Here at New Moon Girls, we love to celebrate girls and women—but today, we want to recognize the important men in our lives. After all, June 21 is Father’s Day!

While listening to a church service about mothers, Sonora Smart Dodd thought up the idea for Father’s Day. Although she worked to get Congress to recognize it as an official holiday, many people didn’t take it seriously. It didn’t officially become a holiday in the U.S. until 1966! Why do you think it took so long for Father’s Day to catch on?

Fathers can play a big, important part in our lives. One very special father, Joe Kelly, was one of the founders of New Moon Girls, along with his wife, Nancy Gruver, and their daughters Mavis and Nia. If your father, step-father, or grandfather is a special person in your life, today’s the time to tell him how much he means to you with a card, gift, or just some time together. If you celebrate Father’s Day, what do you do?

Father’s Day can be hard for girls whose fathers aren’t in their lives, or girls who don’t have a close relationship with them. If you’re in this situation, take a few moments to think about the male role models in your life, whether they’re teachers, brothers, uncles, or family friends. Today is the day to celebrate awesome men in our lives, and I’d love to hear how you plan to do it!

P.S. Don’t forget to check out our Father’s Week features or to take our Father’s Poll!

Summer is here at last!

If you’re already out of school or are baking in hot weather, it may feel like summer has been here for a while. But today, June 21, is the summer solstice: the longest day of the year and also the official start of summer. After June 21, the days will start getting shorter again until the shortest day of the year in December.

Recently, I received a sticker from New Moon Girls member Nina telling me about her summer plans to visit family and maybe see Niagara Falls. It got me wondering about other girls’ summer plans. Are you going on a family vacation or away to camp? Are you looking forward to staying home and just taking it easy? If you’re homeschooled, do you go to school through the summer? What’s your favorite part of summer?

I know that lots of New Moon Girls LOVE summer, because a search of “Summer” in the site’s search engine brings up almost 300 results. Wow! There’s definitely enough creativity here to keep us all busy through the long, lazy, wonderful days of summer.

P.S. Don’t forget to take our summer vacation poll!

Hey, girls! Today is a day to celebrate women being in charge of the house—the House of Representatives, that is!

On June 20 in 1921, Alice Robertson became the first woman to preside over the House of Representatives. A representative of Oklahoma, Alice presided over a vote to send money to Peru for their 100^th anniversary of independence. When Alice approached the stand, many representatives applauded and gave her a standing ovation.

Alice was the only woman representative to serve from Oklahoma until the year 2006, and she was the second woman to ever serve in the House. Despite this, she often voted against issues important to women’s groups, such as providing mothers with money for childcare. Instead, she focused on Native American issues. Before going into Congress, Alice worked in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., and supervised Creek Indian schools in Oklahoma.

To learn more about women in politics, check out A Woman’s Place is in the House and watch a video about how women are getting political to stop hunger. Then stop by Holly’s drawing, Women+Politics=Awesome!