Besides our fabulous camping trip and sweltering in the ridiculous valley heat, we've been having a fun if insanely busy summer. Drew and I are on "vacation" from our mommy and me classes so we've been using our less-scheduled time to hang out and soak up the sun. (And of course, because I can't pretend to be someone I'm not, to come up with new scheduled things to do to keep us go-go-going!)

Drew and I have been doing swimming lessons this month and he's becoming quite the fish- he loves to be dragged around the pool chanting "kick-kick-kick" and splashing around with his arms. My greatest feat is that I've gotten him to actually enjoy being dunked and jumping in off the side with a big splash, which was pretty much my goal given that he's a little young to become the next Michael Phelps this calendar year. It's quite the production, however, to get both myself and him all geared up and ready to go and then cleaned and dressed in real clothing after the fact. It's one of those enigmas of parenthood that our 25 minute swim lessons seem to take up a good two and a half hours of a given day. Maybe the local pool has some sort of time-warping capabilities with which I am not fully versed.

Otherwise, we've been trying to find ways to enjoy the sun and have been frequenting his favorite parks, Kidspace children's museum, the Long Beach aquarium, etc. (Anywhere with water play is a huge boon not only for fun but to stay thermo-regulated, so pretty much all of our destinations require this stipulation.) When we're closer to home, one of our favorite new activities is fingerpainting- as you can see from the photo album I'm uploading, this is a multi-sensory experience for everyone involved, and often results in even poor Manu needing a bath. (Not to mention everyone else!)

Our other excitement was last week's trip to Las Vegas for the annual wood-working convention where we escaped one form of heat torture for another. (Notice a theme in my reporting here?) It was both Drew's and my first time there and he had a fabulous time hanging out with Grams and visiting relatives while Andy and I got to "work" the show and sight-see. (And win some money on the roulette tables!) It was fun but I can't imagine how anyone could sustain spending more than about 60 hours there without going totally crazy from the sensory overload.

Now we're back home and Andy's chugging through tons of school work and work work and we're resting before our next round of summer trips, checking out the local concerts in the park, and taste-testing our second batch of homebrew which just came to fruition this weekend. (In hindsight making a porter in the middle of summer was probably a little silly but it is tasty indeed so we'll manage to work our way through it regardless.)

I've got some pictures of our latest activities (some of which are long overdue and only barely qualify as "summer", my apologies for the time lag- better late than never). Click here to check them out.

And just as a teaser in case you weren't sure it was worth your time to check them out: