Kateri and I made scones last week. I bought the heavy cream at Costco, so we ended up making and freezing a lot of scones. Its great to have them ready to pop into the oven anytime. Although lately its been so hot I don't want to use the oven.
Pippin decided he wanted to help too. It being hot and the pool being set up, he mostly runs around Mowgli style. Which helps in the toilet training department too. I did put a diaper on him, but it reminded me of this TED talk on letting kids do dangerous things. The speaker did not mention cooking naked, but I'm sure that would qualify.
I thought it particularly funny a couple days later, when Shane found this article on why you should not let your kids play in the beach sand. And how washing their hands off in the sea water will only compound the risks of getting ill. And if you finish the article you learn the chilling fact that such risky behavior results in 7% of children getting diarrhea. I thought for sure it would have been cancer, given the sternness of their warning. But no, just a few extra trips to the toilet. I can just see all the kids at the beach now. Sitting on a pristine, antiseptic blanket, being careful not to touch the sand, and every 5 min washing with hand sanitizer. Fun. I'm sure most kids would pick the small risk of and upset digestive tract over a lifetime of- not living. The scones turned out well and amazingly enough, no one got hurt.

Shane got this enormous solar balloon for the kids. Laying it out on the road was great for heating it. We tied strings on the ends so it wouldn't float too far and it was pretty cool. Until Pippin ran right into it, tearing the super thin plastic. Then it wriggled its way down, like a convulsing worm. But a really neat one.

I finally finished Cyril's nightstand. It did not get as dark as I wanted but it works. I told him he was not to carve boats into the nice shiny top, like he did his dresser. So far so good. I am glad it was free. I probably spent $30 on supplies to strip and finish it. I would not have paid that much to buy it. But somehow because I do got to do the work it was worth it. Now I need one for my side of the bed.

We took a trip up to Jetty on Saturday. The wind was crazy and I remembered that when its windy enough to kite, its too windy for playing. It was actually too windy for kiting too. The guys all went out for a bit but then gave it up as it was too wild. The kids did eventually play, but Kateri just wanted to sit huddled under her towel while I hand fed her Cheetos.

But the trip did remind me to set up some swim lessons for the big kids. Which I did yesterday. And of course being last minute we were stuck with whatever time slots no one else wanted, meaning we'll be going at traffic times. Twice a week, as there were no back to back times either. But at least its on 15 min so the other kids will not have to wait too long before getting back in the car to wade our way home. And hopefully we can get a better time slot once school starts.