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!"