How to keep cool on a hot summer day...and more...

This is our second week of school and we have fallen into a very nice and comfortable daily rhythm. I start trying to wake the girls shortly after 7:00. Analese sleeps like a teenager lately, and it is VERY hard to get her up and moving. We are usually fully dressed and sitting around the breakfast table around 8:00 or a little before. We are usually brushing teeth and moving toward the school room by 8:45 or so. We start the day with Bible. Then comes math and reading. That takes us until 10:45 or so. We then take "recess/lunch." We resume school shortly after noon. The afternoons are for writing, games and activities, stories and verses, and science or social studies (these two subjects alternate). We usually end with Spanish, unless we decided to stick it in before the break. We are typically done by 1:30 or so. Then it is time for Mariele's nap. Analese loves to make crafts during quiet time. Her latest obsession is printing off little projects from the Disney Junior website. Today she made a pirate princess hat. I had to talk her out of wearing the hat to bed. I told her it would probably get crunched up as she moved around on her pillow all night.

I've found that middle of the day exercise is working well for me. After I get organized for the next day's school, I hop on the treadmill while Analese is crafting. Today, after my run, I gave Analese this misting fan that was in the exercise room. I think my brother gave it to me. You fill it with ice water and pull the trigger to squirt yourself with cold water while the battery powered fan is running. Analese thought it solved her problem of getting hot and sweaty on her play set. She also chilled on the porch with me for a few moments while the fan was blowing on her.



Evening after dinner and before bath time is the perfect pool time for us lately. Mariele is morphing into a fish lately! It is amazing how well she is swimming.

Life is good. Summer is nice, even though we need rain badly.