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Greetings, Greenies!

We are back from our very first family vacation to the beach! A good time was had by all and our California Baby sunscreen was put to the test (verdict: you need to be vigilant with the baby version and hyper-reapply especially after swimming). Count this as another Summer Adventure Challenge!

You all are doing so well (read: better than I am) on your Clothesline Challenges and I have received several personal emails letting me know what a difference this Challenge has made both in utility bills and eco-friendly thinking.

Nicol writes: "I want to thank you for inspiring me to clothesline. I am also at advanced now and clothesline 99% of our laundry. My gas bill was cut by 42% in just one month. So I thank you for your challenge! :)

Kelli writes: "Hiya Amy, I think I'm ready to bump up from "novice" to "intermediate" on your clothesline challenge!"

Amanda chattered: "So far clothesline-ing has been groovy! While it's rather rainy around here, every once in a while I get a nice sunny day so I try to wait for those to do my laundry :) and hopefully it also lands on a weekend and I can do multiple loads."

Welcome to the Circus joined late, and I neglected to add her to my sidebar in a timely fashion, and she joins us at Intermediate! Welcome, Kathleen!



Hope you all are well. I look forward to hearing from each and every one of you.

A Little Too Much Green Redux

So I knew it was supposed to be hot this weekend, but *that* hot?

Green Husband, Pip, Sprout and I headed out with my SIL and her family for our first overnight camping trip with four children under five. Did I mention that it was supposed be hot? Arriving in Southern Maryland in the fog, we thought, "Now how hot can this be?" It was hot. Did I mention that?

After several hours of constant hydration and inching around the campsite, we gave up and headed for the beach, which, luckily, was only several minutes away. My children have never been to the beach. Let me just say...there was crying when we had to leave the beach. Always a good sign. My SIL and I tried to figure out what was wrong with the beach - meaning, there was no traffic on the way there, there was plenty of parking, the beach was filled with pleasant people all enjoying the Bay, there was an ice cream shop a street over from the boardwalk, and the town seemed adorable. Why? Why no one at this beach? Let's just keep this beach a little secret between you and me, eh?

Heading back to the hell, er, delight, that was our campsite we sweated around until about 7:00 when we were treated to such a spectacular show of cloud to cloud lightening that we decided to enjoy the rest of the show from inside the safety of our trucks. I have never struck a camp so quickly. I say, better the camp than me. We rode home through one of the worst lightening storms I have ever been in, complete with downed tree across the highway.

Today we are drying clothes on the line and using those "points" to run our air conditioning.

Corinne, count this trip as summer adventure and challenge! :)