a trip to the aviary

We have a pass that lets us do a lot of fun stuff during the summer: water parks, baseball games, amusement parks, football games, visits to a bird aviary and a few other fun activites. Today we decided to visit the bird aviary. It was very hot, but overall it was pretty fun. We watched the bird show and wandered around to look at all of the different birds.

This peacock was my favorite bird that we saw. It was sitting on the roof of one of the structures. I don't know how it got up there because I didn't think they could fly. It was pretty cool though.

We found quite a few ugly birds while we were there. This one was one of the ugliest ones. 

my day planner

I always have a hard time trying to remember where I'm supposed to be at what time and what I have to do. I finally decided to try using a day planner. I had a plain black one, but it didn't really appeal to me. I thought I'd try to make it look a bit cuter. I covered it in paper and added a button to keep it closed. (To learn how to do this click here) I was a little nervous to put a paper doily on the front because I was afraid it would get all ripped up. I took the risk and modge-podged it on. I've been using it a ton. Not only is it very useful, but it's very cute.

chalk art

It was a beautiful sunny day, so we grabbed a bucket of chalk and headed outside. It seemed the sidewalk was just begging to be decorated.

the small things in life

The small things in life are often the best things in life. Laughter, smiles, a kind action, some nice words, or in my case today: cookies. We baked some frozen cookie dough. It took about 10 minutes, but it made my day a whole lot better.

a game of Boggle

Boggle has been one of our family's favorite games for quite some time. It's not the most fast paced game and it doesn't require a lot of strategy, but we have fun playing it. We took it out on the picnic table the other night for a quick game.

Summer Equinox

Happy Summer Equinox! Today is the longest day of the whole year. From now until Winter Solstice, the days will get shorter and shorter. It's a pretty amazing day if you think about it. I decided to create a new tradition and watch the sunrise on Summer Equinox and Winter Solstice each year. I did it for the first time today. Luckily I can see where the sun rises from my bed, so I didn't have to go outside. It took a long time for the sun to rise. It looked the same for about an hour, just a dim little light peeking up over the mountains. I was about ready to give up and get some more sleep when I looked out the window and saw that the sun was almost all the way up. I almost missed it! I quickly snapped some pictures before it could move anymore. It was gorgeous and well worth getting up at 5:50am.

This is what it looked like for the first hour, just a dim glow peeking up over the mountain.

a nature walk

We went on a little nature walk the other day. It was good for the exercise, but it was also a lot of fun. There were lizards all over the place. You would hear them in the bushes and then they would run out onto the path. It was hard to get a good picture of them because they were so fast and small. I think I got at least one good one.

It's kind of hard to see the lizard, but it was the best picture I got of it. Those lizards are just too fast.