1. Summer Vacation officially begins at 12:45pm. My friend, Mandi, and I have a little something special (a Pinterest idea, of course) planned for our kiddos this afternoon, and I can't wait to see their faces light up when they come around the corner and see the personalized tubs full of (inexpensive) summer-themed goodies waiting for them on our front porch. I promise to post pictures next week!
2. The city's public swimming pools FINALLY open tomorrow! If you need me or the kids, you'll find us enjoying the warm sun, the cool water, and the clam-shaped slide at our neighborhood pool on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Live in the BCS area? Suit up and join us!
3. Tom and I have a date tonight! Other than a 90-minute pseudo date to Sam's Club (because that's how we roll) in April, we haven't been on a date since DECEMBER. The spring semester always runs Tom ragged; he works late (and late for Tom is 2am, not 7pm) at least a few nights a week, spends every Sunday at the office, and when he is home, he spends much of his time reading journal articles, writing exams, or grading papers. (We may have misunderstood what we were getting ourselves into with this career path…)
Tom makes a valiant effort to attend the kids' baseball games, Tae Kwon Do graduation ceremonies, and dance recitals, but there's very little time for the four of us to spend together - let alone time for Tom and I to go out just the two of us - beyond those "special events". Tonight, however, we're going out no matter what. Woo hoo!
4. Though many associate LeVar Burton with one or both of most well-known roles - Kunta Kinte from ROOTS or Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation - I remember him as the friendly host of Reading Rainbow.
Reading Rainbow went off the air in 2006, and now LeVar Burton is the face for a new a Kickstarter Campaign to bring Reading Rainbow back. Not to television, because as the campaign states, they're trying to reach a new generation of digital natives. But to the internet, where the digital library and video field trips will be accessible on any device and where specialized classroom versions will be available to teachers. The campaign's monetary and literary goals are ambitious, but not unrealistic, especially if all of us who grew up with Reading Rainbow jumped on the bandwagon.
If you're interested in learning more, click here.
And just because, here's a clip from the absolute best (or at least my and my sister's all-time favorite) episode of Reading Rainbow EVER.
Update: I just read (as I type this on Thursday morning), that it took only half a day for the Reading Rainbow-loving community to raise the full $1,000,000 needed to bring this fantastic program back to life. Clearly I'm not the only one who loved spending afternoons taking looks inside books with LeVar.
5. Happiness Highlights:
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| My boy eats ice cream now. If you've followed Will's/our journey with food allergies, you'll understand how monumental (and for this Wisconsin girl, exciting) this development is for our family. |
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| My girls eat ice cream too. Lily refused any flavor other than oatmeal cookie, but since oatmeal cookie contained nuts (she's also allergic to peanuts), that flavor wasn't an option for her. In front of Lily I ordered her a single scoop of oatmeal cookie, and then I whispered to the employee to give her a single scoop of vanilla instead. Lily had no idea. |
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| Me, my Lily, and my Mom at Hallie's preschool graduation ceremony. |
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| I'm a terrible aunt for including this picture here, but watching and listening to Lily SCREAM at Chuck E. Cheese - especially after she begged to stand next to him on the stage - was hysterical. |
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| A little preview of what her teenage years will look like... |
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| …and a reminder that those years aren't quite here yet. (Thank goodness!) |
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