Summertime Fun

Children are out of school and it’s time to render events to entertain and preoccupy the cavalry. Families are getting together plans for their summer vacations, but vacations only last a week, what about the other two and a half months you have remaining in summer? If you haven’t spent hours reading craft books and buying supplies from local stores already then you are in luck. Here are some chaos cures for the summertime craze that is about to begin.

For simple ideas that don’t cost a dime (or don’t cost much more than one) try one of these. Have your child invite a friend over and gather your craft supplies for a day of inventing and design. Have your child invent an imaginary product that they can then come u with a commercial for. They can design the layout of the item on paper using markers and colored pencils, even construct the invention if it isn’t too much. Then have them create a commercial to sell their product. They can dress up as caricatures, write a script, and direct the whole set. If you have a digital camera, film it, and display it on the web for other parents to get creative with.

Children can create hundreds of homemade projects using household ingredients. Remember those volcanoes made in science class from vinegar and baking soda? Try helping your kids create their own silly putty. This is very simple. Mix one part white glue to one part liquid starch and blend to thick consistency. This material will stretch, snap, and bounce. Best of all when it gets old throw it out and make a new batch.

Create glitter spinners which children can use to hang in the windows to reflect light. Using wax paper have your child draw designs on the paper. Tell them to make thick lines. Now they can select colored glitter to sprinkle on the designs. Let dry for several hours and then peel the glitter spinners from the paper. Pierce with fishing wire and hang in front of windows to catch light.

One more idea is a beautiful way to create sand drawings in a sandbox or any where there is a surplus of sand. Using several spray bottles of water, add food coloring (about 30 drops per bottle) to create different colored waters in the bottles. You can use pans filled with sand or create sandbox art. Give each child a few bottles of colors and let them create sand paintings and designs. They can easily turn the sand with a kid shovel and start over. Take digital pictures of the art and hang it up.

The summer heat is not very forgiving. It’s relentless in its burning assault on your body, mind, and spirit. The extreme heat can even make you sick if you’re in it too long. But just because it has the power to suck the life right out of you, summer doesn’t have to kill your coolness even on the hottest days.

There are parts of the summer that don’t afford us much outside time. When it happens to be one of those days that no matter what you do, you would still end up being a sweating uncomfortable mess, book yourself a spa appointment. Make it a home spa appointment and you won’t even have to go out to the car and drive anywhere. Any spa worth going to, will keep the temperatures in a range that will allow you to wear a fine, or not so fine, terry cloth robe. So go ahead and shamelessly run the central air without constantly checking the meter to crunch the numbers on what your estimated energy usage will be. There are just some temperatures that call for us to bite the bullet and chalk it up to a summer time expense.

After a nice few hours at the spa you can enjoy a light but tasty summer lunch. You can have fresh fruit, a salad, and green tea with mint and lemon. This lunch will usually come complimentary with your spa package; lucky you.

Now that you are nice and relaxed, it’s time for a summer afternoon nap. One of the greatest pleasures of summer is being able to take a nap in your cutest summer pajamas, and not have to explain, or fake sickness. Everybody knows that the hot weather calls for naps, even if you had the air set to 75 degrees all day.

By the time you wake from your nap you most likely be ready to eat a good dinner because of how light your lunch was. At this point in the day the sun should be going down, marking the sky with incredible colors that will fill you with energy. Enjoy some more green tea and watch the sun set, then put on an outfit that exposes as much skin as you can legally get away with. Once it gets dark out the temperatures get down to a bearable range and you don’t even have to worry about wearing sun screen.

Going out at night during the summer months is different than it is in the winter. Everybody’s mood seems to be set to vacation mode. It’s dark, it’s a little warm with a cool breeze, and fun is in the air. You can even stay up later and not feel it as much the next morning, as you would in the winter. It’s a summer thing.

You will be amazed at how many things there are to do on summer nights. There are outdoor concerts in the park. Night street fairs usually happen at least one day of the week. And there are even outdoor movies in the park. Grab a big thick blanket, to lie on, pick a kind of private spot and take somebody you really like with you.

When you get home don’t bother to put the lights on, you used enough electricity for one day. Just light some candles and spend the rest of the night thinking about how cool you were on such a hot day.