Cloud Watching

It's hot. The high today was 99. I'm the first to admit my tolerance for heat would no longer lead anyone to believe I was raised in Texas. I've spent the better part of this week trying to come up with creative reasons why we can't play outside. Unfortunately, our kids are smarter than I. Double-unfortunately, they outsmarted me on the hottest day so far this year...at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Please pass the ice.
We went outside and splashed around in the pool for a while. Remarkably, the breeze and lack of humidity made it tolerable...until 5 minutes into our playtime when Makena declared that she was "done with outside" and wanted to "dry off inside". No way sister. We came out here to Africa and we're going to stay here.
Here comes the good part- we laid down on towels and looked up at the sky for thirty minutes! A three-year-old and an almost-two-year-old were mesmerized by the changing shapes in the (two) clouds in the sky, the passing airplanes, a few birds, the leaves on our big tree blowing in the wind and the moon (out for a mid-day adventure) for half an hour.
I can't explain why it was so special to me, but laying there doing absolutely nothing more than pointing out cloud shapes (most of which were so far from existing it was funny) and listening to the leaves rustle in the wind with two little people with open and excited minds was the highlight of my week so far. "A dragon!" was claimed by Reese when the wisp of leftover cloud was nothing more than two parallel lines. "A crocodile!" may have been discernable at one point, but not when Makena declared it. It didn't matter. A parade of horses, dragons, crocodiles and pigs went by- all with about this many clouds: