More Good Times (Especially Cuz They're Free!)

When the school year starts around here, it doesn't necessarily mean summer's done. With temperatures still in the 90's, there's still lots of fun to be had. Fishing, of course, continues. This time, however, Gabie started getting in on it. He's great when he gets to hold what he calls a "fish pole."
As soon as there's something on it, though, that's a different story! Last week, Gabie had the attention span and patience enough to wait for a fish to hook on his line and caught his first fish! Look carefully at his face in the following picture to see what he thought about it:
Poor Gabie; he didn't like Mommy holding the fish that close and Mommy couldn't stop laughing! After that, he went back to exploring the rocks and sand around the lake! In our other activities, Gabie has remained cautious at first while observing the older kids. After a free summer movie at the theater, we walked to a nearby fountain where kids can often be found running through it wearing their clothes. It's just too fun to resist. We knew this would happen ahead of time, so we packed extra clothes and towels in the van. It didn't take Faith and Dylan long to get completely soaked.
Cautious Gabie would go close to the water and then run away for the first 10 minutes.
Once Mommy picked him up and swung him around in the water, though, he didn't mind getting soaked after that!

Yesterday, we got a wonderful surprise. During our recess break, we started picking up chalk when a city worker stopped in front of our house. Leaning out his truck window, he asked if the kids would like to play in the water. The fire hydrant was scheduled to be flushed for 45 minutes and he didn't mind if the kids wanted to play in it. Are you kidding? How many times have we watched it get flushed from inside the house and never played in it!! So Faith ran in and got her bathing suit on while the boys just got their clothes wet.
The water current was so strong that the kids could slide down the road on their bottoms with the current taking them down the road. We made sure they didn't get too close to the fire hydrant but they got a lot closer than in the above picture.

The water filled the sides of the road where it would get very hot right away. The kids picked a spot down the road where the water pooled and called it their "hot tub." Then they'd run back up to the hydrant and get blasted a little while. Right after my camera's battery died, a couple of neighbor kids that were home came out to play in it too. Afterwards, the city employee had to test the water and gave Vince a science lesson on chlorine residual testing. We made sure to thank our friendly city worker over and over again for this opportunity.

Our cul-de-sac has also come in very handy for our favorite outdoor activity: basketball. Everyone's game has improved dramatically since we installed the hoop this spring, even Faith's.

And the kids' favorite Saturday-night treat: sleeping in the living room. Since all of the main floors down here are on concrete, we use our mattresses! Every mattress in the house comes out and is squeezed together in the living room. We make three big bowls of popcorn and get it all over our beds while watching a movie. Then we sleep in and go to the second service at church on Sunday morning.

I have so many wonderful childhood memories of traditions like these; fishing, basketball, swimming in ditches after a heavy rain; and I hope our children enjoy carrying on memories like these to future generations!