A weekly list of things accomplished, enjoyed, learned, tried and remembered.
1. Summer Fun. We just finished our first week of summer break and got to do a lot of fun things. Our neighborhood is full of parks that the boys and I have been going to since they were little bitty. I love that they still want to go.
Next, we went to a really great putt putt place here in town called Lost Island Adventure Park. We have enjoyed this place many times before. There are two really cool courses to play that have all kinds of dinosaurs along the way and King Kong in the middle. There is also a huge inflatable bounce house obstacle course to enjoy. They have a Tiki Bar with snacks and drinks, an indoor play area–that’s more suited for littles, and a huge warrior gym that has all kinds of challenging obstacles. I highly recommend this place.
And lastly, I got our swimming pool set up. This always takes a couple of days. Since our weather is very dry and it’s not super hot weather wise yet, I always try to put in as much hot water in as I can. This involves rigging a hose to our kitchen faucet using duct and electrical tape (see photos for how I get it done). Our hot water heater only allows me to do this about an hour at a time, so it takes at least two days to get it all ready. My boys didn’t bother to wait this year and didn’t care that there was only about a foot of water. We go full on with our summer breaks, eking out as much fun as we can during our 9 week break.
Tips for adding hot water to your outdoor pool.
1. Pull out the faucet and tape it in place (you will thank me for this).
2. Remove the faucet from the hose. (this is why you will thank me–if you don’t have it taped in place, it slips down into the depths of underneath your sink pipes and is very hard to retrieve).
3. Use duct tape to secure the faucet hose to the inside “mouth” of the garden hose.
4. Using electrical tape, wind it around tightly starting at the top about 3 inches above the hose mouth and going all the way to about 3-4 inches below. Tape over any gaps. I usually use several smaller lengths to make a tight seal.
5. Turn on the hot water and use a pan or something to ensure that the hose stays pointing down. I usually keep it going until the hot water runs out, wait an hour and do it again.
p.s. I’ve been doing it this way for years, so if there is some sort of cool invention that has come out to avoid having to do it this way–for the love of Pete, please let me know.
2. Home Projects. We’ve been making steps toward reimagining our backyard. We began this last year and are still working to complete it. I will post before and after pics soon. This week we got the area around our new deck figured out and the boys even helped us out here and there. I think it looks great and we are really enjoying all that we’ve done so far.
3. 1st and Main Concert. 1st and Main is one of the many outdoor concert series that goes on in our city over the summer. They feature a different band every week and folks bring their picnics and chairs and get to listen to live music for a couple of hours. This summer, they asked SofaKillers to be their opening weekend act. One of our local news stations (KRDO News 13) even promoted it by interviewing some of the guys earlier in the day.
The weather was perfect and hundreds came to enjoy the guys rock the night away. It was a great night. Check out this cool video Super Rockstar put together of highlights from the show.
4. The Last Game. My boys finished their last spring season flag football game. What a game! Grayson was awesome at rushing and threw off the other team’s quarterback so often, they couldn’t even get a completed pass. Morgan caught a pass and ran for his first ever touchdown. It was a HUGE proud moment for him and for Super Rockstar and I. Our coaches this season were just great. They were more interested in the kids building confidence and getting to practice what they learned, rather than winning. But, interestingly enough our team had more wins than losses and finished 3rd place overall. If you have kids in sports, I highly recommend i9 Sports.
5. What We Watched. Johnny English Reborn, Johnny English Strikes Again, the rest of the Poldark seasons, and Gulliver’s Travels. Just click the link to read our reviews.
6. My Favorite Memes of the Week.
As always, I would love to hear from you. I hope you have a great week!