Summer Count Up, 9

There are only two weeks left of our summer vacation. WAAAAAAAH!!! I love summer vacation in ways I NEVER thought I would. Mostly because I don't have to spend the hour between 7 and 8 a.m. yelling at everyone. However, I intend to really enjoy these final two weeks and pray that we are all now mature enough that yelling will not be necessary, because I think it will be a looooong time before not getting up at 7 a.m. will be allowed.

Day 54: We took Cash over to my favorite park, Pool Forge. He loved it too, because he got to run around (well as much as his 6-foot leash would allow) and drink water from the creek that runs through the park. Good times! The yellow rope in this picture is to keep kids away from this area of the creek. Next to it is an electric fence to keep the cows out of this side of the creek:

Day 55: FINALLY a collecting craze I can get behind. These are small Japanese erasers in the shapes of animals. They are IWAKO erasers and Hannah and Lizzie LOVE them. Hannah lost one of Lizzie's dogs, so she had to replace it and since we were buying ONE, we decided to buy 7 of them to add to their collections. They came in the mail on Monday so the girls played for hours with them, eating BBQ potato chips and NOT fighting. I love those little erasers. Also, when I step on them, they don't break.

Day 56: We took Cash to Rita's for their Dog Days event. He got an Italian ice with a dog biscuit in it, and his picture taken for their contest of cutest dog. Earlier in the day we got Cash's hair cut (see bonus photo below) so he looked quite handsome for his modelling debut. Unfortunately we also discovered that he'd  hurt his shoulder (when Hannah tried to pick him up to dance with him) and he had to go to the vet the next day where we were happy to find out that it wasn't broken, but sad that he had sprained it. He's fine now (on Sunday):

Day 57: COOKIE TIME!!!! We decorated a couple dozen cookies for friends who were joining us at the pool the next day. True to their personalities, Hannah was done decorating in 5 minutes and Lizzie had to come up with an individual design for each cookie and carefully create it. After nearly an hour I had to rush her along to finish so that we could get Cash to the vet:

Day 58: We spent the afternoon with our friends the Savages again. This time we met at our pool. I had bought some pool toys (a giant alligator and two inflatable rings) so they had a blast playing with them. I love end of the summer pool toy sales (or really, ANY sort of sale.) Here are Samuel, Logan, Hannah and Lizzie having some sort of parade with the alligator:

Day 59: Star-gazing at the pool. A friend of one of the pool members made this giant telescope and he brought it to the pool on Friday night. Lizzie was enthralled! It was pretty cool as we saw a close-up of the moon, a double star and Saturn. A couple of the families camped out, but we just stayed for the star-gazing and campfire, much to the chagrin of Hannah and Lizzie, who have very short memories and have already forgotten the camping fiasco of 2010 where they both abandoned the tent in the wee hours of the morning because the ground was too hard:

Day 60: I took Cash for a walk on the bike path while Rob and the girls rode. Saturday was a GORGEOUS day for a walk as the bike path is mostly shaded. I ran into a little girl who asked to pet Cash because she'd "never seen a poodle that looked like a poodle before:"

Bonus: Here's my handsome boy. If he looks a little ticked off, I swear it's because of his injury. Once he felt better he was jumping all over the house, just THRILLED with his new 'do.

Oh, and I feel I should mention that while it LOOKS like Lizzie never changes her clothes, that's not true. Once in a while she'll put on her PJs for bed. She seriously loves the flowered capri/dog shirt that is her summer uniform.