lake lurleen

At 9am, I got a random idea to go to the lake today. So, we packed up, stopped at Subway for some sandwiches, and headed out to Lake Lurleen. Our first time there, we were pleasantly surprised!  It's closer than we thought, really clean, not crowde, and as the day went on we were treated to some interesting and very "Alabama-ish" people watching to keep me amused.  All I could think of was that song that goes "red red red red redneck...chew tobacco chew tobacco chew tobacco spit"

 Gage will be exhausted tonight, he did some big kicking all day...

 Not sure what he's doing here?!?

 When we first got in the water, we swam out to the rope together. But, 3 hours later, they got brave, took off and said they were swimming to the rope by themselves. Savannah made it first, but she got a little scared and headed back in to shallower water.

Gage made it to the rope by himself next, gave me the thumbs up, and was very proud of himself. But, he started swimming back at an angle, got too far away from us, and started calling to his sister to come and hold his hand while he swam in.  So, we swam most of the day and kept relatively cool in this 97 degree day. 

vulcan

Birmingham was a steel and iron city many years ago, and is home to the tallest (56') cast iron statue in the world, the Vulcan.  It was made in 1904 for the World Fair, with iron mined from Bgh'm.  

While we drove to Savannah's eye doc for a post-surgery check up (she's doing great), we noticed that the Vulcan was only a mile or so away. So, we zipped over for a visit.

The first thing we did was take the elevator (okay, we could have walked up, but that surely would have resulted in me carrying Gage) up to his base. The only real view of the Vulcan you get up there is of his naked butt!

 Gage has been nervous about heights before, but he did GREAT, especially considering that the floor is an open grate!

After taking in the view of the city from the top of Vulcan, we went cooled off in the museum for a while. Their favorite part was a replica of Vulcan's foot, which was part of an exhibit that showed how they shipped Vulcan to the World Fair in 11 pieces.  I couldn't seem to get a good picture of them because Gage kept yelling "SMELL MY STINKY FEET" and holding his foot up in front of his face. Boys :-)

museum

We have had the AL Natural History Museum on our "list" for a while. It is, after all, right on campus here in Tuscaloosa. The other day we decided to finally check it out.   On the walk over, Gage fell on the sidewalk. He of course, started crying, but when his sister said "oh no Gage, look at your knee", he pulled up his shorts and saw a big bloody skinned knee. Well, that was it. He took it up a notch. Suddenly he couldn't walk. He needed a bandaid. Hold me hold me hold me (mind you, it was probably 100 degrees out and he weights 40lbs). I was out of bandaids (I usually carry a few in my wallet just in case), but luckily, the museum ticket desk had a few they gave us.  Look at that sad, sweet boy :-(

 

While boo boo boy moped around, Savannah and I checked out the other cool stuff.  Like this woolly mammoth...

 and this crazy huge swimming lizard from the dinosaur period called a mosasaur!

Savannah liked the dinosaur footprint, but Gage liked the crystals that to him, looked like they were from Superman's fortress of solitude. I guess we need to get to Crystal Cave one of these days!!

giggin' toads

On Sunday, we went outside to check out the "super moon" and although it was supposed to be huge & bright, our was a beautiful red color!  While out there, we saw fireflies, so we ran for our jar to catch some. But, those buggers have proven elusive this year -- we only see a few and they stay up to high in the trees to catch. So, we STILL haven't caught any fireflies yet!  But, while we were out there, we saw a toad and caught it.

And then we realized the yard was covered in toads, so we grabbed a flashlight and spent the night catching toads.

 

We'll try for fireflies another night :-)

camp out

So the other day I told the kids that we could camp out. Luckily, Adam wasn't home, because I did not remember the bigger of our two tents being this SMALL!  Four of us never would have fit in here. I also did not expect it to be 87 degrees at 7:30pm!! It was SO hot in that tent.  I was thinking hoping we heard a scary noise that would spook them and make them want to go inside. But, no such luck.  We had a bright moon out, cicadas singing, and fireflies buzzing over our tent and all around.  It ended up cooling off to about 70 and the kids slept great. In fact, I think I got a better night's sleep outside than I do in my own bed many nights!

big bubbles

We decided bathtime one night would be in the big bathtub with bubbles AND the jets. 

 Gage decided that he was "white hulk" and was showing us his hulk muscles

 Savannah was just having a blast

 And when she got out, she snatched one of my dresses out of the closet and wore it around for the rest of the night.  She loves wearing my dresses and being "little mama" as she calls herself.

random fun

Here are a few of the random things we've been up to this summer.  

Making a rainbow sidewalk

 Hot car crayons experiment. We have a crayon melter/maker (and we can always bake the broken pieces), but there is a certain "coolness factor" associated with melting crayons IN YOUR CAR!  The kids had a dentist appointment one hot day, so we chopped up some broken crayons, put them into an ice cube mold, and left them in the car for less than 40 minutes. The result was actually MELTED crayons that cooled into the molded crayons. Very cool.

