Summer is here

What a beautiful day! The weather is finally bucking up and I have been able to toast myself in the garden a few times in the last week.


Today, one of the kids mentioned they'd like to go to the beach, so once all the housework was done that's exactly what we did.


We went to a small lakeside park about 5 minutes drive away. It has grass, sand, a playground and water. We decided to limit ourselves to an hour in the sun so that we didn't burn.


While I applied some coconut oil and reclined on my favourite beach quilt, the boys ran off to the playground. It wasn't long before they were hot enough to brave the lake. They went in up to their middles. It was cold enough to numb the skin. I know - I went in up to my neck! Our first dip of the year.


Computer Geek of course didn't come with us - the beach and swimming are not his "thing" any more. Ninja Boy and Lego Nut had a good time pottering at the edge of the water and looking for cool rocks. (See sidebar for the guide to who I'm talking about here!)


I brought a thermometer with me, the one I usually use for cooking. We put it in the lake water, but I don't think the 19 degrees Celsius reading was representative of the temperature - it was in the shallow water right near the edge. The air temperature was 26 degrees, but when I left the thermometer resting on the quilt itself, it went up to 52! We measured a temperature of 35 degrees in the grass in the sun and 21 degrees in the grass in the shade of a tree. And my flip flops were 40 degrees, according to the kids!


When we came home, the wet swimwear and towels were hung out to dry on the deck (and that's my Sunrise Circle Jacket drying on the table too).


I know summer's here when there's a quilt on the swingseat and some of the houseplants have been moved outside for a few months. Our deck is like an extra living room in the summer.