Saturday, July 5, 2008

Staycation!

I was asked to take vacation this week ... I'm not a huge fan of being told when to take my vacation time, but the flip side is that I know I'm a consultant, and that I am overhead... etc etc etc... I'm not really complaining... I needed some recharge time.

So this week I took full advantage; I did a few projects and spent some good quality family time in the pool. It was a full blown family "staycation". I couldn't afford a "vacation" and going to Canada this year, so... "Staycation" works for me. We did all the family things we usually do on the weekends and just enjoyed some additional time together. On Friday there was the farmer's market and fresh strawberries... and then off to that Carousel with Superman and Ryan to ride the flying cat / dolphin things... (don't make eye contact with the ride... eek)

On Saturday night there was a fireworks display in East Haven at Gigi's place and we all went and met with Auntie Nee and Louise and Bob for a night of food and fireworks. We had a wonderful, except Connor hit the wall just as the fireworks started and started to ask to go potty every 3 minutes and then not going... ugh. In the midst of it, I was able to take a few snaps.



Fireworks


We all went home and threw the kids into bed around 10 pm... they remained crunchy all week. :)


On Tuesday Connor Started back to summer school. The bus picks him up two days a week, and he is still loving it. I'm really not looking forward tot he days of "I hate school", or the stories that "the teacher hates me". Oh well... Until then, I'll enjoy the smiles and try to mastermind a plan to keep them excited about learning... or break their backs trying. :)

While Connor was at school, I installed a "whole house" fan that blows air out of the attic to and pull fresh air in through all the windows of the house. I am hoping that after all the fireworks ends I can use it at night to cool the house. There are SO many nights where it is 60 degrees out and it's 80 on the second floor, so I'm hoping that getting the fan going will cut my cooling costs. In the afternoons we went to a few festivals in town and on Wednesday, we went to the "water's edge" for their festival. It was expensive and we decided that after getting cool shark tattoos that we'd blown our wad and were ready for a little dinner at the singing bridge...
I should note that it was crazy hot (it got to 113 degrees -Fahrenheit Meike... 113 C would have been a fire up there - while I was up there one day) working in that attic all week and when the kids wanted to go swimming they didn't get any resistance from me (except to finish the wiring I had to redo - another day I'll tell all about that) Anyway... We got some quality pool time, which I posted separately here, for the fun of it...
Swimming
We got an underwater film camera from the Grandparents which turned out great for taking shots of the kids jumping into the pool. There are is a sequence of Connor jumping in, so you can get an idea of the fun they were having. :)

4 comments:

Anthony and Karen said...

Mike

You are such an excellent photographer...even underwater! It is so great to see how much Connor and Ryan are enjoying the pool and it looks like a staycation is a great concept.

Reading your blog is a great reminder of years past...and brings back memories of you and your siblings having fun as well. Thanks for contributing so much to making my days...my weeks..and my life such an adventure! You are all loved,
Mom

Meike said...

Great swimming pictures! I didn't know you had such a big pool... Who wouldn't enjoy that at 113 degrees FAHRENHEIT ;)

Mike G (moobier) said...

it wasn't 113F outside, and now my attic is a much cooler 80F :)

It's dry this week, and I think we'll have more pool pictures tomorrow afternoon!

We'll send you cool thoughts from the backyard. :)

There is a concert tonight on the green... More pictures. More blog soon.

Meike said...

So the fan seems to work... 80F sounds much better than 113.

Today it's only about 15C outside over here (about 60F). So no reason to be jealous for me at the moment. Until last week we had tropical temperatures, and I would have been happy about a pool half the size of yours.

I look forward to more pictures and blog!