Hazy, Crazy, Lazy Days Of Summer

It's here...the first day of Summer. It came around 6:30 pm and it brought with it a full moon on this solstice. That's a rare phenom that won't happen again for 70yrs.  I think I'll miss that one, so I made sure to take a good look at this full strawberry moon, as it's called.  The sky was hazy so the moon was shrouded in a milky covering.  The air is balmy with a slight breeze.  It feels like Summer with the temps in the 90's today and warm tonight.  I thought of the many things that remind me of Summer and the many things that make it feel like Summer has arrived.  When I was a kiddo it was the end of school and that first lazy day of just being outside the whole time.  No video games, tv, or other distractions.  The lawn sprinkler was the cooling off mode, or sometimes the public pool or a friends pool.  Oh that smell of coppertone!  Oh that smell of chlorine! Oh the first sunburn since sunscreen wasn't in our household.  We'd get tan eventually! Summer always was vacation time for our family.  My Dad bought a small house in Wisconsin about an hour away from our home.  He moved my Grandparents into it and he and my Aunts and Uncles worked together to make it a cute place for them and a good destination for us since there was a lake just down the road.  Dad and my brothers would go fishing and I learned how to swim in that lake.  I would stay with my Grandparents for at least a week during the Summer and enjoy my time with Grandma.  She and I had a good relationship and I loved her dearly.  She always made me doll clothes for my Barbies and there was always a new Barbie waiting for me!  She had a room that was full of the dolls she collected.  Heaven for a little girl!

Obviously this photo wasn't taken in Summer, but that's my Grandparents in the "house at the lake" as we called it.    Our Summer vacations also had many camping trips across the country.  I'll save those memories for another blog.  I'm sure everyone has their own way of ushering in this season.  Their own memories of Summer days.  I have many good memories of playing outdoors until it was dark, then watching and catching fireflies as my parents sat on the front porch and chatted with neighbors or my Aunt and Uncle who lived across the street.  Statue maker was another fun game we played as kids.  Time has replaced those childhood memories with memories of my own kids Summers.  We also spent time on trips and also time at my in-laws place that had a pond where my kids enjoyed swimming and fishing.  Again the smell of suntan lotion and chlorine and the sound of laughter and roasting marshmellows over an open fire.  Their games of ghosts in the graveyard and riding their bikes to the public pool.  Scout camp and basketball camps.

This pic is of a Summer many years ago with my oldest son, Jack, and I at a lake near my Mom's house.  I was 8mo. preggo with #2 son, Craig.  Now they are enjoying their own Summers with their kiddos...the circle continues.  Hopefully it will be filled with good memories, the smell of suntan lotion and chlorine and I know there will be roasting marshmellows waiting here at the Pines with YaYa and PawPaw during the lazy, hazy, crazy days of the Summer of 2016!