Oops…a little late (later) than usual today. But where did Monday go?? My sister was here this weekend, a kind of impromptu, last minute, we-just-realized-that-a-free-ticket-was-going-to-expire, sort of trip. She was only here for 3 days, and we didn’t do much but just hang out, but now I feel mopey again. The short little visits are almost worse, I think. You just get a taste of the fun, and then they are gone again. It was the same way when my parents were here last month – long enough to see them and realize how much you miss them when they are not there, and then you are back to missing them again. (Plus poor Dad was so sick, we still have a full agenda of things to take them to do! Next time…)

Anyhow, there is my excuse. Not too much crafting. I actually did do 2 birthday cards for friends last week and forgot to take photos of them before I sent them off. One of them is for someone’s birthday tomorrow…so make sure to stop and give her some love on Wednesday.

I did remember to take a pic of the card Addie and I did for Hope – her little friend who had a crazy fun birthday party over the weekend. But I didn’t take a pic of the inside where she signed her own name, with no help from me! And it is legible! It was a very proud moment for her.

Ugh. The colors are so, so off in that. But I don’t have time to go back and fix it. You get the idea. I have a list on my desk of cards I need to make in the next 2 weeks before vacation. 17 cards! Yikes. I better get on that.

But on to my new obsession! Which is indeed crafty, but requires a little bit of planning on my part. We were at a friend’s last week and she has a whole summer curriculum planned out for her kids, with all kinds of experiments, crafts, learning, field trips, etc. It completely inspired me and got me so jacked up to do a similar (a little more subdued, perhaps) program for the girls. At first I was trying to get rid of the stuff we have to do this summer so we could just chill, but I already got an “I’m bored, Mama!” from Emma and school isn’t even out! So I think we need a little structure and continued learning in our long summer days.

Last night I sat down with my trusty markers and posterboard and mapped out our Summer School activities. Emma is beside herself with excitement. She keeps asking me – where we are going, what we are going to learn, who is coming on the field trips, do we get homework? It just goes on and on…(She is such a first-born girl like her Mama! Homework? YES!!)

Addie is a little bit more, well, she is cautiously optimistic that it will be fun, but not on the same bandwagon as Em.
Let’s just put it that way.

I set it up so each week we’d have a topic and then I can set up field trips around our “subject.” We are doing ocean animals (field trip to Aquarium and actually 2 weeks of this one, since we are going to do stuff in Hawaii, too!), bugs and butterflies (field trip to the Nat. History Museum’s Butterfly Pavillion), botany – flowers and trees (field trip to Huntington Gardens), planets and stars (field trip to Griffith Observatory), dinosaurs (field trip to Nat. History Museum again – dino exhibits), and then just animals – differences between mammals/reptiles/birds (field trip to the Zoo). And, the girls really want to try camping. So we’ll take a week to prepare for that and do a little overnight tent camping trip mid-July.

That should keep us busy, right? I’m using these books for the academic stuff and I’ll just tie our crafts into whatever subjects we are studying that week. I’m really excited about this. So I feel like my scrapbooking and sewing will probably take a back seat for the summer (again!) while I do fun little plans for summer school stuff – but we should definitely have some Crafty Tuesdays in all of this.

Any other ideas or websites you have to help with the Great Summer School Project of ’09? Have anything to share today??