The kids are counting down the days until school lets out for the summer – 2-1/2 weeks (which, according to Princess Nagger, is 2-1/2 weeks too long! heh…) I picked up a little laptop for Little Dude to utilize this summer – I told him we’ll be doing a sort of ‘summer school’ so he keeps in a forward motion of learning to make sure he’s ready for 3rd grade next year. I bet it will help since he’s been having sort of a struggle this year.

He’s actually excited about the prospect of daily ‘school’ sessions – crazy kid! 

Speaking of crazy (cool)… Did you hear about the dude who buys thrift store paintings and adds monsters to them? Most are kinda funky looking, but this one is actually pretty cool:

ChrisMcMahonAddsMonsters

You can check out some of Chris McMahon’s work here. I told Princess Nagger we’ll have to pick up some paintings at Goodwill and have her add some of her cool critter creations to them. She’s game!

Speaking of (cool) monsters… Did you know we have a cool troll sculpture under one of the bridges in Seattle? Check it out:

AuroraBridgeTrollSeattle

It was originally constructed in 1990 over a period of seven weeks by four local artists named Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter, and Ross Whitehead, and was sponsored by the Fremont Arts Council as part of a competition for a new art project.

This massive sculpture is 18 ft high, weighs 13,000 lbs, and is made of steel rebar, wire, and concrete. A long beard and shaggy hair hangs down to the ground past his sad mouth and single, shining eye. In his left hand, he crushes an old style Volkswagen Beetle, which originally contained a time capsule of Elvis memorabilia; it was removed after the car was vandalized and the California license plate was stolen.

The crushed car and out-of-state plate were meant as protests against outsiders development. Pretty cool, no?

It’s time once again for Leslie’s (aka Rory Bore) Tuesday Coffee Chat!

This week’s prompt or question is:

“Summer Bucket List!!! You don’t want to have a cruel summer, so time to plan all the fun.”

Since school still has almost 3 weeks left, I haven’t even begun to think of a bucket list for this summer. But right off the top of my head, I do know we plan to return to one of our favorite camping spots from last year several times this year:

PrincessNaggerCamping MountainCamping2015f

This time we’ll be fishing in that river, and hopefully there won’t be a limitation to that like there was last year because of the unusually hot dry summer. It’s possible we’ll have a repeat of the heat this summer, if this past weekend’s heat wave is any indication of what’s to come.

That also means on my bucket list should be to set up the pool I got last year (I waited until they were on sale late in the summer, so I decided to wait until this year to set it up to make all the work of setting it up worth it – in that we’d get to use it all summer long instead of just a few weeks):

SwimmingPool

I still want to pick up a saltwater system (vs. using the regular filtration system with chemicals – cheaper and more sanitary than chemicals…and no green hair!) and the hubby and I are brainstorming on the location (as in, the most level spot in the backyard) for the pool. We’re actually thinking about removing the playset and putting the pool there, since we have future plans of turning that area into a oasis type of seating.

You know, because I’ll be turning my shed into a Winemaking SheShed and we’ll open up that end with a drop down pass-thru window for imbibing and relaxing with friends. Don’t worry, you all will be invited to the festivities when they transpire.

Oh! Just thought of another thing on my Summer Bucket List – getting Princess Nagger’s room cleaned and organized – right now the placement of the queen bed we passed down to her when we upgraded to a king is taking up too much floor space and making it impossible for her (and by ‘her’, I mean ‘me’) unpacking the rest of her boxes and making her room a fun place for her to hang out. Right now it’s utter chaos, so I bet removing the chaos will help her with her teen angst.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ with it. 

That’s a wrap for this week – you know the drill, link up and join in the fun, everyone is welcome, random or not. And that means even if you don’t have a specific Random Tuesday Thoughts Rebel post posted, you can still link up, I’m not picky. You don’t even have to add the badge, just link up so I can come harass you on your blog. I promise to play nice.

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Keeping the random alive (barely) – feel free to snag a badge and play along – one for my wino friends:

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And one for my non-wino friends:

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6 Comments

  1. That river looks so serene! I could use that. Cool troll sculpture! And please invite me when your backyard plans come to fruition. My deck still has yet to be built!

  2. Our summer list includes camping as well. With any luck we can get up the end of this month. We are really looking forward to getting out and enjoying the season, as soon as Nick’s foot lets him. Gout sucks.

  3. The camping sounds like it’s going to be a blast, it’s a beautiful place!

    One of my housekeeping clients, Ms. L, has a salt water pool that looks a lot like yours and she loves it. Her husband explained to me that it uses electricity to generate its own chlorine out of the salt somehow. It’s easier than a regular pool, apparently.

  4. We had that very same pool when we lived in Texas! I invested in one while I ran a day care and LOVE IT. It was alot of work but worth the time and money.

    That looks like a stunning place to set up camp for a few days.

  5. That troll statue is so cool! What a great idea. Although if I stumbled upon it in the dark I might not think so. And I can’t fathom what I would doing under a Seattle beach bridge in the dark???? LOL

    I can’t wait for our first camping trip too. It will be the first time I will be alone with the kids for a few days/nights because Left Brain only has so much vacation time, and we have a bigger 2 week trip later in August. Hopefully it goes well. And by that I mean, they go to sleep!

    I need that pool. And I can’t wait to see this SheShed. it sounds amazing.

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