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Since we went to Italy really early this year, we had basically the whole summer ahead of us when we got back. The coldish June left the place to a really warm July and August, with more than one heat wave, completed by high humidity. My favorite weather…

Keegan spent the first 5 weeks at his regular school, attending Summer Camp. He loved it! They got to choose 4 different classes each week, and so they had a lot of different activities to do. Some of his choices: Lego, Field & Track, Music and Tag. Some of his friends were at Camp as well and this enhanced the fun.

He spent the last three weeks at different camps at the YMCA. He was a lot less enthusiastic about those, but considering they were Robotics, Lego and Waterpalooza, I don’t think anyone will call CPS on us for torturing him.

After camp, of course, we still had time to enjoy the good weather. We were able to schedule a few playdates, so we went to different parks as well as Inflatable World, where, once again, Keegan enjoyed the HUGE water slide.

We also went to visit the great exhibition about the Maya at the Natural History Museum, allegedly the largest ever in North America.

Just like the King Tut exhibit, it was mainly based on faithful reconstructions. The replica, however, were excellent, and visual effect augmented the experience.

Multimedia stations gave us an in depth look at several aspects of the Mayan culture. They even rebuilt an ancient rubber ball, the May being one of the first civilization documented to be playing ball. Sometimes it was a life and death match. Man, it was really heavy.

One station allowed us to choose a Mayan name, and wrote in the ancient language. Guess which one is which?

Well, Keegan chose Blue Jaguar, I chose Radiant Sky and Matt chose Star Shield. You could also try to add typical Mayan embellishments to your photo. I chose to adorn myself as a noblewoman.

We had the chance to celebrate our friend Dave’s 40th birthday. Jennifer threw a great party for him, with catered Mexican food and a huge cake. Happy Birthday Dave!

They also rented a karaoke machine and the guests took turns singing aloud. Of course I skirted it.

We got to see them one more time. They decided to stay at the Princess Resort Hotel for a night, right on Mission Bay, and invited some friends to join them in the afternoon at the beach. They rented a paddle board and the kids took turns trying it.

For as fun as paddling while standing up was, the boys (of all ages) found a much more fun game to play: standing on the board, they were trying to catch a football. I have to say that in many attempts from kids and adults alike, we only got a successful pass. Keegan gave it a shot too. He almost caught it one time.

We made it to the beach exactly 1 time, on a warm but foggy early morning. We were very grateful for our usual marine layer, since we were again in the midst of a heat wave, and the cloud were the only way to survive. Matt went surfing with a friend, but frist gave Keegan his first surf lesson.

See? He is a natural! The rest of the time he had a blast body boarding, and the Ocean was so warm, even I got in and played n the waves.

Thank you to modern technology, we kept in touch with family, this was our favorite Selfie: keegan doing “Macho Man”.

Part of the beauty of the season is to admire such a lush surrounding: even in the mist of a 4-years drought, beautiful flowers and plants are everywhere. And we can’t forget the wildlife: birds, butterflies, lizards and of course hawks. I think this year we had two new babies, but it was almost impossible to see them. However we did have a close encounter with one type of hawk. It came crashing against our glass, and ended up resting, disoriented, on our patio for a while. Quite majestic…and yes, it soon flew away unharmed.

We also had momentous event: Keegan lost his 4th tooth.

Even more momentous, however, was our midsummer date, that lasted from mid- afternoon to night. So many hours of freedom! Such a rare occurrence! So, what did we do with ourselves with all that time?

We went first to the horse races at Del Mar. We bet on a few horses, and we even won one race, so we only lost a few bucks. It is always fun.

The main reason we went to the races, though, was the free (with races admission) concert afterwards: Offspring. Yes, we saw them before, more than once, but it is always a fun concert, and you can’t beat the price. Being on a Saturday night we could not refuse. We had a lot of fun.

As always, the summer seemed to go by way too fast, and with September approaching, Keegan was more and more nervous about the new school year, since he did not know which teacher he would get and which of his classmates would be with him. We found out just a few days prior the starting day, and while this calmed him down a bit, he was still nervous, and so were we. Let’s cross our fingers for an happy new school year.

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