Summer Fun

Swimming

I really had fun swimming and I finally jumped off the diving board (Man, do I hate the diving bored) a whole bunch of times. I had a close encounter with a black widow spider that was a little too scary. While I was waiting in line for the slide, I happened to look down at my sleeve. I noticed a huge black widow crawling up towards my face, I screamed and flicked the spider at my friend. She didn’t know what is was and luckily flicked it off when it touched her. Nobody else believed that there was a black widow on my arm until some kid actually saw the spider on the ground beneath the slide.

John's Incredible Pizza

Going to John's was really fun. Everybody in summer fun was in a big party room. My friends and I did not have a lot of tokens so we found ways to have fun without money. We tried to play air hockey with a dime but that did not work too well. We also “raced” by sitting in the cars and using the little demo things. I really didn’t think my friends and I would have much to do with out money, but I was wrong. We all had a good time.

Other Stuff

This week we made some lei’s; mine consisted of mainly fruit loops and huge paper flowers. We also watched the movie Cats and Dogs and played a game called shoe toss. Shoe toss is played with two teams, everybody takes off their shoes and somebody throws all the shoes in different directions. Then, everybody runs to find and put on their shoes and the first team to sit in a line with their shoes on wins. We also spend a lot of time in the game room. The game room has an indoor basketball thing, air hockey, video games, foose ball, and this weird game no one can figure out.

Phillip The Fireman

One call Phillip could have gone on was an accident where an SUV drove into the river (no one died). For some reason, his company was not paged out.

Another call Phillip should have gone to was to cover the Piedra station because Piedra firefighter were out fighting a fire that covered 70 acres. Again Phillip's company was not paged out. He thinks that in all of the commotion, with the fire and all, they were forgotten.

Phillip is VERY anxious to go on a call.

A TRUE STORY

He sat on my lap. My legs were crossed, over his, to keep him from kicking. My left arm wrapped tightly around his mid section, his little arms trapped beneath mine. Now he couldn’t hit me, push away or shove. My right hand against his forehead holding his head against my chest. He was trapped.

The woman walked slowly towards us. In a gentle voice she looked him in the eyes.

“This will be over quick, don’t fight me, ok?”

In her hand I could see silver metal glinting in the fluorescent lights, a stainless steel point. She tried to remain casual, and hide it behind her back. I could tell she was nervous. I was too.

He must have seen that sharp metal point as well. Or maybe he finally figured out the reason we were here. He began wailing. He screamed for help, he yelled ‘no’ as loudly as he could. Under great duress, he did the unthinkable, something I have never seen before nor would have ever expected; He begged for his sister to rescue him.

Now I knew he was truly upset. This was not going to be easy.

She quickly came at him and I tightened my grip. She worked quickly and carefully and during the struggle, she nicked him and drew blood. He screamed even louder, crying for help over and over again. My legs were falling asleep and my arms were getting tired. A dot of blood began to form on his tiny wound.

Finally, in exhaustion, he went limp in my arms. He whimpered and called for his blanket. As he inserted his thumb into his mouth I loosened my grip on his arms and wiped the blood from his ear.

When it was finally over he ran to the waiting area and fell to the floor sobbing. His sister trying unsuccessfully to soothe him, I paid the woman for her services. I gave her a little extra for her trouble and apologized to her, sorry that her first hair cut of the day was on my son.

After a couple of cheese crackers, a cup of Kool-Aid and a much needed nap; I think he's happy with his haircut!

A VERY IMPORTANT POLL

A MIDSUMMER RECIPE

Midsummer is a celebration of the summer solstice, which is on June 21 (some people say it is the 22nd or the 23d ). One old Midummer tradition was called wheel rolling. People would set a wooden wheel on fire and roll it down a hill. If the wheel stayed burning the whole way down, it was a good omen for the harvests.

In Sweden, women and girls would bathe in a river and in Russia women bathed in a river and dipped in a figure that was supposed to be St.John. this was supposed to be a charm to bring summer rain to nourish the crops.

It was also custom for people to watch the sun go down and than stay awake for the rest of the night and watch the sun rise. A seasonal recipe

Coamhain Soup; this is a very simple soup, it sounds good to me. This issue I decide not to use a Jello recipe because I didn’t think it would fit in with the Midsummer article.

½ cucumber
7 cups tomatoes
1 green bell pepper
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
2 bread slices
2-3 tbsp. Olive oil
5 cups water
½ tsp. Chili powder
1 pinch black pepper

Blanch and skin the tomatoes. Put everything into a blender and blend. Heat through.

Mint Tea ; a well liked recipe, as it is useful as a restorative when staying up all night on midsummer.

2 tsp. Dried mint 1 cup boiling water

Infuse the mint in the boiling water for 10 minutes. Strain and serve, adding a little sugar or honey to taste.

The White Family BBQ (& birthday party)

It was kind of weird because even though everyone had assigned foods to bring, everybody thought they would bring a little extra. We ended up having like four giant packages of hot dog buns and more side dishes then anything else.

My cousins Brandon, Nicholas and I ended up having a huge water gun fight. Aunt Jackie brought this really good strawberry pizza and she also brought a snow cone maker. It was a really nice party and everybody hung out in in the shade and talked, and the younger kids were playing with the water guns. There was also a horse shoe competition going on.

Since Paul had to take a nap, we left early. By the way, I'm sorry for my behavior as I was leaving; I did not want to leave and I was in a bad mood. My mom thought I should apologize.

My mom only got a few pictures of people and she says the are not very good at all. Even worse, for some reason they refuse to be uploaded to this website. So apologies from mom as well.