It's Summer Alright

You know it's summer when you spend more and more time outdoors than before. However, deep in the heart of Texas, you try to get as much "outdoors" early on before the scorching heat takes a toll on you. If you haven't done your outdoors stuff by 9am, it's time to give it up and wait for the next day. Of course, there's early evening too, but you gotta make it quick before the mosquitoes come out...curse those blood sucking insects!

At any rate, we're finding ourselves doing more and more activities outdoors. As a matter of fact, that's the way I like it. If I had it my way, I'd take my laptop outside and work that way. Heck, I used to bring the laptop in the backyard when I used to work from home. I digress. Yes, so more and more stuff outside. Unfortunately, with the backyard owned by the dogs and their "landmines," we're either playing ball in the front yard or driving out to the park and hanging out there for an hour or so. While this is mostly by choice, Loden will let you know if he wants to go outside. If he doesn't have his shoes or sandals on, he'll go grab them and bring them to you so that you can put it on for him. Then, he'll stand by the front door, reach for the door knob and try to turn it. Since it's locked, he'll then start banging on the door in case you didn't get his point yet. If still no response from us, here comes the tantrums!

So yes, most weeknights we find ourselves playing in the front yard, taking a walk around the block or going to the park. The park is the best option although it's a drive to get there. It's fun watching him go and do "big boy" stuff. He owns the 2 - 5 year old playground. I also love the way he interacts with other kids. So far, no one mean or anything. Dreading that day though. Everyone's there for a good time and everyone behaves. All I do is sit and watch him run around getting nice and tired. We've even met a couple of our neighbors who have kids around the sam age at the park to let the kids play with each other.

Most recently, in fact just yesterday, we schedule a group trip with some parents in Loden's class to go to the Dallas World Aquarium. I've been wanting to take Loden here for quite some time now so it was great for that day to finally come. Of course, silly me, I didn't plan it out so well since there were so many people there. We've only managed to find two other couples with their kids. Line was long and very busy inside, but I loved watching Loden be interested in everything. At some point, there were people dressed in Mayan garb that performed an ancient dance with drum rhythms. Loden even wanted to stay and watch that. In fact, we were getting hot and wanted to move on and I had to drag Loden out of there. The best parts were the actual aquariums. I loved showing Loden the stuff I usually see out when I'm snorkeling, like the corals and tropical fish and sea turtles. I keep telling Loden that one day, he needs to learn how to swim so that we can go together and look at this stuff for reals. If it were just Loden and I, we could have stayed there all day long.

At any rate, the tempereature is getting hotter and hotter and time outside will have to be cut down dramatically until the fall. I suppose it's the indoor playground at the mall for us if we want to play. That's not as much fun, but Loden likes all the climbing. Need to move out of Texas soon...extreme hot and cold is silly. I want to be able to enjoy the outdoors with both kids for more than just a couple of months out of the year. Anyone hiring an Internet Marketing Expert out in Florida? California? Better yet, Tahiti?

Here are some pics, sorry I didn't resize them for the web...hopefully you've got broadband.

At the aquarium looking at stuff














I'd like to have Loden on my steak and eggs please


At El Fenix in Downtown Dallas


Big Boy Slide in our favorite park


At the small playground in Dream Cafe in Uptown Dallas


Picnic at our favorite park