Since school was out and summer camp was closed, I declared today father-daughter day. As usual, I did too much and tired myself out – but believe it or not Jasmine also got tired.

First: was a park ranger nature hike at a local state park with the theme of summer solstice, which is only a couple days away. On our hike we encountered giant banana slugs, stinging nettles and a garden snake.

Second: we went to the library for Jasmine to play kids games on the computer, while I collected childrens books. We are very excited that Jasmine is both reading and liking it.

Third: we tried out a new Mexican restaurant featuring a lunch buffet. I wasn’t impressed, but Jasmine enjoyed it. She had a cheese taco, cheese enchilada, chicken nuggets, french fries and cantaloupe.

Fourth: we went to the Children’s museum where she played dentist with an alligator, went grocery shopping, worked at a deli and performed theater.

We finally got home at 4:30, whereupon she went outside to play with friends and I made sure the living room couch was up to spec.

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Taking advantage of the nice weather and the bountiful energy of a young girl, we headed to the park. It was such a popular destination that we met one of Jasmine’s friends Nikki. The girls did gymnastics feats and splashed around in the cascading fountain.

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Jasmine finished up her Gymnastics level 1 class today. Since it was the last class, parents were allowed to watch, take photos and cheer.

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Emily and I have a sort of tradition to celebrate summer by having a veggie spectacular dinner. We already had corn on the cob at home, so off we went to the farmer’s market to gather sugar snap peas, asparagus, spring onions, basil and cherries. We were very tempted to also buy strawberries, which were everywhere, but we didn’t think they would survive intact on the walk back to our car. As it was, Jasmine was asking for the cherries every five seconds, and the evil parents that we are, we said no until we get them washed.

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For my local NW friends, you know its been quite rainy recently. Well today was a breathtaking beautiful sunny today. So Jasmine and I left the house in search of outdoor fun. We found an Arts festival with the theme of recycling in a nearby town. We browsed many booths of arts and crafts. They also had a high school art contest pavilion, which had many nice pieces. I especially liked the artwork that used colorful buttons in layered patterns.

But all thoughts of browsing vanished once we discovered the waterfall park. Whereupon Jasmine promised only to get her feet wet. After 10 minutes of playing, I think there were one or two dry spots left on her shoulders. Jasmine is pretty sure her being soaked was just an accident, it was the other kids splashing water and it had nothing to do with her standing in fountains of water or sitting down on the waterfall ledges.

The festival also had a performance stage. We listened to songs from a group of 30 singers, we watched a local theater troupe, and marveled at the home-made outfits for the trash-to-fashion show. Our favorites was the coffee filter wedding dress and the paper plate cocktail dress.

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