Live Performances
July 7, 2008
It’s Monday again and that means we had the pleasure of enjoying another free performance at our local library. I just can’t say enough about these programs and how much everyone who attends enjoys them. They are sponsored by the Wood-Trust Bell Foundation located in Wausau, WI.
Tonight’s performance was a truly hilarious, entertaining, and educational play performed by actors from the Traveling Lantern Theatre Company. The play was about a caterpillar hunter who was shrunk down to the size of a bug and discovered just how different things really are when you’re small.
The audience was brought into the story by some creative interactivity and my children’s attention was captivated by all the action and character/costume changes. At the end of the play the actors allowed the kids to ask questions and even showed them some of the tricks used during the performance such as how they made the sound of thunder and what was at the other end of that cow tail.
If you get a chance to attend a performance by the Traveling Lantern Theatre Company in your area don’t pass it up! You might even want to talk to you school and see if they would book them for a performance; your kids will love the performance and I think even the parents would have a great time as well (I know I did!).
Summer Birthday
June 30, 2008
Sissy’s birthday party was yesterday and it turned out sorta okay. She had invited about 12-15 kids but only 2 girls showed up. In a way it had its ups and downs. She got to spend a lot of time with just those two friends and she really did have a fun time. On the other hand she was dissapointed that more of her friends didn’t come over. There was another friend of hers that was having a birthday party too yesterday and alot of the kids she invited went to his party instead. The two girls that came to hers were also invited to his but chose to come see her instead. She was really happy about that. she got a bunch of girly stuff like a necklace, some bracelets, perfume, lip gloss and some Hannah Montana stuff as well. 
We also had the neighbors come over and their two younger ones as well so her younger brothers had someone to play with as well. All the kids enjoyed the slip and slide and I bought a kids volleyball game for the to play as well. 
One of the positives about so few kids coming was all the extra cupcakes! The kids loved being able to come back for seconds and thirds. LOL 
I’m thinking about plans for her party next year and considering having a last day of school party. Since their last day is just a half-day I think it would be cool to invite the kids to all come over after school and let their parents pick them up around 5. I think she’d have a lot more kids come and it would be a lot of fun for everyone. My mom said she could come and help out with the party as well so I’m not overwhelmed.
For now, we’re done with birthdays until August then we have two fo them back to back. we can start planning for them and maybe we’ll have a bit of a better turn-out
Summertime’s Free Adventures
June 23, 2008
Wow, it’s been 4 days since I had to have that talk with Sissy! It’s been very hectic here and I just can not believe how full our summer has become. I’m so glad that I took time out to plan fun things for me and the kids to do. We are going to the library twice a week for their summer reading program; Monday night’s are free performances and Thursday afternoon’s are crafts, games, and snacks. Just these two days alone are great fun for the kids and best of all they’re free! I was truly amazed at all the free things our town has to offer to keep the kids occupied. If you haven’t checked out the local happening your town you might want to see what they have to offer.
This past weekend was filled with more fun stuff that was free. Our town had their annual Cranberry Blossom festival and I packed in as much as I could with buddy since the other kids were gone. On Thursday night they hosted Cinema Under the Stars; they put up a big screen, closed off the street, and we watched several old Looney Tune cartoons. It felt so nice and had a really cool “small town” atmosphere. The historical society had an old fashioned ice cream social with free ice cream and tours through the mansion on Saturday. Some of the other weekend activities included a bike ride, a kid’s fishing contest, and finally a parade. Everything was a lot of fun and the two of us had a blast with all the stuff we did.
I also managed to squeeze in some time to finally finish editing and updating my Expert Business Results website; stop by and take a look. I love the face lift and I even managed to get it ranked onto the first page of the search engines for my keywords. Just last week it was so far at the bottom that it wasn’t worth looking for; I felt extremely excited to see all my hard work bring such awesome results so quickly.
This week is going to be busy once again; of course it started with our Monday night library program earlier this evening. The theater has started their summer children’s movies again; we can go watch a movie and get popcorn for $2.50. Of course the movies are ones that have already been released but my kids don’t always get to see these movies so for them it’s awesome to go to the theater. The movies are shown on Wednesday and Thursday. Lunch On The River is another event that takes place every Thursday; lunch can be purchased from several different food vendors or you can pack your own. They always have free live entertainment. The kids can’t miss their Thursday Library Activity day after lunch.
With all that activity for the week you’d think that I’d be too exhausted to do anything else but the highlight of the week doesn’t come until Saturday. We were able to get free tickets to Riverview Park and Waterworld in Wisconsin Dells; Saturday is also sissy’s birthday. She’s planning to have a friend sleep over on Friday night and her parent’s are picking her and sissy up on Saturday morning. I recruited several families to go to the “Dells” with us as these tickets were being given away by the radio station to anyone who requested them. So we have at least three families going together! Lastly is sissy’s birthday party on Sunday.
This is going to be a busy week; I will pop in as often as possible and update all the adventurous details of the week. I’m already looking forward to next week when hopefully it will be a bit more relaxing. (maybe!)
Hitting the Trails
June 6, 2008
I love taking the kids for bike rids and I’ve found that going for a bike ride with the kids doesn’t have to be a dull, mundane trip around the block. I’ve added several bike trips to our Family Fun Planning sheet.
I have a pick up truck and a bike rack on the Jeep to transport our bikes. A couple of months ago I visited the wisconsin tourism website and had a bunch of brochures mailed to me including one that listed all the states bike trails. Today we’re heading to one of the local parks that is a couple of miles away. We’re going to spend the day bike riding, playing frisbee golf
You wouldn’t believe what I did one day when it rained on one of our planned bike trips? My mom had given me one of those stationary bikes ( you know — the thing in the corner of your bedroom that you hang clothes on) I lugged that thing out and let every one take turns riding bike. It was great fun; the picnic lunch was already packed, along with our back packs which had a few good books. So we just straped on the camel packs (I decided to forgoe the frisbee golf!), and we had a really fun rainy day.Everyone took turns riding the bike and when we reached our destination we had lunch, read some of the books together, and just enjoyed each other’s company.
If you take a bike trip somewhere with you kids take along a camera and get some good pics of your trip. You can e-mail me one if you want and I’ll add it to the Surviving Summertime newsletter. You can send the pic to
family-fun-time@ssmommy.com.
Have a great weekend everyone!!
Frisbee Fun
May 30, 2008
Whooo Hoo the weekend is here! The month of May is on it’s way out and June is just around the corner. It won’t be long before we can head out to the beach and go swimming. Here in the “great white north” the weather is very unpredictable. Some days are sunny and warm and other days are downright chilly. It’s nearly impossible to plan for fun stuff outside.
This weekend we’re going to the park. There’s a cool frisbee golf course so we’re going to see how good our frisbee throwing skills are; after that we’ll probably take along a lunch basket and have a picnic in the park as well.
If it’s cold and rainy we’ll end up watching movies which is cool too since National Treasure’s Book of Secrets just came out. We might even have a pizza picnic in the living room. I found a great website that you might want to check out Kids National Geographic there’s a bunch of activities, stories, games, and more for you and the kids.
