Summer Search.... Take Two!

A hundred years or so ago (way back in 2006) the kids and I embarked on a grand summer adventure: The Summer Search for the Perfect Park. We had a blast during Ben's little three week summer break scouting out parks around the Salt Lake and Utah Valleys and visiting them to see if we could figure out which was the best park in our general area. We had a blast. I blogged about it way back then when I was a Xanga blogger. Well as it turns out, I just learned that Xanga is going to be shutting down very soon. I feel so fortunate to have heard the news and I was able to archive all my old entries. I'll be copy/pasting them all over to a new blog I've created just for the purpose of housing my old blog entries. I started the labor of love by transferring all those Summer Search for the Perfect Park entries! So if you are interested you can click HERE and find some fun pictures of my kids 7 years ago and lots of details and descriptions of the parks we visited in Utah.

Anyhoooo....

It's too freaking hot in Louisiana to attempt such a summer expedition. There are some pretty great parks around here, but to really enjoy them without roasting and/or melting we'd have had to do an Early Spring Search, or perhaps an In Between Rainstorms in Winter Search. We didn't do that... so here we are in the first couple weeks of summer break looking for something to do, preferably with a bit of sunshine involved, and preferably without any heatstroke involved.

Slidell Pelicans on Parade to the rescue!

There's a lovely fundraiser going on right now in our little town. Local businesses can sponsor a pelican and pay to have it painted by a local artist. Then the pelican is put on public display at the sponsoring business's location. Brightly colored pelicans have been popping up all over town the last month or so and we're always delighted to spot a new one. The funds raised go to an organization similar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, but that specifically benefits local children. I gathered some information and determined that there are currently FIFTY-ONE of these fabulous art creations around town, so we have officially set out on our....

Summer Search for the Pelicans on Parade

It doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely as Summer Search for the Perfect Park, but I have to admit to really appreciating the fact that I can still abbreviate it as SSPP!

Today we managed to track down and get pictures with a whopping 16 pelicans! Next week we'll go searching for more. We will not stop until we find 'em all!! (Unless they add a ton more... or we run out of time! They're only guaranteed to be on display until mid-August.)

You can click on the pictures individually to open a larger version to see better detail. My favorites are the Starry Night pelican and the Mardi Gras King pelican. I really loved the purple and pink one (2nd pic) too. It was covered in crawfish designs and very pretty, but placed in a really obnoxious place for photographing so you really can't see how cool it was. Boo.

Enjoy!

Kid Funnies - Toby Style

Tonight was Brady's turn to say family prayer. Our kids would fight so much every single night over whose turn it was to pick a song and say a prayer that we finally had to put a schedule into place to keep the drama to a minimum. Sunday is Willy's day. Monday is mine. Tuesday is Ben, Wednesday is a free-for-all (and drama always ensues...) because half the family is at scouts that night but I usually put the two Littles to bed before the "men" come home, Thursday is Brady, Friday is Toby and Molly gets to take Saturday. Whew. Problem solved.

Did I mention that when it's your night to pick the song and pray you also get to sit by Mom? Oh yes. Because the fight over who gets to sit by Mom is even more heated than the battle for Say-er of the Prayer.

Back to the story...

Tonight was Brady's night to say family prayer. He shoved Molly out of his way reminded Molly to scoot over so he could sit by me, being his night and all. He chose a children's hymn ("I Hope They Call Me on a Mission" if you happen to be curious). And then he prayed. And it was a lovely, simple prayer thanking Heavenly Father that Ben made it home from his JrROTC trip to Pensacola safely, that the storms we had today didn't do any damage, that we had a nice day in general. He asked that God bless us with a happy day tomorrow, a good day at work for Willy tomorrow, a good storm-free night's sleep, etc. He finished his prayer and a split second after our amens were said Toby announced

"New high score!! Only two 'umms'!!"

I'm not sure Brady appreciated the way I burst into hysterical laughter. I was just so completely caught off guard. We had no idea that Toby was keeping score. We are, however, impressed that he's paying enough attention to the prayers being said that he can actually do the score keeping.

In any case...way to go Brady! Two umms? Not bad at all!