Monday, June 29, 2009

Should have bought a lotto ticket!


What a fun weekend we had! Yesterday we painted our Adirondack chairs. We still have some finishing touches, but I am thrilled with them. Pictures to come next weekend. After supper we decided to go to Grandpa and Grandma's pond to do a little fishing. Hence the lotto ticket title. We don't catch fish. . . EVER. We go, we fish, we cry, and get mad, and go home with NOTHING. We may catch fish, but only if we are fishing with our friends Tray or Lane. . . and then we usually still don't catch fish, but they share. . . because they have to!

But the evening was still and nice, so we loaded up some cookies and went. C and I were taking our time about unloading from the pickup, and I couldn't believe my ears when D started shouting about catching something. (within the first 5 minutes. . . no kidding!) So they reeled him and I thought "MMMM, supper tomorrow, no cooking for me!" J couldn't find a tie-ing up cord (ya know the thing that keeps them in the water without getting away till you're ready to slice 'em). It's not like we ever have a NEED for that. So he finds some big nylon cord with hooks on the ends of it out of his pickup. What a McGyver!


They kept casting poles and reeling in fish. Pretty soon J decided to start filleting them out (we were hopeful and brought a ziplock with ice for the kill) They had 8 fish on the "stringer" HAHA--no cooking for a week!! Fried fish, baked fish, grilled fish, fish salad.. . Oh yeah, where was I?


By the time we were ready to leave, J had cleaned 10 big fish, and they had thrown 15-20 back in the water, for future fisher's of America. WOW! We shoulda bought a lotto ticket!!

C thought they were interesting. She touched them and looked down it's throat as she said "OOOO" Maybe she'll be a dentist! The boys had a FANTASTIC time--it's fun to fish when you are catching. We lost a few pieces of bait to the fish. The frogs were out, and saw a water snake. I had been contemplating a little swim in there until he showed up! The pond is so beautiful, nestled down in a canyon, with trees, red dirt and hills. Peaceful. Blessed. I enjoyed watching the kids have fun and the special worship service going on in my heart! Now that's what summer is all about!

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Crystal Digging

My mother was wondering if we had done anything this week since I hadn't blogged!! I just giggled! We have been up to lots. . . food driving, swim lessons, wheat harvest, and a lot of work. . but today we joined up with our rock hunting buddies and took a drive to the Salt Plains by Jet, Oklahoma to dig crystals that can be found no where else in the world. (That is kind of exciting in and of itself!) We picked a warmish day to go, but we found that there were plenty of people as crazy as we were--out digging too. When we drove up, we were sure that we were on another planet. It honestly looked like there was snow covering everything. The thought made us at least 30 degrees cooler. . . till we got out! The salt is also very reflective, so it is incredibly bright! And easy to sunburn--we slathered ourselves up before we started!
The Salt Plains are a flat expanse of mud, completely devoid of vegetation, located in north central Oklahoma. (We thought it looked a little like the scenery from Ice Road Truckers--you know the show on discovery channel) The name, Salt Plains, is derived from the thin layer of salt that covers the flats. This salt was used by Native American tribes and early pioneers who first settled the area. The plains are 7 miles in length and approximately 3 miles wide and lie within the boundaries of the Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge.


The crystals are a type called selenite--we found some of this on our hunt a few weeks ago--those minerals looked a lot like plate glass--very flat and clear. It was interesting to note the different formation and appearance of both selenite types! These crystals take on the characteristics of their environment; the finer the soil, the more clear the crystals. Iron oxide in the soil gives the crystals their chocolate brown color. Because these crystals form in wet soil, sand and clay particles are included within the crystal. These particles often form an "hourglass" shape, found only in this area. Other foreign objects in the soil, such as sticks, rocks, bones, and even cockleburs, are sometimes included as the crystal forms.

The procedure goes a little bit like this.

First you dig a hole. The sites I looked at said 2 feet by 2 feet, but we found that smaller ones worked fine. And we even used leftover holes that had been used by prior diggers.

Next you splash some water down the sides of the hole. We filled the bottom of the hole with a couple of inches of water then kept sloshing it around in the hole, agitating the sand off the crystals. We took 4 5-gallon jugs of water, and I had a couple gallon milk jugs that we emptied them into to make handling them easier.




