More Summertime Memories--Nan's Edition

 

Right off, I confess, that although I love summer because it means swimming in the lake and boating and being with my lake buddies, I’m not overly fond of being hot and sweaty. When we picked this theme, I wondered how I’d ever come up with anything worth discussing, but it took just twenty minutes of cruising old photo albums to fill my mind and heart with so many precious summer memories.

A summer trip to Iowa with my grandparents when I was seven—first time I’d ever been away without my mom. It was scary , yet fun to meet aunts and uncles who were new to me and my cousin Susie and I got to spend almost a week together! I discovered traveling that year—how much I love it, how much I enjoy seeing new places…and how much I love coming home.

We camped in Michigan at least five or six times a year when I was growing up. As a single parent, my mom couldn’t afford much in the way of summer vacations, but we never knew that because every long weekend on Lake Michigan was the best time ever! I learned to swim in Lake Michigan, I learned to sail there, too. I wore my first bikini—it was madras plaid and I blushed from my toes to the roots of my hair the first time I wore it the beach and my little brother chortled at me. Sitting around a campfire, Mom read to us endlessly on those trips—my love of books came from her. Michigan is still my very favorite place to go on vacation.

Church camp is one my very best summer memories—I went every summer from the time I was nine until I graduated high school So much fun, as were church family camps, including one to Algonquin Park in Ontario, where we bathed in the lake where we and the bear got our drinking water. We canoed and hiked and swam, and had to remember lock our food in the car each night to keep the bears and raccoons out of it.

Yeah, that's me...I was
accidentally born a 
brunette.

 I went to visit my mom in California in the summer of 1987—a wonderful trip and a special blessing because Mom died of a massive heart attack eight months later. We went all over the bay area, including a fabulous drive down the Pacific Coast Highway to Carmel by the Sea. We talked and reminisced and laughed, and I had scallops for the very first time at a little restaurant in Pacific Grove called The Fishwife--I think it's still there. It was a precious trip I'll always remember.  If I hadn’t gone that summer I would have missed that time with her.

For fifteen years, I rode horses with my dear friends Dee, Di, Betty, and Patty. My horse Rusty was a babysitter, my next critter, Penny, was a wild child, and my last horse Shadow was a sweet ride. Husband spent several summers raising up a Tennessee Walking horse from a weanling to one of the best riding horses ever. Husband read voraciously, then just horse whispered that little guy into a well-behaved darling creature, who followed Husband around the field like a puppy. We loved our time with the horses, but when it was time to let them go, it was fine to move on to lake life, more wonderful summertime memories that we are still making!

Son, DIL, and I went to Paris and Ireland in summer of 2009—an unforgettable adventure! I want to go back to France—definitely a summer bucket list item.

We are making new summer memories with Grandboy and Son and—fishing boating, swimming, campfires, and playing guitars on the porch. Grandboy is having the summers I’d have wished for him at the lake—ones like his dad and his grandfather. Husband and I were marrried in summer, Son was born in summer, and he and DIL were married in summer, too. Sister Kate was born in Jun, grandboy came along in July, and besties Liz and Moe are both summertime babies. All in all, summers have treated me well.

Liz asked on Tuesday, but I’m going to ask you again, what’s your very favorite summer memory from your childhood?

Stay well, hold those summer memories close and be kind to one another, okay?