It's Summer!

Well if we're getting technical, not quite, I guess. But it's beginning to feel like it. :) We're returning to the frigidness of Alaska on Monday, but before that happens I thought I'd blog a post about some of my favorite little events of Summer that have already happened. This time of year makes me SO HAPPY! It makes me feel like a kid again sometimes. And then, sometimes, it just makes me long to be a kid again. :)

Bare feet

Bonfires with friends! one of the BEST parts of Summer! Here RuthAnn, Kayla and I are busting a gut watching the misery of Nick and Brittany while they try to eat some nasty food for a game we were playing last weekend.

A calmer moment :) ....some girls from church singing around the bonfire

Flowers (of course!)

Earthworms! Wesley loves them. He followed me around for a long time and we looked under rocks together. Every time we spotted one of the poor little creatures we pulled it forcibly from it's safe little home and made it wiggle in the hot sun in terror on our hands. All for our enjoyment. Subduing the earth, that's called.

AND Blisters. From working in the yard. I know; isn't it crazy that this makes it on my list? But I'm always a little bit proud when I end up with one of these. It happens every Spring and it is a sign of hard manual labor.

(The noble feeling fades when my Mom points out that it's also a sign that I can't stand to wear gardening gloves.)

GARAGE SALES!! This is not a picture of a garage sale. It is, however, a picture of Noah and I playing with two Crocodile Hunter action figure sets a bought at a sale today! It was kind of a splurge but Noah loves them ...and his auntie does too. In fact she's going to keep them and make the nephews come to her house if they want to play with them.

(FYI: these are collectors sets now, supposedly. I already had the deep sea diving set but now I have the night rescue set and the snake rescue set too. Thrilled.)

Little baby robins! And their brave mamma built the nest right outside our front porch!! What a miracle those little things are, forming in their fragile blue eggs and then growing like crazy every day. They've amazed us. How can two such ugly little things be so darling at the same time?

This has nothing to do with Summer but at no extra cost I'm throwing in this darling picture of our little sunshine, Caleb. He was quite overjoyed, as you see, because he pulled himself up and strummed my guitar without being told it was "no-no". I think he's getting fatter every day. Some of his names include Fatty Fatso, His Royal Thighness, Big Man, The Chubster, and Lub.

Then there are the nostalgic, unbelievably wonderful parts of Summer that I didn't photograph:

• The smell of freshly cut grass
• Falling asleep to the chorus of millions of crickets, cicadas, and katydids
• Dripping ice cream cones
• Laying in the sun until you feel like you're going to fry...and then jumping in the cool water
• The drone of lawnmowers
• Waking in the morning to birdsong
• Chasing lightening bugs
• Little girls in sundresses
• The 4th of July concert at Blossom! Laying on a grassy hillside with my family...watching the stars come out... listening to the Cleveland Orchestra perform the 1812 overture and waiting for the cannons to boom...then the fireworks!
• Digging in the flower gardens
• Flip flops
• Sitting on our front porch watching storms roll in
• Ice cream at Durbins with church friends on Wednesday nights
• Our HUMMINGBIRDS!
• Driving with my windows down, the wind blowin' my hair!
• Summer evening concerts in the Wadsworth gazebo
• Beautiful sunrises on the way to work
• Cookouts
• Cooking with fresh herbs

...And the list could go on forever. What do you guys love most about Summer?