It has been a while.....thoughts on summer, skunk traps, slivers, sounds of music and sunsets

Can I just say, I love summer. I feel like I've been running a school marthon and of course I finished last, -last one to turn in grades, last one to leave building, last one to start my vacation-but I finished. It has been a great year, but a busy and hectic one. I can't decide why I felt like a first year teacher again and was SOOOOO busy planning and grading, but it just seemed like it would never stop. I finally got outside last night and did some weeding in my perennials which are looking so beautiful and in my strawberries and it finally felt like summer. No worries, no cares, and today I slept in until...hold onto your socks...9:00 a.m. I never thought that I would think that sleeping in until 9:00 would be like heaven, but it was. I don't plan on making a practice of that because I have a lot of goals this summer, but it is sure nice....to actually feel like you don't have any responsibilities.
So lately, I've been trying to capture some of the funny, ingenious, and unique things my little boy does and I've been pretty successful in my quest. I've caught him just recently being very creative outside. We both feel like new people now that we can get outside. He was making something with all of these junk parts he found on the abandoned land next door to us. It was quite the set up as you will see and so I filmed him explaining his skunk trap. For some funny reason he is deathly afraid of skunks...we aren't sure, but if he gets a wiff of their scent or thinks there might be skunks, he kind of panics. I believe it is because of me...I do not like them either and I am deathly afraid of getting sprayed...I guess because I've actually had four or five close calls, but they are pretty funny stories now...well anyways, he devised a skunk trap...(we actually caught a skunk in a trap at our house because it kept coming and eating our cat food...a couple of times it about got Andy! It also sprayed in our garage once and we had a hard time sleeping for a couple of days, but not too bad.) So this is the skunk trap.

I also caught Peyton making some repairs on our deck. It was pretty funny...I'm glad I remembered when I got in trouble for using a roll of tape to make a tape ball. I remembered that and thus did not get mad at my industrious child and his explanation of what he did was that now we would get slivers when we touched those poles on our deck. I thought it was pretty clever of him.
(sorry anyone know how to switch the angle?)

He also decided since his mother won't buy him drums that he'll make up his own. He really does crack us up sometimes with what he comes up with. This was pretty clever...he uses chineechopsticks...or our chopsticks as his drum sticks and various buckets around the house and created his own drum set. Let's just say it was much more pleasant that an actual set of drums.

And finally the other night after a rainstorm we caught a beautiful sunset. I didn't really capture the beauty, but I sure love the sunsets that happen right out my window. I love living in this place. It sure is beautiful and peaceful and I look forward to a summer full of peace and relaxation with the only thing being hard is my yardwork. Happy summer....and look forward to a little more constant blogging...I'm excited about that too!