I Think I See Where Summer Went.
Summer has – once again – completely bypassed me somehow.
I remember that we went to see Finding Dory on the last day of school, after which I swore that we would go swimming every week during the summer. I didn’t want to miss anything. Then, with only two days of summer vacation left, we finally spent two hours at a swimming pool.
Where did the summer go?
Our vacation was brief – albeit jam-packed with activity. In seven days, we saw eight colleges. We visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and two huge amusement parks over the course of three days. We even stopped to ride the world’s oldest coaster. For the first time ever, our vacation was filled with enough roller coasters.
But the kids also went to camp for a week, an experience they absolutely treasured. Bill and I had “date week” while they were gone, and stayed at a B&B, and ate ethnic foods and went to fancy restaurants, and became spies at the International Spy Museum.
Dylan spent a week on a mission trip to serve less fortunate folks in West Virginia – and came back muscular and serene. Meanwhile, Shane entertained preschoolers at Bible School in the mornings, then he worked in the evenings as a junior mascot for a baseball team. I played a lot of softball, and we went to a lot of baseball games.
We went zip-lining through the trees – twice. We went tubing down the river – twice. We took walks in the woods and went to the movies and visited farmers markets and played ball and went to escape rooms and the library and the dog park and the playground and the pool. We shopped at the mall and went pedal boating and played miniature golf and hit softballs and ate ice cream and chili dogs and fried brownies and popcorn and burgers and pizza and sweet corn and fresh-picked tomatoes – and then we ate more ice cream.
We went to the county fair twice. Shane won prizes for his photography. Dylan sang karaoke, and he sang for school kids and for seniors. Dylan and Shane both earned more than 50 student service learning hours toward graduation. Oh, and they somehow finished their summer homework. They read books and wrote music and made lists of their favorite things. They had friends over for playdates. We all played board games and saw some spectacular concerts.
For maybe my favorite Norman Rockwell moment of the summer, the boys and I sprawled on the porch at midnight and watched shooting stars fly across the night sky during the perseid meteor showers.
Okay. I think I see where summer went.
We had fun.
I am sorry that it’s over.
But that’s how summers are supposed to be.