Summer!!!

Remember summers as a kid?? So carefree, not a care in the world, filled with lazy days, and lots of sunshine. Where days are filled with an agenda, but a fun one..like riding your bike for HOURS, going on fun adventures in the woods with your friends ( i use to have a friend named Michael and we had marsh land behind our houses in our neighborhood and we would go out there for hours pretending we were on a safari..or that we were on a treasure hunt and bad guys were chasing us), and LOTS and LOTS of swimming!!! Remember the country time lemonade commercials? Those to me are the appitomy of summer...walking barefoot in a big open field, swinging on a tire swing
My childhood is filled with so many great memories of summer. A lot of those have to do with the annual family reunions we use to have! They were SO fun! Some years we would all stay at a hotel, one year we went to a resort..that was pretty fun, but the two places with the most memories were the beach house in Galveston TX, and when we stayed at a ranch outside of San Antonio...both places we did a couple years in a row. At the beach the house was AWESOME! It had a few levels if I remember correctly, with two levels of decks. We spent so much time at the beach playing in the sand.. I remember one year my aunt made the totally AMAZING mermaid sand sculpture..even to this day I remember exactly what it looked like. My cousins and I use to try and see who could catch the most crawdads...my cousin Jarrett ALWAYS won! At the ranch we would ride horses and swim and tube in the river. We had all these contests for the adults and the kids..like a potato peeling contest, or donut on string contest where you have to eat it before it falls!! So fun! There was a main gathering area where the kitchen was and then cabins for each of our families...I remember one night all the kid cousins got our sleeping bags and all slept on the porch and told ghost stories and scared ourselves to death!!!
Ahhhhhh.....good times!!!
I hope Kaden and Kara will be able to look back in 20 years with the same fondness of summers as I have been able to do, with their own memories and stories.... I can't wait to hear the tales!!!

Here are a couple pictures of our summer this year...

So pretty!!

My handsome little man

Watermelon anyone???

My daughter WILL be the class clown..I'm predicting it NOW!!

Family fun at Greenfield Village on the train

Gettin' tickled!!

Doing "cartwheels" down the hill in our backyard