Jun 26, 2008

Mid-Summer's Night

6/26/2008 — cori
We found yet another event to celebrate (like we needed an excuse) - Mid-Summer's Night, the longest day of the year. The kids must have been counting down the days till this, the summer solstice (which I just learned about, like, in college - how do they know this stuff already?). They kept asking me, "Mommy, how are we going to celebrate the summer solstice?" I prefer to refer to it as the rest of the commoners and say 'the longest day of the year' or 'mid-summer's night'. Either way, I couldn't explain the whole 'solstice' thing in a coherent manner if anyone happened to ask, so I tend to stick with vocabulary I know.

Gavin's smart idea was to make a cupcake for each of the hours of the day the sun was up. I like his train of thought - only problem with that is we're going to be eating cupcakes all night long making the trip to the pool the next day a little nerve racking if you plan on wearing any type of spandex covering.

Chuck's idea was to sleep on the trampoline and gaze at the stars until we fell asleep. Very romantic, but I don't think the kids care about romance. So, we opted to look thru the telescope before hopping over the dewy grass and jumping head long into the tent set up in the back yard. Since it was Chuck's idea, he got the pleasure of sleeping outside with the kiddos. Lesson learned: camping is much more fun done NOT in a suburban neighborhood backyard!

We thought a bug walk at dark with our flashlights would also be fun, but that didn't happen since Chloe fell asleep on my lap just as it started to get dark. Plus, if you think about it, what would we do if we actually found a bug in the dark with only a teensy-tiny flash light to illuminate the creepy-crawly creature. I don't know that we thought that idea out to it's fullest extent and am rather glad we had to skip it. I find it hard to look at bugs in the daylight, let alone the dark.

Of course, what would Mid-Summer's Night be without a Dress Up For Dinner Night with the wonderfully fun theme of 'bugs and flowers'. My friend Kim was in town visiting and seemed just as excited about our crazy dinner dress up party as we were. People started getting their costumes ready hours before dinner - I was impressed. Needless to say, we went through much glue, construction paper and research to pick just the right outfit to wear.

And here is the group picture! What a silly bunch. Gavin and I actually had to look through a book to come up with something creative. He chose a scorpion fly (thus, the ninja looking get-up). I am a Black-eyed Susan. Bennett is a fire-fly. Kim is a lady-bug. Chloe is a butterfly. And Chuck, my dear husband who is extremely secure in his man-hood, is a purple petunia. And there you have it. We had a blast celebrating the longest day of the year. If nothing else, it was definitely memorable!

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