Ladies and Gentlemen, I Give You . . .

Perspiration.

Sudation.

Good ol' sweat.

Nope, it's not wax or putty that's responsible for Sawyer's stylin' 'do--he spent an hour or more playing "Ripstick Tag" with Tyler and Darcy this evening and before he came inside, Darcy spiked his hair using only her fingers and his sweat.





I'm beginning to think those Ripsticks are the best investment I ever made. As with most everything, I suppose the novelty will eventually wear off but at this point, I'm having a hard time believing that. Tyler and Darcy were out on the driveway carving it up by 8:00 this morning and spent I don't even know how many hours outside all told today. You know what else is neat, though? I'll never get tired of this--as flawed as I am, my kids can never seem to get enough of me. Sawyer and I were playing tennis for a while before we left for the movies (we saw Nim's Island today), and we were having so much fun that pretty soon Tyler couldn't resist--he HAD to join in. And no kidding, it wasn't ten minutes later that Darcy pried herself off of her Ripstick and shouted, "Can I play? Can I play?" Good times.

In case you're wondering where Peyton was during all the merriment, she was inside with her nose in a book. PCA partners with Book Adventure.com and has students read books and then take quizzes to earn points, and those points typically translate to a quiz grade. Both of the girls have to earn a certain number of points before they come back to school in the fall and I kid you not, BOTH girls had exceeded the number of points they needed by Day Three of summer vacation. I haven't decided if they are overachievers or if PCA set the bar too low.

Here's a short video of Tyler on his Ripstick yesterday. Because neither Tyler nor Darcy has had extensive experience on a Ripstick, they were both pretty rusty on Sunday afternoon and Darcy, especially, was disappointed that she couldn't do "tight turns" and would lose her balance repeatedly. She is SUCH a perfectionist--where does she get that??! I very patiently told her that in a day or two she would look back and be able to see the progress she was making, and of course I was right. I'll post some video of her tomorrow.