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1) NATIONAL LITERACY DAY, July 1 -- Summer reading begins! Grab your beach books and catch those rays of enlightenment. Stack your library books as high as you can and stretch out on the 
sofa with a cool glass of iced tea. Was there ever a more glorious time to read that summer?

• Journaling Idea -- Ask the librarian to pull a list of all you've checked out over the past year. Note what you remember about 
  each book. OR scan your book shelves and write down what you've been reading.
• Page Idea -- Color copy (reduced size) covers of books. Put them together on a page with a shot of you reading.

2) CELEBRATE ZOOS -- The first zoo in U.S. opened July 1, 1874, in Philadelphia. If you are an animal lover, pick up a copy of "The Peaceable Kingdom: A Year in the Life of America's Oldest 
Zoo," by John Sedgwick. This popular book focuses on the relationships between the keepers and their charges at the Philadelphia Zoo and will give you a greater understanding of how zoos work.

• Photo Idea -- Be sure to take pictures of the zoo signage. Zoos 
  are masters at graphic arts. Even if you don't use the signage 
  in your pages, you can enlarge the signage and use it for paper 
  piecing patterns.
• Journaling Idea -- Ask the zookeepers you visit: 
  1) Which animal do you most identify with and why? 
  2) If you could be any zoo animal, what would you be and why? 
  3) Which animal most surprised you and why? 
  4) If you could have any animal as a pet, which one and why?
• Journaling and Page Idea -- As children grow, the zoo interests 
  them in different ways. At first my son only wanted to ride the 
  train around the St. Louis Zoo. We lived here for three years 
  before he discovered there were animals at the zoo! Before that, 
  he thought he'd stumbled on to the world's greatest train ride.

3) JULY 4TH, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! More than 200 years ago, 
a courageous group of men risked their lives, fortunes and honor to declare our independence from the crazed King George. 

Among the men signing his name to the document was Arthur Middleton. Middleton paid a high price for flouting the king. When the British invaded Charleston harbor during the War of 1812, a detachment was ordered to find the traitor and give him one last chance to recant and swear allegiance to the crown. Middleton refused. He was torn from his family and home and taken by boat to St. Augustine, Florida. While in prison there, he scratched his name into the damp walls of a cave-like jail. The signature is easily recognized as the one that graces the Declaration of Independence. Eventually, Middleton was swapped for another prisoner and let free. He died a few years after returning from his imprisonment, as his health was ruined by his time in the jail cell. 

The story has always brought home to me that the freedom we think so little about has come to us through great personal sacrifice. Middleton's story is especially dear to me because he was my great-great-great grandfather.

• Page Idea -- What has your family given up to insure our country's freedom? List veterans and show their photos.
• Journaling Idea -- What part of the Declaration of Independence most "speaks" to you? Why?
• Photo Idea -- What local shrines to our forefathers have you visited?

4) HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR BIKINI, July 5 -- Those itty bitty, teeny weeny excuses for bathing suits were first shown in Paris in 1946. Named after Bikini Atoll where an American atom bomb had been detonated, bikinis have been modeled by cute kids and female bombshells ever since.

• Page Idea -- Line up your bathing beauty brigade and photograph them showing off their suits. Then add journaling about what they swim in and why. Don't forget to include swim gear and water diapers! 
• Journaling Idea -- Remember when you cavorted in bikinis? Oh, come on-we know you did! I sewed one myself. After my first dip in the pool, it turned from red to copper colored. Wow, chlorination citation.
• Page Idea -- Think of summers past. Did you bake yourself with baby oil and iodine? Hold a foil-wrapped shield to your face? Squirt Sun In into your hair? Oh, baby, how the times have changed.

5) PICNICS, COOKOUTS and SUMMER CAMPS -- What a memorable time of year. Okay, the winter has its fancy holidays, but summer has a culture and cuisine all of its own.

• Page Idea -- Recently I mentioned to a couple of my girlfriends that I am from Southern Indiana, a real hot spot of haute cuisine. "Such as?" they wondered. "Kidney bean salad," I said. They couldn't imagine such a fancy dish, and so I was forced, forced, to invite them over for a sample. After examining the treat with skepticism, one bite told the tale. "Hey," they crooned. "This is good." Why not create a page to show off your local eccentric delicacy?
• Photo Idea -- Step by step, show the process of making a home-made delicacy. Or building a camp fire. Or roasting weinies. (Don't forget to show a blackened hot dog dangling from a red hot coat hanger!) One day scientist will confirm we risked our lives to eat like this.
• Photo Idea -- Photograph the food spread before and after the picnic. Ask around for recipes and include the most popular ones on your pages.
• Page Idea -- Do you have a summer camp participant? Save that odd-sized memorabilia with photos. The craft item that crumbles on a shelf will show up better years later on an archivally-safe page.

6) SPACE EXPLORATION DAY -- Do you remember where you were on July 20, 1969 when man first walked on the moon? On that auspicious day, everything became possible.

• Journaling Idea -- Ask your children if they'd like to live on Mars. (Towards the end of July, I think parents might band together to pay to send our offspring to another planet!)
• Page Idea -- My friend Elaine's son, Alexandre, is miffed. He was sure that we'd walk on Mars by the year 2000. Why not create a page with photos of your youngsters and their space prediction?
• Fun Idea -- Why not have a movie night devoted to space encounters? You could rent the Right Stuff, Apollo 13, October Sky, Contact, or 2001: A Space Odyssey, depending on the age of your movie-going crowd. Then take photos of the viewers. Don't forget to pop the popcorn.

Have a blessed July. -- Joanna