Neighbourhood party!

It all started, once again with the science experiment book. This activity was called, "Mystery Meeting Map". You've all seen it, as kids we used to write invisible notes with lemon juice and then heat them up in the oven to show what had been written. Well, this was the same idea and we started by drawing a map of the neighbourhood. Of course, I ended up doing all the artwork, but it was good for Jasmine to see where things were located and how to visualize something from above. She helped me decide what to put on there and where it should go. The instructions in this book have you use baking soda and water to make your invisible ink. We did our own experiment and tried a little bit of what they said and then we tried the good old lemon juice as well. In the end we liked the baking soda better. It seemed to leave a nicer trail and with less residue (just a slight sparkle from the dust), while the lemon juice stained the paper just slightly yellow. We delivered the maps to our neighbours with a time and the event, but they really didn't know who it was from until they decoded the trail and knew whose house the party was at. (Well, some of them did because they knew my writing, but whatever, it was still cool!)


Jasmine had her heart set on a BEACH party, so we got some water balloons ready, the big beach umbrella, laid out all the kid towels, had the bubbles ready to go and Jasmine even drew a bunch of pictures to hang up on the wall to help give it that summery feeling. Of course the weather was a bit hard to read: cloudy and a bit breezy, but the kids didn't seem to care. They splashed around the pool, burst balloons and got wet anyway!

After the water games, the girls played camp out, boys played board games and the little kids played dress up and then ... climbed up the back of the treadmill and flipped over the back of the couch (yes, I know we let our children do bizarre and dangerous things, but they love it and I pretend it is like their gymnastics time).

It's always a bit tough for the parents to just sit back and have a good time at these events. You always have to keep an eye on your children: make sure they are safe, not freezing from being too wet on a cloudy day, not getting sunburned when the sun does decide to shine, not fighting with each other or throwing a watermelon rind into the neighbours yard (that was too funny, and no those neighbours weren't invited) ... but all that said, we did manage to get in some nice conversations and our kids not only had a good time, but got to be closer neighbours and I love that. These kids will grow up living on the same 2 streets for potentially years and what better way to do it than by being good friends! Here is to more summer fun!