Summer

When I was a little girl I could feel summer coming from the day after Easter on. For Easter I always got a few things in my basket that were meant for the MANY days I would spend at the community pool with my friends. I longed for weather above 80 degrees so my mom would let us play in the sprinkler. I checked off the days on my calendar until summer finally arrived and the very next morning I got into my bathing suit where I stayed for most of the next 2 months. I wore shorts and slept in the living room with friends over. I smelled like suntan lotion no matter what I did.

I grew up in a small town. The kind where you rode your bike to your friends house because that was the height of social entertainment. I was blessed with parents that were home a lot and knew the value of fun. Cousins stayed over, we played games, there was lots of junk food. Summer rocked.

I also remember the wide variety of cool trips we took in the summers. Some of them were to do awesome things (like Disneyland) or to visit family. Some of them were to local events my mom found out about. I spent a lot of time at my grandparent's ranch just being a kid with an imagination. And crafts...there were many.

So now summer is here and Layla is big enough to do things with. Add to that the fact that I am home and Jon has been working a schedule that makes it easy to do things as a family and my summer syndrome flaired up pretty bad.

Here is a new extended list of things I'd like to do with Layla this summer...

• A trip to the ocean


• Stanislaus County Fair~ Beach Boys concert & rides & junk food~


• Attend a 4th of July Parade & Write our names with sparklers


• Eat Smores and play in the sprinklers as the sun goes down


• Take Layla to the CrowsLanding Community Pool and teach her to swim ~wear coconut scented tan lotion and eat an ice cream from the ice cream truck~


• Go out for ice cream


• Go to the zoo in San Francisco or Fresno ~depending on the heat~


• Go to the Farmer's Market or the Flea Market and look for treasures


• Introduce Layla to fingerpainting


• Paint Pottery


• Eat lots of BBQ


• Patterson Apricot Festival


• Walk through Old Town Sacramento and have lunch at Joe's Crabshack


• Picnic at the park on Broadway & Play in the kids waterpark there


• Visit the Stockton Children's Discovery Museum


• Take Layla to her first movie in the theatre ~eat buttered popcorn w/ M&M's mixed in~


• Storytime at the Turlock Library


• Playdates at the park with visiting family or friends


• Paint our toenails & let Layla give me a make-up makeover

I actually wrote this list on paper about a month ago so we've already been working on it. The items crossed off have been completed.

**editing note- I am coming back to this post and crossing things off as we do them**