Summer Xtreme T-shirts

We've been doing an online countdown for our Summer Xtreme, each day using a different photograph.  Today, Daddy highlighted some of the old t-shirts from the past Summer Xtremes, including that gem you can find second-to-the-bottom on the right.  It's the white t-shirt there, one from 2004, our very first Summer Xtreme.  That's right, this will be our fifteenth Summer Xtreme at KidPak, and Daddy has been here for all fifteen.  We put an online poll up for the favorite shirt of these above, and the answers varied.  The one with the Viking helmet is just one of seven different t-shirts that year, as the kids all represented different tribes and therefore different symbols.  Madison's tribe was the Vikings that year, so I kept that shirt.  Though I think I have the Gladiator, and since I did the voice of the Cowboy, I have that one too.  Anyway, this brings us to the big reveal of this year's t-shirt:

I was initially against this, but it has grown on me.  The tie-dye made me think of art camp or Haight Street, but then I heard that suddenly tie-dye is back in again.  And I'm actually a bit behind in saying that, as it has apparently been in about a year or so.  I missed that memo.  Anyway, I do like the shirt, and it'll be great to see all these kids in such colorful shirts.

So obviously, there is Summer Xtreme prep going on today, but we had a few other events going on.  First, the good news is that we got our water bed, and it is assembled, and we're back in our own bedroom again.  The level of the water was a bit too full initially, and it was a bit too stiff, so we pulled back on that and it's been comfortable to sleep on again.  Speaking of "behind the times," apparently water beds are really old school now.  Part of this is the maintenance and the ease in which you can find sleep comfort beds with numbers and advanced foam technology.  But after researching it a bit, we realized that we were just fine where we were with a water bed.  Sure, it takes a bit to set up and move.  We have tubes of water instead of one big bladder, so that makes moving easier, and draining and filling.  But the foam inside - and the foam outside - helps create a balance where you don't feel like you're sleeping on the surface of a rolling body of water.  It's comfortable, and we're glad to have it back, no matter how retro it is.  Actually, the very fact that it is pretty retro was one of the things that made me want to keep it.

Moving on to the bad news:  our air conditioner is out.  And it is plagued hot.  Brutally hot.  It's so hot that Madison is going to be sleeping in the living room, which is cooler.  She'll sleep on the couch under the ceiling fan.  We'll have someone come and fix this soon - the soonest anyone can be here is Monday, but it should be taken care of by then.  But until then, we had no idea that this house could build up this much heat inside.  All screened windows are open at night, and we're grateful for freon and the guy who invented air conditioning systems.

The weather was stormy again, so more rain.  Powerful storms pounded us again, but no threat of tornadoes.  We haven't had a threat of that in some time, and this year's spring and early summer were remarkably calm compared to others.  There have been isolated incidents, including a really photogenic tornado in Wyoming.  But otherwise, it's been nowhere near as dreadful as other springs can be.

Obviously, with the house lacking air conditioning, we were thankful for the storms.  There's a lot to be thankful for, of course.  Summer is here, and soon Madison will be wearing her tie-dye shirt, or in the case of next week's rank camp, a karate gi.  I wonder if there's a tie-dye belt you can earn?

No, obviously there isn't.