Is it finally going to end?

I don't want to keep dwelling on the heat that we've had this summer (because it is frankly depressing), but yesterday we did officially break the old never-to-be-broken record of total number of days with triple-digit heat.  (That would be 71 days total this summer.)  Wa hoo for us.  And to celebrate this "victory," we were given a lovely, lovely gift today--sprinkles.  It was no where near as much rain as we need to get out of our drought (or fire danger), but it was enough to bring down the scorching heat, and we could breathe again.  I even wore pants today--not because I was cold, but because I wasn't going to melt away, and I am a little jealous of the rest of the country who has already put away all shorts for the season.

On we go--here are few pictures to round out the end of our summer...

On our way home from our family reunion, we passed the Little Rock Zoo.  Our Dallas Zoo passes have a reciprocal program, which lets us get in free to other zoos.  (At least it did until they changed it this year, and we only get 50% off.  We found out that even half-off is a lot for seven of us.)  I had the brilliant idea to break up our trip and have lunch and walk around for a while at the zoo.  I should have been wary when we saw there were only six other cars total in the parking lot.  Why?  We soon realized it was because it was TOO HOT for any humans or animals to enjoy being outside!  But we already had put sunscreen on everyone, and were ready for the adventure, heat advisory or not.  We dragged our poor kids to the zoo's  new penguin exhibit (and found a shady spot for a photo).

 

No pictures of the actual penguins. :)  From here, we moved from shady spot to shady spot until we got to the cafeteria, where we ordered ice cream and icees and popsicles.  Oh, and french fries.  Yes, that was our lunch.  And we spent some quality time in the bathroom.

Then we went to the only other "air-conditioned" building (it was very, very old, and still probably about 95 degrees inside), where we saw little monkeys, reptiles, and birds.

 We found a couple misting machines, and stood by them as long as we could before heading back to the car.  The car, by now, had become an oven itself.  That was not really one of my best ideas.

In May Scott became a Webelos Scout, and his leader was on top of things all summer, trying to get some older boys done, so Scott ended up getting his Webelos badge in August!  And look at who the new Cubmaster is:

 (I have to say, Ben is a natural Cubmaster.  He was SO excited to get this calling!)

We were invited to go to a bounce house place with some old friends, and it was so much fun for them.  They spent the majority of the time on this big elastic spider web.  There's Emma in the middle--

 There's Gracie at the top--

 And Caytie hanging out at the bottom--

 Scott and his friend Ramsey hardly stopped for the whole two and a half hours we were there.  They might have gotten a little sweaty that day.

We had our first garden this year.  Oh, have I mentioned that it was hot this summer?  It was very hot--and dry.  I think (hope) that that was a factor in our lack of production.  Plus, squash bugs ate all our squash plants after we harvested only four squashes.  And those nasty fat soft green caterpillars ate many of our tomato plants, which kept flowering, but only gave about 8 tiny tomatoes.  We did get two softball sized watermelons that were VERY tasty, and very seedy.  Our pepper plant gave about 4 little peppers.  Scott is holding the results of our carrot efforts.  I think we need some training on Texas gardening.

Now that the heat might be dropping to manageable temperatures, I might think about doing a first-day-of-school post, or something else fall-ish.  Stay tuned!