The crystals are easy to break when they are wet, so we had to be careful. We found lots of flatter crystals and even some crystal clusters, that were shaped like an X or had several crystals going different directions. When you find them, you can clean them with a little water to see the sand inclusions in them. We didn't have enough water to clean them off, so we did it when we got home. It was fun to check them out.




The site has been closed for the last year or so because some boy scouts found leftover mustard gas there from WW2. It reopened in April. I don't know if the crystals were so easy to find because not many people had been there for a while, or if they are always that easy to find. The crystals can get up to 7 inches long and some formations can weigh up to 35 pounds. They let you dig 10 pounds of crystals per person. We were a long way off from the 90 pounds we could have dug today! We did dig for about 2 hours before we couldn't stand the heat anymore!

The babies slept in their car seats for a little while before coming out to play.




We went through another 5 gallon jug of ice water and who knows how many gatorades and capri sun drinks! When we finished digging, we toured around and went to the lake not far from the salt plains. We were just going to let them dip their feet in to cool off a minute!!

We snacked on chips and salsa while we watched them swim. Wow, was it hot and muggy at the lake!! We were glad to get back on the road. They also have a big natural habitat for multiple species of birds. We took the car tour through there. We sighted a big, beautiful pure white bird, which I tried to photography twice and couldn't get him to sit still. I plan to see if they have any official birding tours or watches in the fall or spring when migration happens. I would love to try that out! (By myself, or with any adult that I might be able to entice to come. . . NO KIDS!)

The crystal on the left has the classic hour glass inclusion of sand and debris in it. The one on the right is a small crystal cluster. Pretty cool??
The kids enjoyed cleaning them off and checking them out. This was Tristan's work for the day--Grant had a pile of about the same amount. . .Devin? Not so many--Oh well--All in a good day's work! So anyway, it was a fun day. Everyone is in bed now, and I am headed there myself quickly! The chairs will get painted tomorrow, J helped Dev paint his chair this morning. Can't wait to post pictures of those! Hope you all are having a great weekend!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Happy Father's Day

What a fun weekend we have had just messing! J went racing Friday night and got rained out Saturday, so he ended up home unexpectedly. It rained and rained Friday night and Saturday morning. I suppose we had somewhere around 1 1/2 inches, but some little girl had filled my rain gauge up while watering my tree and so I was sure that we had almost 3 1/2 inches. It seems that no one else got quite that much!! I certainly enjoyed drinking my coffee in my PJ's until mid morning. Don't remember the last time that happened. We had a lot of plans for yesterday afternoon. . . UNTIL the electricity went off, and stayed off for about 4 hours. We finally loaded everyone up after C woke and went for a drive. We ended up at the inlaws and visited them for a bit. While we were there, we decided that cooking sounded like a hassle, so we all went to the supper club to eat. Then Granny and I took the boys to the movie--it was UP (that is the name of it!) It was pretty cute. It was produced by the Pixar people, and I love their movies. I thought it was pretty sad for a kids movie, and the beginning was VERY sad, but it got better.

Today was a little more eventful. We went to church this morning then grilled some lunch. When we got C down for a nap we had a little bake-a-thon. G made some buttermilk cinnamon bread--our thought is for him to take that to the fair. He was impressed with it, I think it will be a go. T made a buttermilk cocoa cake. That may go to the fair too, we'll see. I had found a couple interesting cookie recipes yesterday (while the electricity was out) that we may try too.

We finally put the seat on our chairs today! YEAH. The chairs were divided out into 4 parts, and we started the first of April (I think). We have just worked on them when we had time and that has been much better than stressing everyone out trying to get something made at the last minute!! I hope to have the boys prime the chairs the first of the week so we can paint them at the end of the week. I can hardly wait for them to be done. The colors we picked out were shades of citrus. Everyone was pleased with their selected color, and I was pleased at the ambiance of the shades working together. We chose muted yellow, orange, red and a lime color. They are not bright neon shades, but very subtle--You'll see!




After all the sweating that went on in the shop (it was 98 here today), we had lemonade and chocolate cake! Then we got J's new father's day present out. They actually opened it when it came 2 weeks ago. That's what happens when you leave them all together by themselves. We got him a couple new archery targets. We brought them up to the yard in the shade and tried them out. The boys all enjoyed shooting my bow, and G used a crossbow too, which I think is much harder. C enjoyed splashing in the water behind us. When the boys finished, J and I had a match. I actually hit the edge of the center bullseye. . . TWICE!! Robin Hood here I come!! (have I said that before??) I didn't even whack a bruise on my arm today!! I am delighted to find that I actually think this is fun!! There is hope for us! When all the kids are gone, we can build landscapes and shoot archery. . . sounds like a winner, huh?

