Inexpensive Travel Journal

Are you vacationing this year? Are you doing the "Stay Home" vacation? Either way...Here is a great way for the kids to journal the fun things your are doing this summer
Pick up a composition book for each of the kids.
You can make a book cover with fabric and add pockets or allow them to cover the front with pictures, stickers, paper and mod  podge for a one of a kind look

Let them buy postcards, keep the ticket stubs and brochures  from activities you  have done and at the end of the day, they can glue in the items they have collected and then journal about what they saw and did.

This is inexpensive memento that they will have for years to come. 

Off to Dallas

 Don't follow your Dreams. Chase them!

I am off and running "with the bulls"... Dallas here I come...to a trade show!
These bulls are Bronze Longhorn Sculptures at the Pioneer Plaza in Dallas.

3 Minute Bean Relay Game

3 minute Bean  Relay

Divide everyone into teams

• Place a bowl of dried beans at the starting line for each team
• Set a grocery paper bag 20 feet from each bowl

When the race begins

• The first person on each team uses a wooden spoon to scoop up beans from his teams bowl
• Race to dump the beans in to their team bag
• Hands off his spoon to the next player on their team
• Game continues until time is up
• The team with the most beans wins.

The Journey

The only journey is

the JOURNEY within.

I am off to Portland... See you Friday!

Love One Another

Love one another

but, make not a bond of Love

let it rather be

a moving Sea between 

The Shores of your souls

kahil gibran

asl word of the day....Thirsty

thristy adj. having a thirst: craving liquid

Related form: thirst n same sign used for parched

• (Indicates a dry throat) move the extended right index finger, palm facing in and finger pointing up, downward on the length of the neck, bending the finger down as it moves. 

Joke of the week

Q: What kind of pool can't you swim in?

A: A car pool!

Bear Tales...The Brown Bear

The Brown Bear
Mary Austin

Now the wild bees that hive in the rocks
are winding their horns, elfin shrill,
and hark, at the pine tree the woodpecker knocks, 
and the speckled grouse pipes on the hill.
Now the addler's dull brood wake to run,
Now the sap mount abundant and good.
And the brown bear has turned with his side to the sun
In his lair in the depth of the wood,
Old Honey Paw wakes in the wood. 


Oh a little more slumber says he
And a little more turning to sleep
But he feels the spring fervor that hurries the bee
And the hunger that makes the trout leap
So he amble by thicket and trail
So he noses the tender young shoots,
In the spring of the year at the sign of the quail
For sappy and succulent roots

Oh as still goes the wolf on his quest
As the spotted snake glides through the rocks
And the deer and the sheep count the lightest foot best
and slinking and sly trots the fox
But fleet-foot and light-foot will stay
and fawns by their mothers will quail
at the saplings that snap and the thickets that sway
When Hone-Paw takes to the trail
When hw shuffles and grunts on the trail


He has gathered the ground squirrel's hoard
He has rifles the store of the bees, 
He has caught the young trout at the shoals of the ford
And stripped the wild plums from the trees
So robbing the raging he goes
And the right to his pillage makes good
Til rou round out the year at the first of the snows
In his lair in the depths of the wood
Old Honey-Paw sleeps in the wood.

Banana Frozen Treat

Ready, Set,  Go! It's Banana Time!

This banana shake is yummy frozen treat.
Too thick? serve with a spoon

3 bananas ( the riper the sweeter)
2 tablespoons milk

Peel the bananas, cut them in half width-wise, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze until firm
Place the frozen banana in a blender, add the milk and puree until blended and creamy
Serve in small paper cups with small plastic spoons
makes 4 servings

River

Advice from a River
by Ilan Shamis

• Go with the Flow
• Slow Down and Meander
• Go around the Obstacles
• Stay Current
• The Beauty is in the Journey!

Button Fun Activities

Are the kids bored with their Toys? Here some fun Button activities...Just dump your button box on the kitchen table , add glue, fabric, yarn, cardstock , elastic thread and pie plate for some creative time with the kids.

Button Art: Glue buttons and bits of fabric or yarn onto card stock to create a textured portrait or landscape
Pan for Buttons: Place a pie plate on the floor near a wall, line up 10-12 feet away, and see who can pitch the most buttons off the wall into the pan.
Make button jewelry: String elastic thread through the holes of assorted flat buttons, tie it into a loop for a wrist and ankle bracelet
Build a button tower: See who can stack the most buttons with the tower falling over.

ASL word of the day...Thank You

Thank v. To express gratitude to: Thank you Bekka!
Same sign used for Thank you

• (The hand take gratitude from the mouth and presents it to another) Move the fingertips of the right open hand, palm in and fingers pointing up, from the mouth forward and down, ending with the palm angled up in front of the chest.

Bear Tales...Happiness

 HAPPINESS
jeanne de lamarter

 Oh, Mother, don't you love the wind?
It circles round the hill
It makes my hair stand up on end
and makes my breath stand still!

Oh, Mother, don't you love the wind?
It whistle flying by
It makes umbrellas of my dress,
and tumbles up the sky!