Thank you, Linda Bauer...

So when I was a kid, some of my best summer memories come from attending Rio's Summer Enrichment Program headed up by Professor Linda Bauer. If I remember right, it was a program to help education majors earn college credit by creating a fun 'school' type atmosphere for school-aged kids during the summer. Susan and I went for several years. My first year I went alone because Susan wasn't old enough and I have 2 distinct memories of that year: One, they kept trying to spell my name 'Laurie', and two, a picture was printed in the local newspaper and I was actually in the picture! (I think it was a picture of us gluing macaroni to a piece of construction paper)


One of my favorite things I remember from Summer Enrichment is that you can turn Queen Anne's Lace into different colors by adding food color to the flower's water. I remember the first time I saw this and I thought it was the coolest thing ever! For the last several years, I've reproduced this fun trick with my boys. They love it, too! This year, we tried 4 different vases and used 4 different colors to see which we liked best. Luke and I like the green the most, Will likes blue and Evan likes the yellow.

Picking the flowers for our little 'science experiment'. I guess the empty lots across the street do come in handy for some things.

Admiring our handiwork and waiting for the flowers to start changing color...

The finished product! I think this picture was taken after 2 days...the flowers actually started turning color within hours, but were very noticeably changed by the next morning.

I have lots of other fun memories from Summer Enrichment, too. (Do you have any, Sus? Do you remember Quiz? Kelly? We rode with Kelly in Quiz's car on field trips to Blennerhassett Island and Adena one year. The 'flight' to Hawaii when they dressed up a small room to look like an airplane? Putting the tips of crayons in a candle flame to melt them and then drawing with the melted tip of the crayon?)

Ahhhh...the memories :)