Welcome Summer!

Summertime! It hit an almost unheard of 97 degrees here in CNY this week. (Thank goodness I have one of the houses in the minority with central air conditioning).

My kids are not out of school yet. They are aware that the majority of the country is on summer break and are vocal about how unfair it is that they are not.  This has not stopped them from daydreaming about the things they would like to do this summer.

Remember that - the luscious anticipation of no school for weeks?  The looming stretch of lazy summer days where you could spend so much time doing whatever you wanted?  Especially when I got old enough to ride my bike all around town, that freedom was intoxicating.

I looked forward to picnics with unlimited amounts of my favorite food and big softball or volleyball games or water balloon fights and what seemed like minimal adult supervision.  I loved staying up until the sun went down, which was much later than my school bedtime, and chasing fireflies or playing flashlight tag, or going for ice cream.  I remember snatching up with delirious joy any invitation to go swimming (we did not have a pool in my yard).  I played tennis for hours, hit every jungle gym in every park in town, made forts under friend's porches.  We took trips to lakes, including the one my grandparents lived on in Northern Wisconsin, which was the uncontested highlight of every summer.

Don't you still look forward to summer?  In Michigan, it meant days on the dune beaches of Lake Michigan and camping trips to the UP. It meant I could plop my preschooler in the trailer and bike everywhere.  It still means barbeques with friends and excursions to the farmer's markets. We will take trips with friends and just with our family, and we will swim in lakes

 and wade in creeks.

 We will hike and canoe in the Adirondacks.  I will forget to put on sunscreen and a hat and ruin my skin and hair.  I will sustain a large number of mosquito bites, especially when I am pulling weeds in the morning in my garden.

 We will pick fresh berries

and make pies and muffins and just eat them raw until our bellies can't hold anymore.  I vow to squeeze every ounce of wonderfulness out of every sunny and warm day this summer.

Maybe it's because winter is too darn long and rough, but Northern summers are heavenly, and I am celebrating that another one is here.