimi, and Aaron all played lots of good scrabble games with this guy. It's fun watching preschool kids get so excited about letters- it's one of my favorite phases. 

Annie abruptly started reading chapter books! She could read well by the end of Kindergarten, but would get tired of it and needed emotional support to get through a whole book on her own. Seemingly overnight she decided that she can read much longer books by herself! "Super Narwhal and Jelly Jolt" was her first. I try to keep interesting non-fiction books stocked in the car for the kids to read. 

We took a trip up to Madera Canyon with Joanna and Rayne. Ethan and I worked hard to capture this awesome shot. Ethan is such an adventurer. I love it almost all the time, the exception being when he taught Isaac how to use our peach tree to climb onto the back wall. Now he's prone to escaping or inviting himself over to the neighbors back yard (which lacks a peach tree so he can't get back).

Natural waterslide mode!

Wild, wonderful.