The conversation went something like this: I really have enjoyed making our digital scrapbook pages lately – in fact, I made sixty-six for July 2012 alone – one or two a day, with as many as seven on days that we had very special events.   Leigh told me she was impressed with how much we did in July, and I told her that I really felt like we hadn’t done much, but had honestly thought that we had way too many slug-around days with the oppressive heat and humidity.  But when I looked over those 66 pages amassed at the end of the month, I realized that we really had done a lot of interesting things, and that even the most sluggish days had moments of joy, or peace, or wonder.

Before FB was big, I blogged nearly every day, and sometimes twice a day when things were exciting.  I used the blog as a way to keep in touch with friends and family who were far away, and also as a way to make new friends who had similar interests.  Now, FB mostly fulfills those roles, so why would I keep up with the blog too?

I remember, though, that I felt like I did SO MUCH MORE in those years of daily blogging.  I don’t think I did, really, beyond one or two projects that I decided to do just to join in with a blog party.  Blogging is a very flattering mirror, though: reading back through it can remind me of just what we do accomplish even on our sluggiest days.

How hard can it be to keep up with a blog, and FB, and daily scrapping, and homeschooling three kids?  Couldn’t be that much harder than just FB, and scrapping, and homeschooling, and wouldn’t that extra, flattering reflective surface be worth it?  Let’s see.

Don’t worry: I have clung tightly to my priorities and have been making sure the kids still get their many hours of park and/or pool time every day, plus plenty of extra time added in for cloud-watching, afternoon napping, thumb-twiddling, duct tape creating, and general deep thinking in the guise of woolgathering.

I love to see how they’ve changed over the years – and how they’ve stayed the same!

My friend Heather is a party-planning maniac and as usual had a fun and creative party ready for the kids.  This was E’s second Lego party (he had one last year too) so Heather could reuse and expand on many of the same ideas… last year, the kids took turns hitting the pinata while wearing a Lego head… this year, there was a Lego brick body to wear too!

GoGoGirl had a wonderful afternoon with Heather’s girls, playing with balloons, dancing, coloring, and playing “Mother and Sister” and “the Cheese Game.” (The Cheese Game was one they made up while eating cheese balls… make your friend laugh her head off by coming up with silly things that could be made of cheese… “Cheese Legos!” “Cheese Pinata!” “Cheese Camera!” “Cheese Underpants!”)

KarateKid was a little nervous at first because he doesn’t know any of E’s public school friends… but he was glad to see E’s friend C there – someone he knows from other parties – and the two of them built Lego cars together and assembled paper rockets together, too. (John was brave enough to let the kids launch the rockets inside, because it was pouring rain!)

At the end of the party, the kids played musical chairs. I had to remind my poor, unsocialized-homeschooler kids how to play, since the last time they played was at E’s party last year! They had great fun with it, and KarateKid was thrilled to be the winner.

After the other guests left, MechDaddy and I helped Heather and John clean up while our six kids kept playing, and playing, and playing.

The kids all loved the Lego party with the Lego-head pops, the Lego-guy cupcakes, and especially the Lego costume… but mostly the time with friends.  What a terrific day!

This weekend we stepped way back in time and drove a few hours to our closest Renaissance Festival.

This weekend was “Highland Fling Weekend” so there were plenty of folks in Celtic garb (including Uncle Jared!).  They also had some Highland Games, which were mostly full of the caber toss (try heaving a telephone pole end-over-end).

The kids loved all the activities, including a big maze and the archery booth, and the shows, including the public execution, a whip-and-sword fight, the joust, and the final pub sing.

GoGoGirl was especially excited: last year she was still “too little” and couldn’t have made the trip or lasted the day without melting down.  This year she made the trip and found out how exciting it was: steak-on-a-stake, turkey legs, sweet roasted nuts, soft pretzels, and several smoothies later, she told us her favorite thing about the faire was the food!

GoGoGirl and I even waited in line for the privy with The Queen herself!  I was impressed she could fit her skirts in the teeny weeny stall.

Later we did some shopping.  The kids picked new wooden weapons (an axe for KarateKid and a dagger for GoGoGirl) and fresh wooden wands (a black, suspiciously You-Know-Who-like wand for KarateKid and a curvy purple special for GoGoGirl).  KarateKid also picked out a quill pen and ink pot, and MechDaddy bought me a wonderful 14″ bodhran (frame drum).

Next year, I’d love to take them in something closer to period garb, without breaking the bank.  I’d love any hints or suggestions on costuming-on-the-cheap.

In the end, a delightful time was had by all.  Huzzah!

To prepare for seeing the play, the kids and I read aloud together the picture book version of Shakespeare: The Animated Tales: The Tempest which is an abridgment by Leon Garfield.  This was a great source – better than the Lambs’ prose retelling – because it included much of the actual dialogue from the original.  We spent a lot of time poring over it and discussing the language and tearing the lines apart or restating them, and as we worked through it, KarateKid in particular caught on to the flow of the language and enjoyed the story quite a bit.