This evening has been beautiful, the wind has stopped and the breeze is cooler. I worked on poisoning some of that blasted bermuda grass! The holly hocks are in bloom and are so pretty. Most of my new daisies have bloomed now--they are pretty cool. The flowers are just so-so, but sometimes the first ones to bloom are. The second blooms have been nicer. G thinks they are pretty strange, with the wild curly petals. The cosmos are just starting to bloom too. I keep intending to snap a picture of the Russian garden. It is incredible--you will not believe it is the same newly planted garden!! Everything is blooming in it and the plants are so BIG! It will be amazing in a couple years as it matures! J had to work over my washing machine planter yesterday. It drained fairly well before the torrential rains came the last couple weeks. However, the coleus were sitting in 3 inches of water that wouldn't drain out yesterday, and had been sitting in water for several days before that. It works now, thankfully and hopefully the coleus will recuperate too!


We look forward to a slower week. Swim lessons start tomorrow. We will be collecting food for the health department Tues night. Hope to get our family picture taken this week sometime, and some new ones of C--the last time she had pics was October. Just couldn't resist this picture of her this morning tho--doesn't she look so big today?? She is talking and talking. Can say lots of stuff. Hope everyone has a blessed week! Stay out of the heat!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Reflections From Camp Lakeside

Hello all! Well, I have come out on the other side!! I have finally made it through the last 3 weeks of unbelievable scheduling, and I am basking in the light of day!! The morning has gone smoothly here at the family planning clinic, and we are hoping for a smooth afternoon too. We returned from 4-H camp last night right before the weather turned really questionable! Will post pictures later, but wanted to post the daily list of reflections I made while we were gone for camp! We certainly had a blast!

Reflections from Day 1--
--If you take 1/2 of your car passengers on a 3 day, 500 mile adventure and return them the night before you take them to camp, the ride is much quieter.

--You can fix a lot of things with hydrocortisone cream and antibiotic ointment.

--There ARE children worse than your own--guaranteed!!

Reflections from Day 2--
--They make coffee that comes in a box. . . with a spigot on it to use in a dispensing machine (You know, like the machines you get milk and juice out of at motels?) This is what they served at camp--It's NASTY!!

--Canoeing is like riding a bike--once you know how, you never forget.

--If you should choose to go canoeing, you should always sit in the back--up on the little tiny seat, so as to protect your toosh from lake water.

--Providing CPR to the demising fishing bait is NOT in my job description!!

--Girls will spend all afternoon washing and fixing hair and doing nails before the dance, boys will show up with a nice, clean shirt and the dirty shorts they wore all day, that don't match. Some of them combed their hair--and many of them (mine included) you could smell coming (up-wind) because of the Axe cologne they shot on!

--You can SERIOUSLY embarrass a 12 year old child by doing the John Travolta dance technique during the song "Staying Alive" at the camp dance. OOO OOO OOO OOO, staying alive, staying alive!! Oh, sorry--I was lost in the memory.

Reflections from day 3--
--You can send 3-4 sets of clothes to camp. . . But if you have boys, they will only wear one. . . ALL BOYS!! (I have suspected this for years, but now I can finally prove it!) However, if you have girls. . . many, MANY clothes changes per day!

--It doesn't matter how many times you look around before you leave, or how many times you ask them if they have gotten EVERYTHING. . . someone ALWAYS forgets SOMETHING!!

--Kids will try very hard to spend every cent of money their parents sent with them. . . even it means loading up on chocolate bars at the gas station where you stopped to pee!

--Grant will be the one who looks after his mom in her old age! (that kid was checking on me many times throughout the day)

--It doesn't matter how young you are or how old, you ALWAYS make special friends that touch your heart!

They asked me to come back next year--I had such a fantastic time. . . I just think I will! (and my kids are even OK with that!) Will post more later about the activities that took place there!

