Balloon Fest 2008!

What is so fun about this is that often the winds bring the balloons right up to our neighborhood. We had one land within 200 feet of our home. The children have helped the balloon crew pull the balloon down and pack it up. We love to get on our bikes and chace the balloons all over our neighborhood.

A Home-Made Errosion Table (Basically a diversion to summer blahs)

We went to the dinosaur museum the other day (the largest in the world, so the marquee states). And it was a blast. The favored part was the erosion table. It was a very large "table" which had sand and a little stream of water running down it. The children would build up sand islands and place dinosaurs all over it and the little stream would wash through the sand and communities of dinosaurs would rise and fall right before our eyes. I decided it was time for our family to have our own "erosion table" and I tell you what! It was soooo much fun watching the children design it, build it and finally play with it. I bought what things I thought they would need: Large plastic blow-up pool, and 200 pounds of sand. They placed bricks under two of the legs of the pic-nick table, we used an old pump, a modified garden hose, and a large garbage can to siphon the water through our erosion table, and the children have been playing with it for hours. We change the water every few days and add a little chlorine to keep the bugs out. What fun!