Rain Shadows

I saw this post on Pinterest and thought, my kids will never sit still long enough for that! But, last night, we were waiting for the Ice Cream Man (Yes! We have one that comes around the neighborhood now, just like when I was a kid!), it started to sprinkle. So somehow, I convinced the kids to lay in the driveway and NOT MOVE!

 Lay down, lay down!

 More drops start to fall...

 And more and more.... 

("This tickles!" "My back is getting wet!" "It smells dirty down here!")

Okay, you can get up now!

And it was really just a small shower. The rain let up and the Ice Cream man came around. The perfect end to a summer day! I'll get a picture of the truck the next time he comes around :)

Bisque It Studio

So, there's this cute little place down in Port Charlotte called Bisque It Studio. They have pottery painting, glass fusing, hand pottery, and canvas painting. When the kids get honor roll at school, they give them a certificate for a free studio fee. Score! The kids choose a piece from the store, which you pay per piece for. There's so many to choose from, it's almost a guarantee to find something right up their alley, and then they get to use their wide selection of glazes to make it your own. They fire it for you in their kiln, and you pick it up a few days later. Pretty cool!

 Concentrating..

 Just starting...

Almost Done!

Just the tail and the eyes left. 

(And you can see some of the pieces in the background that you can choose from)

All done! The glazes turn out so much different after they have been fired. Lots of Fun!

See you again soon, Bisque it!  They also do summer camps and birthday parties, too. If you are ever in the area, check it out!

Zoey Zebra

At Christmas, Sarah got a new swim cap with zebra stripes on it and started wearing it to practice. And, at some point she got the nickname Zoey Zebra from her coach, which she really liked. The Easter Bunny got her a zebra towel and she has some zebra flip flops, too. So, the whole idea for sewing bathing suits came from Sarah's wish to have a zebra bathing suit for swim practice, which I could not find anywhere. I finally stumbled upon some zebra fabric at Joann's and it was on clearance to boot! Woohoo! So, this was the first Zebra suit and my sweet girl in her zebra cap that started it all. 

The Sun Came Out

And finally, on day 13 of summer vacation, the sun was finally out. And, we had already planned to be on the beach, so that was a super bonus. The whole family volunteered to help with the PanAm Masters Open Water Championship swim on Siesta Key. This is the final event in a 10 day swimming competition, and there were people there from all over the world.

Siesta Key Beach was rated #1 beach, so it's very hard to see it deserted. That is, unless get there at 5:30 in the morning.

This is what it looked like a couple short hours later. Packed with People. Pete and I are on the right in the yellow.

 There weren't really many waves (Which was great for the swimmers!) so the Boogy board was more of just a floaty toy. Sarah had plenty of fun anyway.

 Pete had a late morning sightseeing tour, so he passed right by us and we waved at him from the beach as he drove by.

Now this is what summer vacation is about!

Lego Bridge Challenge

So in my hunt for things for the kids to do this summer, I found this site that had Lego bridge building. My kids love Legos, Owen can get lost in his room for hours playing Legos. He will probably have this. Little did I underestimate Sarah's competitive spirit. So here was the challenge:

Bring out all your Legos that you aren't attached to (Which means you are willing to SHARE with the evil sibling).

Must be 4" high and the bridge span must be at least 12".

The one whose bridge can hold the most pennies WINS!

 Let the building begin! Sarah started with big, wide pieces.

Owen chose smaller pieces.

Concentrating.....

His first test, he tried one roll of pennies. CHECK! One more roll, and it collapsed!

Oh No!

  That's 12 rolls of Pennies in Sarah's cup.

She had to start getting creative just stacking her pennies!

 14 Rolls!

 15!

 And down she goes! Winner winner Chicken Dinner!

I'm quite sure the other one will want a rematch before the summer is done. He claims afterwards that he thought the object was to build the FASTEST bridge. Sarah got to keep the pennies in her cup, and we denied her request to trade them in for quarters. To be fair, I let Owen keep his pennies, too, but 50 cents wasn't quite as exciting as $7.

Sewing Sunday

So on Saturday, the kids were gone almost all day at 2 different birthday parties. It still rained, but they were able to have plenty of water fun.