--

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Geology Trip in Western Kansas

Well, I know you all will be pleased to hear we survived our big cross country geology trip this weekend. No major catastrophies occurred so that was a blessing!! We had fun. We traveled approximately 520 miles from start to finish this weekend. We started out Friday mid afternoon and headed for Dodge City to set up our tents before we went to Spearville for the evening events. We ended up NOT setting up our tents because no one else was there, and we didn't want to come back to get them if plans had been changed. The classes were cool.



We watched a neat one about flourescence of rocks. The speaker was from western Marion County and it seemed he had been doing this a long time. He demonstrated what happens when you take a black light to the rocks. Some really ordinary rocks turned fabulous shades of orange and yellow and green. Unbelievable. We also learned some new information about fossils and heard a presentation on minerals and rocks. The picture to the right is of several wind turbines found right outside of Spearville at the wind energy plant. Very neat up close, and unbelievably huge!

We always get our itenerary Friday night. We discovered that we were starting out about 10 miles from Taffi's mom's place. So at the last minute we were calling her to ask about camping in her yard. We ended up camping out in her basement, and managed to get all 12 of us accomadated there! It was late when we got to bed and everyone was up by 6:30 or so.


Saturday found us starting out at Belevideire in the Champion Draw. We found several minerals that we hadn't collected before, and did some fossil collecting too. We had to laugh out loud when we read that we would be having lunch at Lake Coldwater!! Jeremy and Cami, as well as Taffi's husband Matt joined us for our picnic lunch.



John and Jarek

Next we headed over to Clark County for our next four stops. We found some fossil bones, fossilized turtle shell, and opals (not the precious stone kinds, but very pretty anyway). The wildflowers were incredible. We generally don't get the kind of rain we have been enjoying lately, so the flowers are usually not such a spectacular show!! Think I need a wildflower reference book to take next time!

Tristan at the Champion draw

Sarah usually had a line of our crew right behind her, Taffi and I dubbed her mother hen!! She has great luck and really knows a lot about rocks.

We headed back to Spearville for our supper and an identification work time, with leaders available for consulting. I am amazed at the things they recognize and know! I was pleased to find that on this trip (which was our 3rd like it) I was able to recognize a number of different specimens, and able to help newer folks a few times! I remember that incredible feeling being totally overwhelmed that first year--not knowing anything from anything else.


Friday night we headed back over to Dodge to pitch our tents. As we were finishing, it was really lightening (by the way, we were under a big covered arena, so we were safe from the lightening and rain). We decided to run up to get gas in the vehicles and hit Sonic for some ice cream! By the time we were finishing at sonic, it was pouring rain. We drove back and were able to park under the arena too. So we got everyone settled. Tristan, Grant and Jarek wanted to sleep in the suburban, so we let them. We split the rest of us up into 2 bigger tents and 2 tents made for midgets. And it rained, and it poured!! Some big flap of tin crashed up against the pipes making a horrible racket. I'm sure it was after 12:30 or 1:00 before we big people got to sleep, right before the race cars started back up to finish racing!! There is a dirt racing track just south of the fairgrounds and they had started a race earlier in the evening. We assumed when the rain hit, it was over! NOPE. By then, I was so exhausted that I merely heard it, thought "what the H--- was that??" and slipped back into a coma--that is until around 4 am, when another storm came through. And it rained, and it poured! Someone else's alarm sounded at 6, so we were up! We looked as good as we felt, and I'm not sure about any one else, but I spent my Sunday morning praying that I wouldn't kill any of the 8 children that we were escorting. The Lord provides, and we brought them all home, free of any noticeable bruising!

Grant's hunting and Devin is in the background, also hunting-- for horny toads!! He caught several!!

We headed out for Gove County this morning to hunt in the chalk beds. This site is actually leased by a professional fossil collector. We were instructed that if we found anything we thought was going to be a big deal, that we leave it be and get a leader so they could mark it for future uncovering. We actually spent several hours there and had a good time. We found lots of fish scales and pieces of huge clams. Sarah and Tristan both found shark teeth, Tristan's is to the right. Very fun find. It was pretty hard on Grant though, because he was wanting to find one pretty bad. We saw a kid who had found one twice the size of Tristan's in "museum quality" condition. It had dark colored enamel on the tooth part still. Very cool to see!!
I was pretty excited to find granite. I haven't been able to figure out what that looked like until today, so that was a highlight for my hunting. We also found some very pretty minerals, which are my favorite.
My best find?? Here he is! Dana, I had my camera ready this time! Some kid hollered, "There's a snake." So I wandered over to see if I could tell what kind. It started to move a bit and rattled. Initially, I thought the noise came from his mouth, but it was quickly evident that his tail was wiggling. I snapped a picture and we left him to sun. On our way back to the car, some other kid was remarking about him, and he was still coiled in the same spot. The kid scared him and he started moving away, Finely displaying all 6 of the buttons on his rattle! ICK!!

