What Summer Tastes Like

This is what summer tastes like to me: Zucchini spaghetti. Zucchini and tomatoes from our own garden. Sweet, slick onions. A dash or so of olive oil and parmesan. Ahhh.

Summer

Here Comes

Here comes summer,
Here comes summer,
Chirping robin, budding rose.
Here comes summer,
Here comes summer,
Gentle showers, summer clothes
Here comes summer,
Here comes summer —
Whoosh — shiver — there it goes.

— Shel Silverstein

Summer.

Running...

Hiding...

Picking strawberries...

...and enjoying them.

Peeking...

Laughing...

Enjoying old treats...

...and trying new ones.

(It's a deep-fried Twinkie. I'd never had one before. I didn't find it as impressive as some do, but it was still a worthwhile experience.)

Bed racing...

Dragon riding...

Discovering the strange...

(We had a hard time identifying this one. Turns out it's not one creature, but about 50: one Tomato Hornworm caterpillar — bane of gardeners everywhere, and 50 or so parasitic wasp larvae — bane of tomato hornworms everywhere.)

...and beautiful.

Seeing nature up close...

...and far away.

(That's Jupiter and four of its moons. You may have to just take my word on it. My astrophotography skills obviously aren't the best!)

Getting the ball into the basket...

...and trying to get the basket under the ball.

Bouncing...

Splashing...

(Happy little sigh) See you next year, Summer. It's been good.

Adventures of Summer- Swimming

(Guest blogger: Deborah)

Now that school is out for the summer, I have been going on all sorts of adventures with the kids.

The first adventure was swimming lessons. Fiona is in level 2 now, but it's Aiden's first year. We went each day, first thing in the morning for nine days. I didn't even get them dressed, but just had them get their swimsuits on each morning. Aiden has about 5 swimsuits- one that we got last year that still fits, some hand-me-downs from two other families, and this wet suit that I got at Kids' Market. I think he looks soooo cute in it. :)

One day, Aiden felt his wet suit before he put it on and said, "Is this a wet suit?"
"Yes," I replied.
"No it's not!" he laughed, "It's a DRY suit!"

Here is Fiona swimming with her teacher, and later standing on the diving board. She stood on the board, getting more and more nervous. Despite our coaxing, she finally turned and got back off again. For the rest of the day, I talked up jumping off the diving board. We talked about why she didn't jump off, and what to do when you're scared, and the correct procedure for jumping off a diving board. We acted it out with her animals. I told her I would give her ice cream if she jumped off all by herself.

The next day she got to the end of the diving board and paused. I was hopeful that she would jump, but she still didn't do it. There was only one more day of swimming left.

The last day of swimming lessons, Aiden's class went over to the diving board. (The teacher was in the water with a floating thing to catch the kids.) Little did I know that Aiden had been listening carefully to all the things I had been saying about jumping off the diving board. He was so excited. He ran right over and wanted to be the first one. He got to the end of the diving board and fearlessly jumped right off. As he proudly climbed back out of the water, I promised him ice cream, just like I had said for Fiona. Later he jumped in again, and asked if he could have two ice creams since he did it twice, but I said No, one was plenty.

Fiona's teachers put a life jacket on all of the kids that day, and that gave Fiona a boost of confidence enough to jump off by herself, so she also got to claim her ice cream. On the way home from swimming that day, we picked up Andy at work and all went to Dairy Queen together.

Oh, and here is what Risanna did at the pool — charmed all the parents!