The other day Oliver told me that he likes four things: dinosaurs, robots, machines, and elephants. He really likes machines, and he often draws pictures of new machines or makes a machine with his legos or trios. Sometimes, he even turns assorted household items into a giant machine.
Rackham Graduate School sponsored a summer activity at Gallup Park for graduate students and their families. We were excited to go canoeing together.
It was a beautiful day, and we had a great time. Oliver and Abby loved helping us paddle.
After our river trip, we went over to the park to get ice cream. Rackham paid for an ice cream truck to come to the park; we got to pick out whatever we wanted from the truck for free. Oliver was in heaven!
When my parents were here in June, my Dad helped me build these grow boxes for our garden. I was excited for my first vegetable garden, and planted snap peas, zucchini, basil, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, and lettuce. Things got off to a nice start, and I was feeling pretty good.
Unfortunately, my beautiful plants have been long on foliage and short on fruit. The spinach bolted before I ever got more than one small salad. The lettuces are so bitter that we can’t eat them. The snap peas have produced maybe a couple of dozen peas, total. And my two pepper plants produce 1 pepper each. I don’t know if the problem is that it’s been too hot, too rainy, too shady, or if it’s just a clueless gardener.
My tomatoes and basil are doing swimmingly well, though. And my zucchini were looking fantastic, and staking them seemed to be a brilliant idea. We had grown about a half-dozen zucchini, but then we had a massive rain/wind storm come through that pushed over my stakes and snapped the stalks of 3 of my 4 plants. Maybe staking zucchini wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Kay made this awesome watermelon shark to take to a party that one of my friends from school was hosting. It was a hit! The kids all loved pretending that the shark was biting them as they got watermelon. (And yes, that is Oliver flailing on the floor in the background because we were taking too long to get in the car.)
Abby really loves watermelon. We tried to offer her a smaller piece, but she insisted on the “big” watermelon.
Westland, MI has an annual tradition called Mud Day. They dig a big pit in one of the city parks, fill it with water, and open it up for a giant free-for-all in the mud. We decided we had to check it out.
Kay and the kids braved the mud first. Unfortunately, Abby only lasted about a minute before she had had enough.
I spent the next hour waiting in line to use the hose to wash Abby off. The line was moving too slow, so I finally gave up and went to find Kay and Oliver. I found them getting washed off by a fireman using the hose connected to his firetruck. It looked pretty cool, but they said the water was freezing.
It turns out that Oliver did not like playing in the mud, either. And he was extra upset that I wouldn’t buy him anything from the ice cream truck. (Really, I just couldn’t pay that much for a Popsicle!) I took everyone to get ice cream cones at Dairy Queen when we got back home, though, so after that everyone was happy again.
The library set up a children’s booth at the Rolling Sculpture Car Show with several activities for kids to do. Abby was fascinated (and frustrated) by the hula hoops.
We headed downtown one evening for the rolling sculpture car show. It was a lot of fun. We saw a great combination of old and new cars – everything from an original Model T to a brand new Ferrari.
Oliver really took on the role of race car driver when they let him sit in the Formula 1 car.
We had a fun Independence Day. On the Saturday before the fourth, we went to a huge party hosted by one of our friends, the Tang family. We enjoyed barbecued ribs, snow cones, water balloons, and lots of good company. On the fourth, we went to the Ann Arbor parade and then enjoyed the day playing in the backyard and doing fireworks. I am so grateful for the freedom that we enjoy.
The Ann Arbor Summer Festival runs for about 3 weeks. Four or five nights a week they have free concerts and kids activities. We went a couple of different nights to check things out. Our favorite act was called “Strange Fruit.” It’s hard to describe, but it consisted of ladies doing ballet on top of really tall poles – check out the photos below.
Oliver had a fun time playing his tambourine with the music, but Abby was too shy to join in.