After we worked through the book, we watched the half hour production in three clips on YouTube:

The kids were excited to take a picnic to the park and set up our chairs and blankets for a performance that started at 8 pm!  KarateKid had a good time and loved that he knew many of the most important lines, and I loved that he followed the plot so well.  There were scenes that had been omitted or glossed over in the abridged version, or times when the characters were not projecting/using microphones well, and KarateKid would trot over to the playground on the side and watch from the swings for a while.  But I loved that when Trinculo and Stephano and Caliban came out, he stood at his swing and then slowly walked toward the stage, drawn by the magnet of humor!

They liked the immediacy of the play in the park. Caliban came and sat in front of us in a trenchcoat until it was time to make his entrance… the kids cracked up about that. We sat with friends and saw other neighbors, and the kids loved being outside, with a group of interesting people, well past bedtime. (Except for the last 20 minutes, when it got a little TOO cold! But we made it.)

We managed to get out and buy a pair of watermelons on the 3rd – our grocery store even had seeded melons this year!  Unfortunately for the kids, the afternoon of the 3rd was filled with steady rain and I stood firm against the idea of them tearing apart a watermelon inside my house!  We ate slices of watermelon, read books about watermelon, and spit seeds off the front porch.  But the main event had to wait until the next day…

The kids’ favorite sensory activity of the summer is when I give them half a watermelon and let them dig into it with a variety of tools and their bare hands.  This year, we had a seeded watermelon and so the kids had the added challenge of trying to save as many of the black seeds as possible.

We had tools including: an ice cream scoop, a big mesh strainer, a scoop-size mesh strainer, a set of melon-baller tongs, a regular set of tongs, two wavy veggie cutters, funnels, measuring cups, scoops, plastic spreaders, plastic knives, a plastic strawberry huller, and a variety of bowls and bins and cups.

I posted about our watermelon exploring activity last year too, but we hadn’t talked about it in months.  When I told the kids on the 3rd that it was watermelon day, GoGoGirl immediately asked, “Are we going to open it on the little picnic table in the front yard and use those scoopers and smush it in our hands?”  This is obviously an activity well worth the mess, because it’s so much fun that it really sticks in their memories!

Our favorite watermelon book is Benjamin & Tulip by Rosemary Wells, which has, unfortunately, been out of print for years.  In this story, meek Benjamin has to walk under the tree where bossy Tulip is waiting to pounce on him and beat him up.  When Benjamin tries to walk home with a watermelon, he winds up with the melon on his head.  “You’re crusing for a bruising!” was part of our family’s lexicon because we loved this book so much.

Our copy is inscribed to me, with love from Mommy and Daddy, on my 4th birthday in 1980!  My copy originally came with a Weston Woods cassette with the story read aloud – with fantastic seed-spitting sound effects at the end.

I have been trying all week to track down a copy of this audio book – on cassette, cd, mp3, anywhere, and have been out of luck.  I have some friends scouting far-flung libraries for copies of the cassette, so hopefully my kids will be able to enjoy it soon.  If you happen to be reading this and have a copy to share… we would be so grateful!

That meant that today’s exciting, educational outing was THE LAUNDROMAT!

GoGoGirl had never been to a laundromat before, so she was enthralled by the loading up of the van with the basket of wet items, mesmerized by the pushing of quarters into the washer, and tantalized by the ability to watch the clothes tumble in the dryer.  We did plenty of talking about why there are laundromats, how the machines work, and why we had to pay for using them.

Even with all that interesting talk, there was plenty of down time while the clothes were cycling through.  I dictated KarateKid’s spelling words and sentences for the day, and got out a set of number/item/number-word flashcards for GoGoGirl to play with and match up.  We got some raised eyebrows and curious looks from the other laundry-folk, but the kids thought it was fun just to be doing our everyday learning in a completely different space.

Where’s the oddest place you have done routine school work?

When we were leaving, the kids got safety and drug-abuse-prevention coloring books and some police badge stickers, which we read and talked about on the way home.  State-mandated safety instruction, check!

Strawberry season was short here this year because our spring was so wet, and cherry season was even shorter (our favorite u-pick farm was open for exactly eight hours of cherry picking all season!).  We’re lucky that blueberry season lasts and lasts!

The kids and I had a nice hour in the blueberry patch this afternoon, eating more than we plunked into our buckets.  There’s nothing like the taste of a ripe blueberry still warm from the sun.  We meandered up and down the rows, helping each other find choice spots, oohing and aahing over especially plump berries, enjoying the sunshine, and occasionally sitting down in the shade beneath the bushes for a little mid-picking snack.