Is it summer yet?

As soon as Memorial Day weekend comes students, teachers, and mommies from coast to coast are bitten by the summer bug.  The three day holiday is like a sweet promise of things to come - warm weather, lazy days, suntan lotion, bare feet... For kiddos and those fortunate enough to enter the teaching profession, summer seems to promise an endless holiday - a much needed break from the onslaught of stress that we deal with day in and out.  The world turns into my beach and every day seems brighter than the next.

Now I realize there are SO many people who do not, in fact, have a summer va-ca to look forward to - my husband and father being two of them.  And I am in no way implying that they don't deserve a break over the summer as well because they do - we all do!  Each year when this weekend rolls around (and those of us with the impending breaks start doing happy dances  and making up little songs to count down the days with a joy rivaled only with the revelry we feel at a surprise snow day) we are met with sidelong glances of derision from those who have nothing else to look forward to then the AC being upped in the office.  Dad.

To be quite frank with you - my summer vacation is shaping up to be little more than two weeks - A week after I'm through with PD, then I have 4 weeks of art camp - which I'm not really counting, another week in which we are (so excited!) going to the shore with Grandma and Nono, and then back to work again for me.  Even so, even knowing that there are really one two weeks where I can indulge in a lazy morning with the kiddos, I'm super fly giddy about summer.  I love everything about it - the warm nights, the dewy mornings, the cricket calls and lightning bugs.  But for me it all starts on Memorial day - the first hint of nights warm enough to eshew a jacket.  Lazy Sunday's, drink in hand, at Mimi and PopPops.  Sleepovers, cookouts, crocks, sitting on the front porch in jammies watching a storm roll in.

This weekend Mimi and PopPop hosted a lovely summer kick off party with delicious gourmet hamburgers, an amazing salad concoction that included oranges and avocado, corn on the cob, fresh fruit, and a light summer cocktail.  The highlight for the kiddies?  The new tricked out summer pool/slide/fountain that the Grand Parental's decided to purchase to spoil their offsprings offspring.  This, of course, pretty much means that our little flower sprinkler is now the lamest thing in town - but they loved this new toy so much I'll forgive Mimmers for relegating our summer fun to the garbage pail.  The Forrer's pretty much have us in spades anyway - more gardens, play houses, vegetables to tend, fish to be fed, ponds to explore, secret hideaways, little lawnmowers, blocks blocks and more blocks, extra special bedtime routines... It's hard to compete, but who would want to.  And for these four kiddos, their magical summer with Mimi and PopPop is only just beginning.  And of course we have that great beach trip with Nono and Grandma to look forward to (I've already packed my bags in my head)... Man, is it summer yet?