Just the beginning

Oh summer.  Today is Memorial day, the official (or is it unofficial?) kickoff of summer.  My daughter just finished preschool and will be starting a kindergarten (homeschool) curriculum in September, so I am starting to feel the term summer vacation even more acutely than I did before.

We spent a good portion of the day laying out in the sun and swimming in the pool.  Eating chips and drinking beer (hers of the root variety and mine of the Leinenkugels).  We ran through the sprinkler, my hubby cooked out and a charcoal grill has never smelled better.  We had a delicious linner (you know when you eat so late that you're still full at dinner time) of hot dogs, burgers, chips, potato salad, pickles, watermelon.  It was sooooo good.

I always forget every year how TIRED the sun makes you feel.  I ended up passing out for a couple hours and Mekius took the kids back out so Thing 2 could go out as well (he was napping earlier in the day).  Then we watched some cartoons and I went back out with Thing 1.  Mekius made her dinner and no joke, she fell asleep in her chair trying to eat it, so now she's in our bed, half awake and trying to fight past the sleepy.  She'll wake up 2-3 more times before she finally emerges victorious.  Thing 2 is also upstairs 'napping' (read: singing and banging cars together) so as not to bother his sleeping sister.

Despite having slathered sunscreen on the both of us, I burned.  Shocker, I know.  Random patterns on my thighs, the tops of my feet, my chest and my forehead. Everything else was for some reason spared and I look like some sort of custom painted tomato.  Neither of the kids got burned, though in a couple weeks Hailey will start sporting some impressive tan lines. Girl has yet to burn (thank god) and seems to have her Daddy's ability to tan.

I will always say that fall is, hands down, my favorite season.  There's Halloween, Thanksgiving, Thing 1's birthday.  The apple orchard, pumpkin patch, leaves falling.  I love EVERYTHING about fall.  It might help that with everything outside dying and not yet being trapped inside the house for winter, that this is the happiest time for my allergies.  That paired with the fact that Christmas is my favorite holiday, there is just SOMETHING about summer.

Laying out in the sun and feeling the heat, and appreciating the occasional breeze takes me back to being 15 years old and spending every day laying out at the pool.  Sometimes I would go with my friends, sometimes alone.  I just loved laying out and soaking up the sun.  I love the feeling after coming in and taking a shower, putting on a soft light sundress and just being comfy.  The contrast of your body being hot from the sun and soaking up the a/c is nice too.

Growing up, we had a lot of things in walking distance, the pool was one of them.  Through the parking lot, through the opening between TCBY/Subway and the bank.  Around the circle drive.  Up the street and across the field.  My feet know the path well and I'm not sure I'll ever forget it, as long as I live.  I walked it many times, with my friends, my family and even by myself.

I would ride bikes with friends, or walk with my mom.  I remember the walks home with my mom always included a trip to Jewel to pick up things for dinner.  I can remember far enough back to sitting on the wooden bench in the kiddie pool packing up our purple plastic beach tote to go home.

I even had my first kiss at that pool.  I was there with my parents but playing with my friends and we all got out to say goodbye to him.  My friends and I were sixth graders and he was an eighth grader.  He was flirty; and we all know flirty eighth graders like to hug.  He hugged everyone and when he got to me, he kissed my cheek.  I would have turned red had it not been the middle of summer.  I don't know what I did to deserve that, but thank you Casey Porter, you made sixth grade AWESOME.  You also created the first gray hairs on my Dad's head, since when I turned around he was looking right at me.  He didn't say anything though, which I may have my mom to thank for that.

Thought it may not be my favorite season, summer has always been special to me.  It has held the happiest moments of my life and the first thing I lamented the loss of when I found out we were going to move.  My parents actually told me at the end of summer that they wanted to move and I ended up losing someone I cared about very much.  A certain boyfriend I had that never wanted to admit it to his friends because all of them were too stupid or immature for girlfriends.  I told him I was moving and that was basically it, he was upset with me because I was leaving and left it at that.

But I digress.  Summer is just.  Sigh.  I could talk all day about what I felt when I saw the carnival rides up over Arlington Market when I was a kid, but this post is long enough, so maybe another time <3