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Thursday, June 5, 2008

Scorpions and other Summer Fun

It's been two weeks since Blake and Nick finished up the school year and, I have to say, other than the hours of 3-5 p.m. when running around scaring each other and screaming is the popular thing to do, it's going smoothly so far.

We've been enjoying the lazy summer days, swimming and inviting friends over. Zach and Allie are having a ball splashing around in the pool. So much so that we're going in about three times a day. Zach still wants me to catch him from the slide and he gets so frustrated that it takes me a good 5-10 minutes to get all the way in, even though the water really isn't too cold anymore. It's that thinning Arizona blood.


And while the boys have done their share of video-game playing and TV-watching, they've already pieced together a 500-piece puzzle (with some help from Brett, who loves doing puzzles; I never was a puzzle person) and Nicky's already created a huge Mission from Mars Lego rocket thingy. Blake's al
ready read about 5 300-page books (I'm not exaggerating or trying to boast -- this boy does a LOT of reading). His latest fixation is learning a language, specifically Dutch, of all things. This is on the heels of a soccer Dad/fill-in-for-the-coach, who happens to be Dutch, barking orders and I'm not sure what else (and not sure I want to know), in Dutch, at recent practices. So lately Blake's had the Netherlands on his mind.

But today we ventured out and not much luck at the library or book store. Instead, we came home with a couple more Pendragon installments (a popular tweener series) for Blake and a writing workbook for Nicky (I don't think he noticed when I slipped it up to
the cashier -- he'll be thrilled, I'm sure).

Meanwhile, Blake and Nick are getting ready to fly to Sacramento on Saturday. They'll go on their annual camping trip at Lake Tahoe with Grandma a
nd Grandpa Joe, spend a few days with Grandma and Grandpa Rex. Then Brett, the twins and I will meet up with the boys, my parents, my brother Joey, his wife Erika and their son Trenten, in Monterey, where we're renting a beachhouse (this is the actual place we're staying in the pic) for the week. We'll probably freeze our Arizona-blooded tails off, but that's OK. It's about 90 degrees here today and it actually feels cool to me -- how crazy is that?

Meanwhile, in oth
er exciting household news:

A couple days ago, upon returning home from running errands, I was met by a pale little scorpion on the kitchen floor. At first I thought it was a little piece of thin cardboard kinda rolled up. But as I leaned over to pick it up, I did a double-take. I think this was about the fourth one we've found in the house since moving here a year ago. It looked dead, but I wasn't sure. So I called Blake and Nicky over -- I know ... I'm such a wimp. Blake grabbed my flipflop and kind of poked at it. It's little tail mustered a tiny wave, just enough to give him a good jump. Blake was the hit-man, doing the dirty work, and Nicky his accessory-after-the-fact, having grabbed a wad of paper towels, picking up the remains and tossing them in the trash. I have to say, I was really impressed -- OK, maybe relieved is a better word -- that they took care of that the way they did.

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