Dog Days

Lots of good random summer stuff has been happening around here since we got back to from the lake. With just over two weeks until the start of kindergarten, summer is flying by. As much as I will miss her, Tessa is so far very excited about starting school and I'm very excited for the end of the hot temperatures and extreme drought.

Speaking of which, I heard that 80 of the 92 counties in Indiana remain in a 'state of emergency' because of the extreme drought. The ground is dry and cracked and the grass is brown. Many thing in the yard are dead but thanks to the (periodic) sprinklers our grapes and tomatoes are thriving. It's just dry and hot and yucky. 

Since it was a cool and refreshing 95 degrees last week (as opposed to 107 the week before), the kids and I headed to the zoo to check out the new bird aviaries.

We got to feed lorakeets (for $2 a pop of course). One jumped right on my shoulder when it saw my food cup and it kinda freaked Tessa out at first. She was like...'mom, let's go, let's get out of here, let's go see the elephants now!'

Eventually she warmed up to the idea and fed them some too. Charley was (not suprisingly) not interested in feeding anything that could possible touch him or chirp in his general direction. He's kind of a wuss. 

 The newly opened section of the zoo is really cool. Where there used to be a petting zoo, there are now several big aviaries, a concessions stand and some overpriced 4D experience. Also where they used to do the elephant baths, they were doing a really cool dog show.

This guy is an Indiana celeb because he and his dog were on America's Got Talent a few years back. The dog show was really awesome, even though we were sitting in the direct midday sun for 20 minutes and I felt like I was baking like a chicken.

 To cool off we found this awesome shaded seating area on the side of the aviary where you can sit and watch the birds. Apparently no one else knew of these great secret spot.

We also found Icee's. Can you say red food coloring?

 Charley took a picture of me applying sunscreen to myself.

We went in the oceans exhibit to cool off as well, even though everyone knows it's not my favorite spot. The kids even pet some baby sharks, much to my dismay.

 Last week we got our first watermelon from the garden, which I admit should have stayed on the vine a little longer. I got over-excited.

 We also had 4 big basil plants,  which I turned into many batches of pesto for the freezer.

Tessa a mailed a card to her preschool friend (and so called future husband) Xavier, whom she hasn't seen since May. She wanted to tell him she missed him and I encouraged her to mail him a card. I hope my encouraging her to be open with her friendship and admiration doesn't backfired on her tender heart when she gets a little older.

But hey, I did talk her into calming down her original message which is "I miss you and I want to marry you, do you miss me too?"....which seemed a little needy for a five year old.

We ordered two bento style lunchboxes from laptoplunches.com. Aren't they nifty with all their little containers? I'm pretty excited about the ease of use with these but I guess lunch time will be the test. We've agreed that Tessa can pick one day a week to eat cafeteria food and then take the rest of the days, at least for now. And of course Charley will still be taking his lunch to the preschool two days a week.

 For the first time in 5 years our household now has basic cable and the kids have discovered the Disney channel. Tessa loves playing the free Disney games online and Charley took to carrying around this potato head piece that has mouse ears and calling himself  Mickey.

Mickey addiction is fully activated.

And lastly and most exciting....yesterday it rained! Not a huge accumulation but enough to make us take note. I heard the weatherman say that we would need to get 1-2 inches of accumulation per week for the rest of the summer to recover from any permanent damage caused by this drought.

That seems like a tall order but for now we'll take what we can get. I gave the kids their ran gear and sent them outside to play in it.