Summer Bucket List, Week 5

We have a Summer Bucket List, thanks to Kelly over at Little Wonders' Days.  This is simply a list of fun things we want to do or accomplish this summer.  We just completed our fifth full week of summer.  To review our previous weeks go here, here, here, and here.  This week we slowed down a bit.  We have a big weekend planned so we stayed close to home more this week than we had in past weeks.  We still got to have some summer fun and check off some bucket list items.


1.  Visit 10 parks to play and picnic:  Thursday for lunch we ventured to the big town of Weldon (population 145) to see the caboose a friend has been painting, to picnic, and to play at the park.  The full-sized, authentic caboose was fun.  I got to tell some stories about how cabooses were used in the past.  I wish I knew a bit more about the history of Weldon, because the older two boys were curious.  We did see a mural of the town painted on the side of a building near the park while we were playing.  I didn't realize the mural was there and that was fun to admire and try to figure out what the buildings depicted had once been.


8.  Water Fight:  Colby and Brody participated in a water fight with water balloons at the park after we painted our shirts on Thursday.  Braedon opted out.  He and I kept working on his shirt.  We'll probably have another water fight later on this summer at home.


12.  Library Activities:  We had already accomplished this.  But we had the best time at story hour this week and the next two weeks also look like fun times, so I'm going to continue to write about them.  This week our presenter was a young man (college-aged) who is a balloon artist.  He opened the show by making an alien out of balloons while blind-folded.  My little buddy, Cal, was an excellent assistant (Hi Peggy!).  Then he told three stories using audience members as actors.  The actors wore hats, masks, or carried props made of balloon art.  Braedon got to be 'Tom' in a story and repeated his lines and did some pantomimes.  Colby was 'Drink-Well' in the same story and also repeated some lines.  It was fun to see them open up on 'stage' and the show was so funny.  This young man is quite talented.  We actually ran into him four years ago at the Des Moines Farmers' Market and he made detailed balloon hats for Braedon and Colby then.  I look forward to seeing him again someday.  (Next week our presenter is Mad Science of Iowa--we saw a presentation of this last year and it was fantastic.  Then the following week Blank Park Zoo will bring some animals down to visit story hour.)  


16.  Homemade Popsicles:  I attempted to throw together some stuff and make popsicles.  Due to the leftover bit of ice cream (I think) they did not set up.  Braedon also did not like them.  So maybe this week we will just do regular homemade popsicles with either juice or kool-aid.


19:  Make Milkshakes:  We had milkshakes for breakfast Saturday.  I make them with ice cream, a banana, and some strawberries.  I'm not sure where my blender ended up, so I just made them in my mixer.


26.  Tie Dye:  Well, we didn't actually tie dye yet (we may still do that), but we decorated tee shirts two times this week.  Thursday afternoon we met with some Clarke County Moms at East Lake Park.  The boys each brought a white tee shirt to decorate.  The plan was to make firework tee shirts by doing straw painting with watered down fabric paint.  We did that and then found that splatter painting with straws worked a little better.  So the front of their shirts are red, white, and blue splatters.  Then on Friday we met with a different group of folks and used puffy paint to decorate the backs of the shirts.  So if we don't get to tie dye, I think we did get to make our own designs on shirts (and we are wearing them up to the carnival today).


Other things we did that were not on the original list:
*The boys were going to slip and slide Friday, but we can't find our slip and slide, so they played in the sprinkler.  This led to finding several big buckets, a wheel barrow, and other various holders-of-water, filling them up, and trying out their 'pools'.
*We saw the space station.  We do this fairly frequently as Ron is a space geek.  I think this is the first time I saw it though.  It was really cool.  It looks like a bright airplane, moving in a straight line across the sky.
*We participated in another Friday tour.  This time a child care provider opened up her yard to the group and we climbed, bounced, blew bubbles, had watermelon, painted shirts, and just had fun.


This coming week is another busy one.  The Fourth of July is our small town's big celebration.  We are off today to see the water fights, do the pedal pull, ride the small carnival rides, and just have fun on the square.  Tomorrow is the parade and then going to Grandma Lewis's for delicious food.  Hopefully we will get to meet our new cousin.  We are also planning to attend two story hours this week, including one with our hero Dan Wardell, of Iowa Public Television fame (he'll be in Chariton on Thursday--also in Indianola and Creston at other times this week).  Then Ron and Colby leave for Cub Scout camp on Friday (which is also Colby's birthday).  Lots of fun in store!


Happy Fourth of July!!