Summer Short Stack

Summer is short. And that sucks. So I thought I'd document a little of what we've been up to so I can look back next February and remember that life may be worth living after all.

Summer finally got hot this past week. Everyone keeps talking about global warming, but it took until mid-July for it to get hot enough to blow up our super classy inflatable pool.

Emily has been having a fantastic time at her summer camp program. She has been going to swim lessons, the children's garden, the movies, bowling, laser tag, a bison ranch, museums, and last week they participated in plenty of Frontier Days excitement. 

This has caused a bit of friction with her sister, who is too young for summer camp and is still participating in the preschool program. While Jane has lots of fun, it's hard to compete with the constant party of Emily's program. Next year Jane will get to do all that fun stuff, but we thought we would take a bit of time for some fun local activities during frontier days.

Somehow we thought that standing in line for 45 minutes for pancakes constituted fun. We've never participated in a CFD pancake breakfast before, so we thought we'd give it a go and hopped in line. 

There were 8,000 people in front of us. That's a real number, not an exaggeration for those of you who have never seen this phenomenon before. They occasionally announce the number that have been served and shortly after we got our grub, they said eight thousand and some odd had been pancaked. (Interestingly, spell checker believes pancaked is a real word, although I believe it is defining it as "squashed flat" and not "served a flapjack")

But eventually we made it to the front of the line. The pancakes are tossed into the air where they are caught by local boy scouts and other volunteers, which explains the pancake on the roof of the chuckwagon. The scale of the breakfast is due to the fact that it is a practice for disaster preparedness. When Yellowstone blows, this town won't starve. That is, if we're not all killed in the initial explosion, which is a very real possibility. 

Eventually the girls were rewarded with pancakes. And we were rewarded with their gleeful smiles. Because Chris and I are participating in a dietbet, wherein we both gambled money we can't afford to lose on the promise that we will both shed 4% of our respective body weights. So no pancakes for us. But we feasted on community spirit and were filled to the brim. Just kidding. We were starving. Next year maybe we will go to Ihop, where you do have to pay, but you don't have to stand in line for 45 minutes. 

After that, we tried to watch the Thunderbirds from a premium spot. When they were delayed an hour, we adjourned to our neighborhood park and the kids played while we caught a bit of the show. It was nice to have them back after budget cuts caused them to be disbanded last year. 

And then, sadly, I do not have any pictures of the best part of this week. My friend, Michelle, came for a visit and I got to spend an entire glorious afternoon chatting with her in the park while our kids played. It was heaven. 

We have one month left until school starts for both kiddos and I hope it won't pass by in a blur, but I am pretty sure it will. Next weekend we are shopping for school supplies. That's when Summer begins to pale and sicken and we all know the old gal will soon be gone for good. We'll try to make the most of it while she lasts.