First Week of Summer Recap

We are in full-on summer mode around here.  Here's some photos to recap our first week.  My last post told everyone what we did last Monday.  I am learning that it seems that we will have one day of academic excellence and awesome activities followed by a day that everything moves slower.  That's okay, though.  It's summer.

Last Tuesday night was the transit of Venus.  Apparently the next time Venus will pass in front of the sun where we can see it on Earth will be 100 years from now, so Adam made sure we got to see it. 

At the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, they had many professional telescopes set up on their front lawn.  You'll have to ask Adam to explain all this, but this is a picture of the reflection of what was happening in the sky.  The white circle is the sun and the dot is Venus.

Here Claire and Paul were looking through a fancy telescope.  I have an eyeball phobia (seriously) and everyone kept telling each other not to look directly at the sun because their eyes would burn up and they'd be blind.  I couldn't tell you what any one's faces looked like that night, but I can tell you about their ankles.  I kept my face to the ground the whole time.

This facial expression is what Paul looks like at the beginning of swim lessons.  For some reason, he has a lot of anxiety about it and it takes him several minutes to warm up to it.  We're taking lessons at the Benbrook YMCA and both kids teachers are fantastic.

Here's Claire jumping into 7 foot deep water.



Here's Claire with Miss Alli, floating on her back in 7 foot water.

After swim lessons last Thursday, we headed to downtown Fort Worth for a picnic and other activities.  We ate outside at Burnett Plaza, and the kids climbed the spider web.  Then, predictably, one of them needed to use the restroom, so we pretended to know what we were doing and went into a fancy office building.  Guess what!  They had a tunnel that went underground.  Here's a picture of the kids in the tunnel.  Paul was trying to make a weird face.

After our adventures underground we went to the Sid Richardson Art Museum for Kids at the Sid.  The kids got to make fabric puppets with fancy materials for FREEEEE!  Paul's is SuperMan with a goatee.

After we made puppets, the kids toured the Sid Richardson Art Museum.  It's tiny; just the right size for kids.  The staffed docents that really like kids and were interacting with them about the artwork.  Here Paul is completing a puzzle which is a picture of a painting hanging above his head.  I highly recommend Kids at the Sid.  The museum actually likes kids and wants them there!  And it's free!

On Saturday, I took Claire to a kids sewing class at JoAnn's Fabrics.  The class was on sale for $17, but of course we had to buy supplies.  I think we ended up spending about $50 in all.  She learned how to make a pillow with a pattern and hand-sewing.  It was fun, but harder work than I anticipated.  Keeping her focused on sewing for three hours straight was the most difficult part.

Claire's puppet is a cowgirl with a feather in her hat.