Keeping busy

We've been trying to keep the kids busy over the summer so that they don't kill each other (or so that I don't kill them). We give them a few chores to do, a bit of school work to keep them on their toes and so that they don't forget everything they learned the previous year, some reading and piano practice. They didn't do so well keeping up with their piano practice during the school year, so we are hoping that they would do a bit of catching up over the summer. If they cracked down and worked at all their chores, they could do it all in an hour or so and then they could have the rest of the day to play.

The kids are great about making their beds in the morning. Even Emily has been doing it without complaint now. Although, her desk still needs work. Plus now Caitlyn's desk is not much better than her sister's. The next thing I need to crack down on is clearing their dishes when they are done eating.

Can you guess who's side is on the right? That is two meals worth of dishes. I usually won't clear it, so she will just let it pile up until she has no room left to eat.

But the kids have been so lazy lately. Especially this past week. They are perfectly content to lie around all day and not go any where, therefore, they haven't been doing their chores. It's been so frustrating.

They are doing a little better this week (so far...but it is only Monday).

We've been running into their friends either from church or school at the parks or even the library every now and then so they haven't missed out too much on playing with friends.

Emily got one of those huge above ground pools from her grandmother from her birthday. We set it up after their swim lessons were done and just as the weather got insanely hot. This thing is a monster. It took over two and a half hours to fill. We figure it must be at least a week's worth of water (which includes watering the front and back garden). But they've been taking good care of it and they have hours and hours of fun in it. They'll easily spend four or five hours in the thing and will still be reluctant to get out.

It's not very deep but it is 12 feet across, so they can actually even swim a bit in it. It's actually perfect for Caitlyn to practice in without fear. I'm hoping she will get more comfortable in the water using it so that she will be able to practice real swimming when we are in a real pool.

Summer Garden

The kids got me a May Pride Peach tree some years ago. We moved it with us when we moved in to this house. It fell over in the move and half of it died. But it was still producing on the other sides and I was hoping to try to notch the side to try to promote the growth on the damaged side. However, just before the peaches were ripe last year, a raccoon came through and in one night, ate all of our peaches and broke several branches in the process. That killed off the rest of the tree.

Last year, we also bought another peach tree to replace one of the existing peaches on the side of our house because after two seasons, it did not produce anything. The new peach tree had flowers but did not produce anything. So, this year, when it started flowering and producing peaches, we were so excited. The birds attacked it a bit so we put a net over it. But, just as the peaches were almost ready to be picked, we were again, victims of that greedy robber that wiped us out of each and every peach growing in one night. And of course, the raccoons could not just deprive us of our peaches, but they had to break the main leading branch of the tree. So, no peaches this year...again. Plus the tree is now damaged.

I don't have much of a summer garden. A few squashes and one tomato. It's hard to motivate myself to work in the garden when the gophers reap more benefits from my garden than we do. Still, so far the gopher has stolen a couple of my squash plants and my basil. I let a few more of my squash and tomato seedlings die because I forgot to water them one hot weekend. Plus, pill bugs ate another set of squash seedlings before I could even get them into the ground.

We did manage to get a few oranges in the spring. And the lemon is also doing great. We made a lot of lemonade, some lemon cake and lemon bars. Incidentally, meyer lemons are great for things like lemonade because they are sweeter and you don't have to add so much sugar but they are not tart enough for proper lemon bars!

We have had pretty good luck with our apples so far. The raccoons only seem to attack the fragrant peaches. They have left our apples alone. We planted them last year (along with the peach) to replace an existing diseased apple tree (that was also not producing any fruit). We had enough to eat and taste last year so we were pretty excited to see how many we would get this year. We probably should have thinned them out a bit as the apples are a little on the small side this year. But we definitely have enough to eat and even bake with.

So far we made a yummy apple cake and an apple pie. Plus we even traded some for a giant bag of grapefruit from one of our neighbors. Caitlyn loves to go out to gather apples. It's like a treasure hunt. Plus, they are really tasty.

Fourth of July

We spent Fourth of July with some friends. We had a feast between Brett's bbq and Christian's homemade hamburger buns. Most of the kids were too busy playing to enjoy too much of the food. Their loss.

The fireworks that night was interrupted by several fires on the mountain. We had to wait quite a long time before they put out all the fires and restarted the show. We had just finished cleaning up and were ready to leave when it re-started. It was an exhausting and hot day but everybody had a great time.

Junk

In today's disposable world, we seem to be inundated with junk everywhere we turn. It started off with our brand new t.v. After nearly 20 years, we gave up our old CRT TV for one of those new fangled flat screen televisions with part of our tax return. We got one of those killer deals just before the super bowl. It was really nice...for all of 4 months. Then the screen went bad and we had this stripe of missing info down the middle of the screen. It was a day or two before the kids last day of school. They usually have a crazy movie marathon all night on their last day of school. They were not able to use our t.v. Luckily they still have an old CRT that we got from some friends of ours in their play room and were able to watch it in there.

Nearly a week later, we got the repairmen to come and replace the screen. They installed it and turned it on. It seemed mostly fine, but as they were walking back to their truck, we noticed that the color was off in another vertical stripe down the middle of the screen. The problem only showed up in certain situations with certain colors. We were lucky to catch it so quickly. So we called them back in and they said that the screen was bad as well and ordered us yet another one.

Another week went by before they were able to finally get it replaced as well. So far, it appears to be working, but I'm not going to hold my breath at this point. Plus they said that the warranty for the replaced parts does not start over but continues with the rest of the components with the original warranty, so in another 7 months or so, we are SOL if anything goes wrong at that point. And basically, the part they replaced is so expensive, that it would be cheaper or the same price to just go out and buy a new one.

The kids got a fun water toy at the end of the school year as part of their reward for all the hard work they put in during the school year. It was one of those sprinkler attachments that has these wiggly nozzles that is supposed to wiggle around and spray everywhere. We didn't get to use it until last week since it wasn't that hot at the beginning of their summer break. It was the saddest toy I ever saw. At least half of the sprinklers just pointed straight into the grass and the remaining ones shot out but would get stuck if even a single blade of grass obstructed it's way. The girls were so disappointed. What's more, they had a friend over for the purpose of playing with said toy. We ended up shutting it off and turning on the regular sprinkler for them.

Luckily, we were able to return it and get something else for them. We ended up with a cheap slip and slide and a couple of squirt guns.

We had to restrict the water going to the end bumper though because so much water dumped out of it that the grass was flooded in that spot after only 5 minutes of use. Emily's squirt gun didn't last to the end of the day.

Next on the list o' crap is the ceiling fan in our dining room. We splurged on a fancy new ceiling fan after we got into the house some 2 and a half years ago. We use the light all the time, but we don't turn on the fan except during the summer months (otherwise, it is quite unbearable)...and only while we are having dinner, so it hasn't gotten that much use. We turned it on for the first time this year last week as it is getting quite warm, and found that the blades barely moved. It is either stuck in the slowest position or the motor is just plain dying. I don't know which. The warranty is only for a year so we are out of luck on that one. I got one of those cheap ceiling fans from my brother for our old house some 10 plus years ago and it wiggles around and isn't quite that nice, but you know what? It still works! I don't know what's up with the streak of absolute junk we've been having to deal with lately but it is more than irritating.