Sunday I started and finished a few different sewing projects. Some of the moms at swim practice have these fabulous bags made from a tough polypropylene:

Tough Bags

And I noticed one day that our Chicken feed bags were made out of the same type fabric. It's tough like a tarp. So instead of throwing them out, when they were empty, I repurposed them into these fabulous tote bags that will hold up really well to the sandy, wet demands of summer! It was easy peasy.

I also wanted to try my hand at sewing swimsuits for Sarah. I took one of her favorite suits and traced it out to make a pattern.

We tweaked it a little, and his is what we ended up with.  I was only using what I had on hand, so I didn't line it and it could have used a little wider elastic, but overall, not too bad!

Now, we're going to try to find some Zebra striped Spandex to make a zebra suit to match her favorite swim cap. She wears it to practice so much, the coach calls her Zoey Zebra. She likes that.

I also finished up the boat seats for Pete since one of them was totally destroyed and he had a charter today. The one on the left doesn't have the foam inside it, but it's showing the backside with the zipper and the snaps. 

I felt very accomplished today!

The Garden, Sunset, and a Blanket Fort

So even though the Tropical storm is gone, our skies were still pretty gloomy. We did get a chance to get outside to check on the garden. Our pea plants are sprouting their first pods!

And some Zebra Butterflies came by to visit the cucumber blossoms. 

There was a beautiful sunset tonight from the front yard. 

And later, Owen asked for help building a blanket fort in his room. It was really tough to get a picture, but they had a good time.

Today, we are glad to say the sun is shining! The kids have a birthday party and a 5th grade graduation party to go to, and they are both water themed so it seems the sun is back just in time!

Tropical Storm Andrea

And it rained and it rained and it rained. And then it rained some more. The blob of rain turned into Tropical Storm Andrea, and we were on the wet side.

It reminded me of my favorite childhood movie, Winnie the Pooh, so we popped it in to watch it.

And we watched until the power went out. And stayed out for about 3 hours. During this time, we realized how unprepared we were for storm season. I guess sometime this week we will be getting ourselves a new weather radio. We couldn't find a single one that didn't plug into the wall. 

We played card games and Scrabble, until the power came back on. A pretty uneventful day, overall. We are hoping this storm will drag all the rain with it and we will see sunny skies soon. 

Alphabet Scavenger Hunt

More rain today. And probably more rain tomorrow. This system seems to have stalled right above us. This is pretty much what the satellite radar has looked like the last 3 days.

Fortunately, in the light green spaces, it is hardly raining at all and we can get the kids outside for a little while to burn off some of their energy. Today, I sent them outside on a scavenger hunt.

They had to start with A and go to Z, finding things starting with each letter and taking a photo. They each made a list of what they found. Some of the letters are hard, so we let them be creative.

Here is Sarah's list:

Acorn

 Blackberry Plant

 Curie (The name of the Chicken)

 Dirt

 Empty Cup

 Fluffy (Another name of the Chicken)

 Green

 Hammock

 Itty Bitty (Name of Chicken again)

 Jack Knife scooter

 Kingfords Lighter Fluid

 Luna (With 11 chickens, I guess you can use all their names, right?)

 Maddie (Another Chicken)

 Numbers written on paper

 Orange Rock

 Purple towel

 Quiet chicken

 Rusted Shovel

 Sammy (Chicken)

 Tan (Color of Chicken)

 Unset Trap

Very Smart Chicken

 Water

 X- the shape of the vines

  Y- the shape of the tree

 Zebra striped Chicken

And here is Owen's List:

 Ant Pile

Branch 

Cat

DooDoo (He is a boy)

Egg

 

Feathers

 Grass

 Hose

Iron Ore (According to Owen. It's a Minecraft thing I guess)

Junk

 Koenig Family Stone

Lizard

 Moss

 Neighbors

 Orange Fungus

 Pen

 Quick running Chicken

Rake 

 Sand

 Tree

Underwater 

Veterinarian 

Wind blowing through the trees 

X Marks the spot 

 Y stick

Zucchini Plant

 It will be interesting to see what they would come up with if we did it in the house instead of outside.