Keeping cool

Although it's cooler now than it was here in August, the temperature is still hitting the 30s and the humidity is high. Being in the shade does help though, so we called H's mum and dad the other day and got them to come over and help put up our gazebo (or tent-with-no-sides as it's known around here).

Then it was time to blow up the paddling pool and splash about!


Lately K has been bothered about water going in his eyes so I gave him my goggles to wear, which he found hilarious. I offered him his swimsuit but he opted for underpants instead :-)

The goggles came off after a while... as did the pants. But I won't embarrass Future Teenage K by putting those pictures here!

Our other cooling off project was digging for Ice Treasure. I've seen this idea on several blogs over the last few years and always thought I'd have a go at it sometime. I collected various items of treasure from around the house (coins, buttons, beads, pebbles, odd little plastic toys from Christmas crackers and so on) and froze them into a big block of ice.

Then K set to with his tools, a spoon and my pastry brush to get them all out! We worked on it together and enjoyed guessing which things would be freed next. The hammer and the brush were especially useful, as was the occasional spoonful of warm paddling pool water. The beauty of this activity is that if it gets a bit frustrating you can just do something else for 5 minutes and when you come back it will be easier!

I think I must have got a bit carried away in preparing this because, after about an hour of fine work by K, there was still about half of it left! K had had enough by then, so the ice block has gone back in the freezer for another day.

And of course T supervised it all...