Summer Fade

The last full week of summer was spent in camps. Hadley was really excited to go to cooking camp in the afternoons. She learned how to make guacamole, tostadas, spring rolls, potato pancakes, burgers, milkshakes, hummus, and lots more. Her favorite part was eating all the desserts they made, especially apple strudel.

Owen spent his mornings getting very sweaty at soccer camp. His favorite part was the World Cup that they played every day. He played for Team France and proudly told of each goal that he scored. The fact that his camp was in the morning and hers was in the afternoon kept them apart for most of the day, which actually was perfect for the end of summer when all buttons had been worn out from being pushed too often.

Although summer was winding down for school, Mother Nature certainly didn't get the memo. We tried to cool off at Typhoon Texas a few more times before school started. Owen and I even went on the big green drop slide in the first picture. Hadley's not tall enough, but I'm sure she'd be up there if she could!

And we hit up the neighborhood pool a few more times, too. Although, in most of August it doesn't even get cool enough at night to let the pool cool down, so the water was strangely warm during the day. Gross! Definitely not a refreshing dip in the pool! It actually felt cooler to get in and then out of the pool so that the water could evaporate off of you, rather than to stay submerged in the warm water.

Finally, on the last Sunday before school, we went to the Houston Children's Museum. We joined the Museum of the Rockies (cheap family membership!) when we were in Bozeman, and there is a network of museums that offer reciprocal memberships across the country (i.e. we got into the Children's Museum for free!). Also, note to self: flip flops are not allowed in the climbing tower. Ew!

The kids had a great time and stayed together for most of the visit.

The outside water part would have been way more fun if it had been at least 10 degrees colder. Sweat dripping off your face is a little distracting from the science of waves and flotation. We lasted about 10 minutes out there. Phew!

But eventually, interests differed and boys and girls split up for the last hour or so. I had to laugh that H's favorite thing was the pretend HEB grocery store. We spend enough time there in real life that pretending to shop there at the museum wasn't my idea of fun!

She was really into this nanoparticle simulation too. You had to pick up tiny metal beads with tweezers using large rubber gloves and place them in corresponding pits on the blue board. Her intense concentration made it easy for me to imagine her in a lab occupation later in life.