Currently...
Watching...alot of survival shows. As a family we are watching the latest season of "Alone", and by ourselves Derek and I are rediscovering a series called "I Shouldn't Be Alive". I remember a few years ago catching a terrible stomach bug, and I basically binge-watched this show, and then I forgot about it because thinking about it after that made me feel queasy. I no longer feel queasy about it though, and Derek and I are hooked. I also just discovered this Youtube channel talking about lost hiker stories, so kind of along the same line (except not all of the hikers make it out).
Reading...alot of picture books for the kids, and picking out my favorites for a summer picture book post coming up soon. I'm not sure if anyone needs another picture book list, but I am enjoying putting these posts together because they are lists of our personal favorites - so instead of re-visiting other lists, and trying to remember which books we liked and which ones we didn't, I have my own list to request from the library each year. And hopefully some of you kind find a few winners from the lists too! Here are all of the lists I've done so far.
Sipping...limeade, or homemade virgin pina coladas. I basically just mix together pineapple juice and Silk Coconut, and call it a pina colada. Yum.
Sporting...shorts and dresses, finally, because we've finally had a turn in the weather! It was the rainiest June I remember in a long time, and was quite cold until after July 4th. I still wouldn't say it's as warm as a normal July, at least not in the mountains, but it's so much nicer out than it was. The weather was so unlike summer until just the last couple weeks, so I'm just now getting into summer mode, with less than a month left until we were planning on starting school again. I may just delay our start by a week so summer feels less short.
Trying...to figure out if we can afford a vacation this year, or if we should opt for a staycation. I know everyone is probably hurting financially with this inflation - so many of our monthly bills have gone up in the last few months, and I can't get out of the grocery story under budget anymore. But as I talked about in my last post, we've also had several things break on us this spring/summer - our microwave, Derek's car, our whole tent debacle. And finally, our stove officially died this past week. A few of our buttons were fried by a power surge in June, but we were hoping we could just make do...until I tried preheating the oven and none of the buttons worked. All of these annoying costs are coming out of our vacation budget, so I'm not sure what is going to happen with that now. We will either scrape together enough for an inexpensive camping vacation, or we will do a staycation (which could also be really fun, if we can just sell it right to the kids).
Remembering...that we did at least get to visit an interesting place when we went on a short trip to visit my grandma - Mesa Verde! Mesa Verde National Park has the oldest buildings in North America, thought to be built around 1200 AD (or some maybe earlier). They figured that out by tree ring data - they looked at some of the oldest trees in the park, and then looked at some of the logs used in the building construction, and matched up similar wet/dry season patterns in the tree rings to get to the guess of 1200 AD. I don't know much about the accuracy of that, but it's pretty interesting anyway!
We went on a tour, but a word to the wise, if you sign up for a Mesa Verde tour, it takes about an hour to get from the Mesa Verde Visitor Center to where to tours actually leave. Not knowing this ahead of time, we somehow arrived just on time for our tour, but the tour guide must have left early because there was no one to be seen. We waited until the next tour arrived an hour later, and they pretty much had to let us in since the other tour had departed early. If you ever visit and you schedule a tour there, plan to be at the visitor center at least an hour and a half before your tour time. I thought they should have put some of this information on the website, but really, I should have known better. It's been along time since we had been there.
Looking forward to...taking the kids to the pool in the next couple weeks. We haven't been swimming all summer because of weather and sickness, but I think we might finally make it to the pool next week. There are no outdoor pools near us, but there are a couple in town that have affordably-priced family swim nights. I always stock up on licorice and watermelon before the pool - those are just the traditional pool snacks, I guess.
Growing...a lovely herb garden in our porch greenhouse. My herbs are doing so well this year, despite the cold start to the summer. I want to avoid the mistake I made last year and start harvesting some of the herbs now! My oldest is also growing a tiny straw-bale vegetable garden, and I think it's doing well...we have flowering squash plants right now, so hopefully that's a good sign!
Planning...to start doing a few hikes before summer is over. The mountains are in rare form this year, with all the moisture we got in June, and there are flowers and tall grasses everywhere. It's very lush and colorful, instead brown-tinged and dry like July so often is. I'm loving that we have no fire bans, and I want to take the kids out for some nature journaling and picnics in the next couple weeks.
Preparing...for the school year, but only lightly because I don't want to get myself out of summer mode quite yet. I've mainly been putting together a history syllabus for my 7th grader, and requesting some historical fiction books from the library to screen. I'm hoping to find a few winners for him to read. He'll be studying ancient history this year, for the first time seriously, including the Greeks and Romans. I want to give him some interesting books set in that time period, but books that don't over-glorify those societies either. I know they are important foundational to our current culture and political structure, but they were also Godless, so I'm hoping for something that will give him a realistic (but appropriate) feel for those eras. Open to suggestions if any of you homeschool moms have already studied ancient empires.
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