Ahhhh, summer time. A time for sun and warmth and water. Swimming, lazing, and vacations. Fun for everyone, including the kids.

Kids love to swim of course. Mine do and I think there isn’t a boy or girl born who doesn’t love to swim.

Here’s a gift for a dad that will get him in the water playing with the kids that will get everyone enjoying themselves, the kids and dad.

It’s a walk on the water ball. It’s 6 foot across, and dad or the kids or them all get inside and “walk” on the water. It’s got cups on the outside, so as dad, or the kids, or all of them, walk, it walks over the water along with them.

Perfect for summer swimming. Get it here. (search water ball when you get to the website)

And a great way to get dad out in, or on, the water playing with the kids, getting some exercise and having a great family time.

Looks like fun doesn’t it? Perfect for a pool or the beach.

Just one warning though, don’t use if when there’s an offshore wind. Or dad and the kids may end up walking further offshore than they intended.A great gift for a father, or a son.

I used to have a barking dog in the house next to me. It started up barking at about 4 am, so I know how annoying barking dogs can be. It ruins your sleep, and makes you grumpy.

You don’t have a man who’s a little grumpy because he’s losing sleep because of a barking dog do you?

Luckily for me we moved away and now all I have is a rooster to wake me up early!

But seriously, barking dogs can be a serious disruption to his, and your, sleep.

Here’s a gift idea for a grumpy man. It should overcome the barking dog problem. It’s a cleverly disguised birdhouse. It’s not really a birdhouse at all, it’s actually an ultrasonic device designed to stop that dog barking.

It’s a quiet dog behavior modification tool. He barks and it emits a sharp ultrasonic sound that dogs don’t like, but people can’t hear. It can be set to emit the sound by barking at various distances up to 50 feet away.

So, dog barks, gets blasted by ultrasonic noise, associates the noise with barking and learns not to bark if it doesn’t want the noise.

Voila. Barking stops.

Great idea huh! Patented already.

Get it from Hammacher Schlemmer. When you get to their home page just type “barking dog” into their search box at the top of the page and there it is. $69.95

Better sleep is worth way more than $70.So make sure your man isn’t grumpy from barking dogs this Christmas. Get him a birdhouse that will stop the barking.

A friend of mine is a dad to be, not too long to go now, and of course my thoughts turned to gifts for expectant dads.

Because of course there’s a thousand and one gifts for expectant mums, but whoever thinks about expectant dads? After all, they’re expecting too, even if they aren’t actually going to be doing the deed themselves. They’ve got a baby coming as well.

And of course for mums there’s a thousand and one gifts that are all directed to making her new life as a mum easier, more comfortable and joyous, all in the company of the new baby.

So I thought I’d have a look for a gift idea for a dad that encompassed the same theme, a gift that was directed at bringing dad and baby closer together.

I think I’ve found something that fits the description just fine. It’s the Dads Diaper Vest.

It’s got everything he’d want. Pockets to hold just about everything. Diaper wipes. Car keys, cell phone, mp3 player, (for when the crying gets too much) baby bottle, and it can even hold diapers as well.

It’s perfect for the dad who wants to get his hands dirty and become a part of bringing baby up immediately. Give him a dads diaper vest and he’s there with you pitching in with baby duty.

Get one at Dadgear. $81

I love sports and outdoors, I do as much as possible. But when it comes to doing sports or outdoors activities in the summer I really feel the heat.

My wife feels the cold. I feel the heat. If it’s hot I die. And I must wear a hat in the sun, I don’t have as much hair as I’d like and if I don’t wear a hat I suffer from sunburn on the top of the head. Not nice, and not healthy these days with skin cancer on the rise. But if I put a hat on on a hot day it makes my body temperature skyrocket.

Here’s a simple effective idea for an outdoors man who feels the heat, or for anyone who needs a little cooling down on a hot day.

An evaporative cooling hat. Specifically designed to allow the sun to evaporate water from the hat to keep you cool.

Now I usually wet my hat when I put it on on a hot day, I know it works to keep you cooler, but this hat is specifically designed to do it much better. 3 layers of specially designed fabric. Both hydrophilic (water-attracting) and hydrophobic (water-rejecting) fibers to keep the water away from the top of your head and in the top layer of the hat where it evaporates to best effect, and also in a middle layer to stop the water evaporating too fast.

All up keeping your head up to 30 degrees cooler on a hot day.Now that sounds like a cool idea to me. Get to Hammacher Schlemmer to get it, just type “cap” into their search tool and you’ll see it right there. So if your man suffers on a hot day grab him a cooling insulated evaporative hat. At $25 it’s a gift idea he’ll love at a price you’ll love.

Golfers are everywhere, including me. Golf is one of the most popular (and hardest, take it from me) sports in the world.

So if your man is a golfer then you might like to get a nice golf gift for him.

Problem is, there aren’t a lot of golf gifts around that haven’t been done before. I’ve already written about one that I think is pretty different, personalized golf balls, but most other golf gifts are, well, a bit ho hum. He’s probably got one already.

But  I got a comment from someone on one of my articles about their own site offering antique hickory golf clubs for sale. As this seemed a bit different to all the golf stuff that I’ve seen around I thought I’d check it out, and thought it was a pretty good gift idea.

Hickory Sticks have a fine collection of restored antique wooden shaft golf clubs. They offer them for sale and as a gift idea for an avid golfer I love them. And I suspect that over the years as these old sticks get more and more scarce they may become quite valuable.

A single club is $150 so it isn’t a cheap gift for him, but it’s a quite unique golf gift idea.

Maybe a good gift idea for a man on fathers day, although of course they make a good gift for a man at any time, so if you’re a  little too late for fathers day then some other occasion, like his birthday, would be fine.

They also offer other antique golf products like antique golf balls, which I loved when I saw them.

So if you’re looking for a golf gift for dad, for fathers day or any other day, why not an antique golf ball or set of golf clubs. They’re certainly a little different.