 This summer Gage has been getting back to nature -- this is his preferred way of peeing these days!

One day I froze small Batman and Robin figures in a block of ice. Later when everyone was whining that they were bored, I took it out and told them to find Mr. Freeze and his freeze gun and we set up the block of ice outside, with Mr. Freeze "freezing" them. I told them that their job was to use water guns to melt the ice and free the superheroes.  I thought this would keep them occupied for a while, but they saved them surprisingly quickly!

 We've seen some free movies this summer, but we also went ot see the new Monster's movie, which was GREAT!

 We also got our ice cream ball out, measured some cream and sugar, and threw in some smooshed up strawberries for good measure. Then, it was outside to kick and roll the ball around to make ice cream. For the record, making kids roll an ice filled ice cream making ball around for 10 minutes feels like HOURS to them. 

 

Another hot day I bused out some frozen dollar store bugs and lizards frozen in a block of ice. I told them that their job was to work together as a team and figure out how to bust those bugs out.  They started out with tools, but quickly realized that it was so hot out, all they had to do was poor some water over the block and it melted faster than you would have guessed. Yet another activity that was over in 5 minutes instead of the 15 or 20 I had hoped for!

It's also lizard season here!! Here's one of the skinks with a blue tail that we love to find.

 And watch out, if your don't pay attention, you might walk into a tape web. The plan was to have them throw paper at the web and it would stick. Failure. It wouldn't stick. But, they had fun sticking paper to it, and pretending to get stuck in the web.

 Making chocolate lollipops and candy. Who new it could be so easy!?! 

water shooters

Before the kids got out of school, I made a trip to the dollar store. Every now and then when I need something to keep them occupied, I dig into my stash of dollar goodies. One day I took out these cool water shooters.  I told Gage he had to paint the fence, but Savannah figured out how to shoot them straight into the air and make "fireworks". Fun well worth $2 :-)

 

 

gak

Making GAK has been on my list of "crafty crap to do with the kids" and we finally did it. Gak does NOT disappoint. In fact, gak is awesome.  The ingredients include borax, elmers glue, water, and food coloring. That's it. Gage wasn't too sure about it as he mixed up this gross looking concoction. But after a minute if formed a globby mass in the middle of the liquid that we lifted out and rolled into a ball.

 Voila...GAK!

 This stuff is awesome. You can stretch it all kinds of ways. If you hold it up high, it just slowly stretches toward the floor.  Then, you just gather it up again and it comes back together into a wad of gak.

 Seriously, gak ranks up there with stuff that we would pay money for.  I cannot believe we made this cool stuff in 2 minutes. Huge success! They played with it for days.

byebye beach

So, we wrapped up our trip to the beach with a few more stops - LuLu's restaurant (where we ate at the bar because the wait for a regular table was long -- look what Gage tried to snag!). But, it was hot and they were tired...they didn't even play in the big sand area!  Savannah got one last serving of "quiet dogs" (aka "hushpuppies" or little friend cornbread balls). She Savannah couldn't remember their name, so they are now and forever to be called quiet dogs.

Sand art - Savannah always does one, but this year, Gage got to join the fun.

And another stop at the Hangout, where Savannah and Gage wrote out their wishes and put them into the wish wall - Savannah wished that she could meet Harry Potter and be a witch. She is obsessed with Harry Potter lately!

We at loads of shrimp (blackened shrimp, cajun shrimp, steamed shrimp, spicy shaka shaka shrimp, smoked shrimp....just like Forest Gump!) and fish (tuna, maha mahi, crabcakes, yum!). We came home with tons of shells (and found some of the most beautiful ever -- sorry no pictures, they are already stashed in our shell jar).  And, that wraps up our beach trip. We found a house we're thinking about trying to rent for a month next summer!  I can handle that :-) 

puttputt

We putt putted our way around the pirates again this year.

 Gage kept charting his own course. Here, he just walked over the bridge to the next hole. But other times, he literally climbed down rock walls to play in other areas. He also purposely shot his ball into the water a few times. Little stinker.

 On one hole you pass through a cave. There is a peephole in the wall, and this is what you see!  A skeleton surrounded by wine and rum bottles - and golf clubs! Gage will NOT look inside. Chicken ;-)

 This is how Gage set up EVERY shot for himself.  After he got it in the hole, he would pump his fist in the air, jump, and exclaim YES!

Love the hats, don't you?

crabby

While over at the beach one morning - in our jammies - Adam found the little crabby. The kids named him Crab Bob Square Pants and they played with him until we dragged them away. They built a hole for him that he couldn't escape from. They chased him. They re-caught him. Poor crab bob -- all he was trying to do was escape the big waves and he was tortured by the kiddos!