Summahhhh!

Is it summer yet? Ah yes, I believe it is. In fact today is the official beginning of it. It's hot now, school's out, we've been spending time at the pool. But since school's been out, we've been busy, busy!

Last weekend we headed up North to visit Grammy in Park Rapids. It's always a nice getaway, just a few hours north so not time for too many "are we there yets". It was a relaxing weekend just hanging around, doing a little Main Street/antique shopping, being outside and hanging out at the 'little red bridge'. It's a funny thing, that--considering there is NO little red bridge to speak of at this little river overpass but I guess there was at one point and therefore it will always be known as that. It's such a cute small-town thing!

All last week we were getting up every morning to an alarm to trudge on into VBS. (or Vacation Bible School, for those of you who have no clue what those letters stand for...I sure didn't before I started going to church!) I shouldn't say trudge, because once we got there we had fun, but it is hard to start your summer vacation to an alarm! Both Vivian and I were helping out this time, and Sullivan was just attending. I was so proud of Viv, she and her friend basically taught art to the preschool class all by their little lonesomes. It's really weird when your kid starts doing things that you don't even know about, like emailing the youth director back and forth before this started about supplies, her ideas, etc. I was actually CC's on one of those emails and was like, "Whoa!" My little baby is definitely growing up. I, on the other hand, refuse to. Every year I get placed in whatever skit or play that goes on to start out the day. I wonder why they always think of me...?? It couldn't be because I'm such a natural born HAM, could it??? This year I played the part of an Opposum, along with Fruit Bat and Iguana. I have to say, it wasn't quite the part that the Diva Starfish was last year, and the script was defintely lacking. Not that the kids notice or care, but hey! I've got to find my motivation! I mean, how can anything compete with my great line last year as Starfish, talking about my fabulous time getting to ride Sea Horse all around the reef? Without a saddle??

We'll be celebrating Summer Solstice this evening at our dear friends The Schacherers, who have a rockin' party every year to enjoy the longest day of the year. Hopefully they will have enough ice for the beer and won't have to hope for hail to keep it cold again. ! How are you spending the longest day of the year?

Summer, Oh Yeah!

It is Officially Summer! Not only are the kids out of school but we have hit the public pool--so that definitely makes it official. Of course Summer Vacation for the kids means End of Vacation for Mommy...but that's okay. There is definitely something to be said for not having to get up and get the kids off to school. This morning Sullivan actually slept in until 9:00--a first!

As much as I strongly believe that summer is for relaxing, I'm a little dismayed to notice that the calendar is actually pretty full. I don't believe in over-scheduling the kids--and really, that's not too difficult since my kids aren't into sports. It's a struggle to even get them outside, unfortunately. But even so between a couple of camps, VBS, the park program, art lessons and our yearly resort vacation, the summer is practically almost over.

As a kid I don't remember doing anything in summer other than trying to figure out who would be Bosley for a good re-enactment of Charlie's Angels, (I know, I know, I'm dating myself..!) endless scenarios for Barbie (some of them not so G Rated...listen to the Dirty Barbie episode of Feminine Hijinx for the sordid details!--it's early #4) roller skating all over the neighborhood, walking down to Dane's Dairy for an ice cream cone, or just plain hanging outside and seeing where the wind blew me. The only scheduled thing for me was a Camp Fire Girl day camp, or when I was older, the Camp Fire Camp that lasted an entire week. Now that was adventure, especially the year I got to sleep in the covered wagons. As much as I know that was a blast, my main memory of that time was being too scared to find the creepy hole-in-the-ground toilet that was down a wooded path in the middle of the night, so we'd just pee outside of the wagon only to wake up to flies covering the ceiling above us. gross.

Let's just hope the weather is decent for most of the summer. We've had some pretty nasty storms around here, (like the rest of the country, it seems) and we got caught right in the middle of some serious hail a few weeks ago. We were on our way to our some friends house for a party, and we had to pull over on the side of the freeway as the old Subaru was completely pelted with marble-sized hail. The noise was horrific--both kids had their hands over their ears and poor Vivian was just screaming. I thought for sure the windshield was coming in on me! When we finally made it to the neighborhood we were going to, we were amazed to see the streets flooded with about a foot of water, hailstones and leaves that looked like they'd been through a shredder. Everyone's plants were decimated and there was a lot of property damage. Bummer. It was quite the drama, the kids were running around in the foggy park in their Crocs among the freezing hail stones. The hail piled up against people's homes didn't even melt until late the next afternoon. Craziness! My friend Mike took advantage of what he called 'Nature's Bounty', using the hail stones to keep the beer ice cold. Nice!

So enjoy, my friends. And get out there and teach your kids the finer things like Charlie's Angels. "All right, hold it right there!"