Signs of Life on Planet Vernal: Summer Daze

Summer is almost over on Planet Vernal. It gets dark right around 7:30 and the temps at night are in the 40's and 50's. If you ask me, summer went by way too fast. These pics were taken about 10 minutes from my house at a place called Red Fleet.

Aqua girl here is actually my 10-year-old niece, Shane. We brought her and her twin sister, Reed, home with us after a trip to Las Vegas. They stayed with us for two weeks and even though one of them suffered some pretty serious bouts of homesickness the first couple of nights, I think they had a really good time.

Since it was fairly late in the day when we finished our swim, we decided it would be easiest to just BBQ some burgers at home. Reed overheard this and said to me "Are we going to cook burgers on the grill and listen to music and eat outside and sit in lawn chairs and talk about the good old days?!" When I told her that was EXACTLY what we were gonna do she said "Oh my gosh! I've wanted to do that my WHOLE LIFE!"

So just to up the ante, Superman and I pulled out the tent, let the girls outfit it with air mattresses, blankets, flashlights, stuffed animals and board games and they spent the majority of their nights giggling in the backyard under the stars. It made me want to be a kid again. (sigh).

The girls LOVED the dogs and were completely fascinated by IZ's pet rats. Yes, I said rats. Two of them. One of whom is HUGE! We're talking large kitten huge. And the other one had an ear problem and always has her head sideways. She's our sideways rat. She's much smaller and actually kinda cute...kinda. The last night the girls were here, Reed brought the small rat into the backyard and our Great Dane, Cleo came over for a sniff. Reed, not knowing any better held the rat out to Cleo thinking, I don't know, that Cleo might lick it or something. But no...faster than any of us could react Cleo had the rat in her jaws. You could have heard my shriek for miles, which caused Cleo to just as quickly release her hold on the poor little thing. I was seriously expecting a headless rat but THANK GOODNESS!!! the rat was in one piece and just fine. I almost had a heart attack.

We did lots of fun things this summer, in between Superman's grueling work schedule. Lots of BBQ's. Lots of time hanging out with our friends. A couple of road trips. One to Las Vegas where we didn't win ANY money. Oh wait, that was just like the last trip to Vegas. We DONATED! To the cause....of....hmmmm....

Anywho, I'll just share some more pics of Red Fleet since it pretty much sums up the summer for us and the kids. Enjoy!

LT, Reed and Shane on the rocks at the lake shore.