I Love Summer

I sat and watched my girls play at the park today. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and as I watched them I got so excited for the summer to begin. I watched my oldest daughter make a new friend and they ran off holding hands and playing "princess in the castle". It made me think of my own childhood and how much I adored summer. Didn't three months sound like a lifetime back then?! Now, three months is gone in a blink of an eye, it seems. Well, not this year! I'm vowing to enjoy EVERY SINGLE MOMENT of summer this year. We'll have popscicles, ice cream cones, run through the sprinkler and swing on the swings. I can hardly wait. In the meantime, here are my thoughts from the park today as I reminisced about summers past... Hopefully some of you will remember the same things. I don't think I'm THAT old. Heh.

*Doing a “penny drop” off the monkey bars.
*Friendship beads on your tennis shoes - tons of them pinned
to the toes of your shoes.
*Double-dutch.
*Four square.
*Ramona the Pest. (LOVED to read, still do.)
*The Boxcar Children.
*Malibu "tan lines" Barbie.
*Giving an "Underdog" on the swings.
*Cat’s cradle.
*Waiting impatiently for an “appropriate” hour to go
outside, then playing outside until the streetlights
came on. Stopping only briefly around the noon hour for
a quick pb&j sandwich and a snack size bag of Cheetos.
Oh, and a *Tupperware plastic cup full of cherry kool-
aid.
*Cherry kool-aid "mustaches".
*Root beer and banana flavored Twin Pops.
*Being barefoot starting the first day of summer to the
last day of summer.
*Counting your mosquito bites.
*Ready or not, here I come…
*Red Light, Green Light
*Red Rover
*Going to the *Dairy Queen after your softball game - even
if you didn't win.
*Sliding down the METAL, REFLECTIVE slides.
*Drinking out of the hose.
*Sparklers.
*Riding your bike without holding on to the handle bars.
(God I thought I was soooo cool.)
*Going to the grocery store and spending all your money on
bottle caps, wax pop bottles, pixie sticks and (gasp!)
candy cigarettes.
*Doing the "Nestee Plunge" into the swimming pool.

God I hope we have HAlf, no a QUARTER as much fun as I used to have this summer. Even that would probably be too much for this old lady to handle. :)