Miscellaneous Madness: Summer Bucket List Update #2

It's August?! August! July just completely flew by and before mom knew it, we were out of camp and looking at 6 weeks until the start of school. As it dawned on mom, her face read, as Kane says, "completely past panic!" Fortunately, we have A LOT left on our summer bucket list and we better get busy. We are taking this week off blogging to do just that, but will leave you with another update of our bucket list progress (you can see our first update here). Not too shabby considering we were in camp all month.

Have a great week!

14 - 17.  found 4 new geocaches (that's 5 out of 15) -- finally found two caches on our hidden street mural search, one in NYC, and one on a new hike in Virginia.

18. made ice cream in a baggie -- recipe posted here! delish.

19. hunted for shapes in clouds -- we had a blast using our new cloud identification windows and hunting for all sorts of shapes.

20. attended baseball game -- we made it all the way through the 7th inning at a recent Nat's game and got to see a grand slam!

21. - 22. found 2 new parks (that's 3 of 3!) -- on our recent trip to NYC, we discovered two new parks fabulous: (1) we hit up West Thames Playground and made fast friends with a bunch of city kids with New York attitudes that fit our personalities perfectly; and (2) splashed, jumped and roamed our way along The High Line.

23. discovered 1 new hike (out of anticipated 3) -- geocaching and, unfortunately, ticks were in store for us on our hike in Cosca Regional Park. still a beautiful walk in the woods and we'll post on it soon!

24. made homemade shave ice -- we posted our yummy homemade syrup and shave ice recipe here -- perfect to cool off!

25. toured our city on a double-decker bus -- check out our ride around the city in our recent post.

26. made dog treats -- the batch of frozen doggie treats we made for Vegas are still stocked in our freezer and helping him chill out! find our recipe here.

27. went thrift store shopping -- we went in search of tinkering treasure at a local Value Village. we found some, but haven't had time to tinker yet ... stay tuned!

28. did some bumper bowling -- we had a total blast bowling at Lucky Strike in Chinatown a few weeks ago. turns out that Cam is a sweet bowler (especially considering that she insists on doing it all herself).

Miscellaneous Madness: Cloud Viewing and Classification (and a freebie)

Among the 50+ items on our Summer Bucket List is the activity "finding shapes in clouds." Seems simple enough, right? So obviously mom had to make it more complicated and turn it into a science lesson. First, she decided to make our very own cloud viewers. She'd seen a few floating around the web and designed up a handheld viewing window that includes photos of all the basic cloud shapes. With a chopstick handle, of course.

Once those were ready, Cam and mom hit up the library to check out a few books about clouds, including "Clouds," by Maryellen Gregoire (the simplest and a good one to start with); "Clouds," by Trudi Strain Trueit (the best of the batch -- for kids, but included enough detail to really cover all cloud types); and "the kids' book of Clouds & Sky," by Frank Staub (more detailed and probably for a slightly older age group of kids, but interesting nonetheless).

We packed up our viewers, a picnic and our books and headed over to our local Meridian Hill Park for some cloud viewing. It was hotter than H outside, but we still scored a spot in the shade with a good window through the tree branches for spotting clouds. There was really only one type of cloud gracing the sky that day: big puffy marshmallow cumulus clouds. So we ditched the viewers and took to finding shapes: dragons, butterflies, turtles, etc.

When the local squirrels started to form a posse for our pistachios, we decided it was time to pack up and check out the park's waterfalls. Mistake. Out of the shade it was about 110 degrees (seriously). Turns out cloud viewing is good for a hot day because you aren't moving. We should've stayed put, but didn't dare challenge those city squirrels.

Want to check out some clouds, too? You can make your own cloud viewing window! Mom uploaded our template to google docs (CLICK HERE), so all you have to do is print it on heavy cardstock, cut it out (don't forget to cut out the middle window!), and tape on whatever handle you wish. Mom also put a layer of packing tape over ours to make them a bit sturdier and waterproof. Much like the hidden murals, now that we're in the know, we can't stop looking for and classifying clouds. Come to think of it, we might need an extra travel cloud viewer.