It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive home, and most of the kids napped at least briefly! J and C were sure glad to see us in time for supper! Laundry's going, packing has been done again, boys are in bed, and we will all be ready to head to Scott City tomorrow for camp. Never found my binoculars, but I packed my bird book and some magazines for my "leisure" time between boo-boo kissing. Wish us luck!!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

I'm Not Dead

I haven't visited my blog for a week now, so this morning in between patients I have enjoyed catching up on the ones that I follow. One of the fun things about my family planning clinics is that there is a computer on my desk, and there is a few minutes downtime between each patient. I have no other responsibilities here that I have to tend to, so I enjoy reading my multiple journals and catching up on my favorite bloggers.

We have been out of control, crazy-busy for a week now as people have been out of my office and responsibilities increased. C has had the stomach flu and then a horrible cough and now an ear infection, in the course of 5 days. She seemed better this morning!

The older boys started on their summer fence building job this last week. I often wonder what they find to talk about all morning, just the two of them. I'm sure it is interesting.

D is still wiggling that other front tooth, no luck yet. Last evening I took D and C up to the clinic to check in her ears before we went home. He has had a wart to the top of his foot for quite a while and we have talked several times about freezing it off. So I bribed him. With an Icee, it wasn't all that hard! He was nervous when I came in with the liquid nitrogen which steams from the top of the container. The wart freezing wasn't as bad as he had anticipated. However he asked several times if we would have to freeze it again, to which I would reply "yes, if it doesn't all go away." When I finish a procedure like that I usually toss the remaining liquid on the floor, cause it is quite cool to watch. It sounds exactly like you would hear if you tossed water on the floor out of a cup. Then it pops and steam rises in the air from everywhere it hit. D watched that and his eyes got HUGE! And he says "If we have to freeze this thing again, can I pour the stuff on the floor??" Guess I won't have any problem getting him back to repeat if we need to!!

The guys are coming today to work on the sidewalk, and they will pour it tomorrow. I can't wait! Wheat harvest is just around the corner here, and it looks beautiful! We have 3 wheat trucks in the yard for J to fix--hope he gets that done soon--they block a lot of view and take up a lot of space!!

Tomorrow the boys and I will take off for our weekend geology trip with 4-H. We have some friends that will be going as well, and we always have a ball!! We are headed to Spearville and then will travel hundreds of miles through western Kansas Saturday and Sunday, looking for all different kinds of rocks. J is staying home with C. We will camp out and picnic all weekend. When we get home Sunday night, we will regroup, repack and T, G, and I will head with a suburban load of other 4-Her's for Scott City where we will be at camp from Mon until Wed afternoon. The boys were pretty mortified since their mother will be there the whole time working as a camp nurse. They are seriously hoping that someone gets hurt while they are at the dance. I told them that I wouldn't even be AT the dance. . . for long anyway! I'm sure looking forward to a change of scenery--the last 2 weeks have been too hectic for even me!

So, just wanted to let everyone know that we are still alive and well. I hope to post some pictures of all our activities next week when we get home! Be healthy and safe!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

The Tooth Fairy Arrived



D has the tendency to be a little. . . well, melodramatic. Always has been. I remember the first time I truly realized this was the day I heard him screaming like he had lost an arm to a crocodile. The child had a bloody nose! His eyes were the size of silver dollars as he hit the front door, with G in close pursuit. He hadn't fallen off the trampoline, he hadn't even been hit by a brother, he simply had a bloody nose! I took him to the bathroom, excused G (who was sure that his brains were going to start oozing out from his nose at any time!) and shut the door (to keep everyone else from freaking out!) The only way I could get his attention (without slapping him--which I truthfully thought about doing) was to get right in his face and explain to him that he was NOT going to bleed to death. OH, OK.




Anyway. He has been battling two loose teeth for several weeks. The first I knew about it was when he showed up crying, crying, crying. When I asked him what the problem was, he replied--sobbing "I just bit my tooth. . . and it bit me back" (imagine the sentence sobbed with an escalating high pitched voice and you may have been right in the room with me!) Low and behold, the tooth was loose.

A couple weeks ago D cried and cried at supper because his tooth hurt SO bad that he couldn't even eat his peas! I finally begged J to just look at it while I held D down so he could pull the sucker out, so we could all be done with the saga! He couldn't get his big ole man hands in there to get ahold of that teeny weeny piece of calcium deposit. And we couldn't get D to go for the pliers (which I KNOW would have worked!) So we left it. I know, at this point you are all thinking, why couldn't his mother yank that thing out??? Well--there's two things that I don't like. 1. Yucky bloody gory injuries. 2. Teeth. Teeth absolutely gross me out and send cold chills right down my spine! So that was not even an option.

The next night on my way home from the family planning clinic, my cell phone rang. It was J wanting to know where I was, as they were ready to launch the new boat out at the lake. He says "Here, D wants to tell ya something." So on comes D and he reported that he had lost his tooth, fell right out when he bit off his hamburger. Everyone confirmed that D did not cry, because it did not hurt! HMMM, who had told him it wouldn't hurt!?! What do we know anyway? So, thank goodness, one out, 10 more to go. And the tooth fairy remembered to come--thanks to G. The tooth fairy that services our area has a REALLY rotten memory--I think maybe because those little nubbins are SO gross, that's it's easy to block them out of her feeble memory! The most unfortunate thing?? Both of his front teeth are already coming in, right behind the babies--looks like another kid with braces for us!

Monday, June 1, 2009

Day Camp Fiesta

Hola!! One of the things I have tried to be involved with the past few years is our 4-H day camp. We host kids from 3-4 counties and put on a day full of activities for the kids to enjoy. We had about 80 kids today. This year our theme was a Mexican fiesta. We were again blessed with fantastic weather--as most of our activities are usually outside. Our preacher's wife gave a little presentation and a puppet show (she frequently to Mexico on mission trips during spring break).


Then they broke up into four groups; the gauchos, sombreros, chilis, and the maracas. They spent about 25 minutes at each of 4 stations. I spent my morning show, tell, and tasting some interesting Mexican cuisine. I got tickled over this picture because it shows the kids waiting to see if he will like the food or not. We got to try jicama (pronounced HI' cam' a) which is a big ugly root vegetable likened to our potato with the sweetness of an apple. We tried them plain and then some of the more adventurous kids dipped a piece in lime juice and then in some powerfully sour salt with lemon spice. Some of the facial expressions were pretty priceless. We also learned about plantains, avocados, mangos, tomatos, and queso (Mexican crumbling cheese). Most of the kids were very brave, though many spit things out in my trash can, and one poor soul actually vomited in his lap. I was afraid that the two counselors were going to do the same and thankfully I had an extra mom to help him out, or we would have been in trouble--there were about 20 kids in a group.

The kids learned how to make tortillas with our extension agents. T helped as a junior counselor with this group. You can see him frying up someone's tortilla. She already had the dough made and then they pinched it off and the kids had fun rolling out their tortilla and eating it !














They practiced archery with a couple more extension agents. They had targets and each kid got to shoot so many times--that is always a big hit for the kids! Of course, it was one of D's favorites! They also did a craft station and made some yarn "eye of God" hangings and also made their own sidewalk chalk. Even G thought those were fun.








After feasting on tacos for lunch they played games in the afternoon. They had pinatas that they got to swing at. When that candy exploded out of there, look out!! They played Hot Chili (which was like hot potato) and a game called musical carpets to some fiesta music.






A couple of the counselors also taught them the macarena dance. I overheard one kid ask if they were learning the margarita?!? I did ask him not to go home and tell his mother that we taught him the margarita--it was the MACARENA. Very amusing to watch!
Little C got to go to Becky's today, but we picked her up early and went to the pool when we finished up with day camp. She wasn't really all that impressed by it. She would dip her toes, that's it. Maybe next time. I bought her swim suit at a garage sale, but I'm not sure we will use it again--tho it is cute, the strap has to be PULLED over her head and it doesn't have much stretch to it, so we ended up with pulled hair instead. But she sure was cute! We're sure hoping for a little rain tonight and tomorrow and some cooler temperatures. . . am I being picky!!? Have a great week!