PINKBUNNIESLIPPERS

I woke up this morning wishing for summers of years gone by. My mother was a teacher who had summers off and would come up with the most amazing (in my small child brain) things to do.

1. Go on an "adventure" grown up translation: took a drive and got lost

2. Peanut Hunt grown up translation; keep the damn kids busy for a few hours looking for peanuts hidden in a yard.

3. Go to the beach. grown up translation: go to a little out of the way beach without lifeguards and if you come back one kid short, eh, who is the wiser?

4. Go looking for rocks in little streams on our "adventures" in the country. Grown up translation: gardening supplies on a budget

5. Quiet warm summer mornings reading on the front porch, just Mom and I Grown up translation: teach kid to be a voracious reader and you got yourself a whole lot of quiet time. score.

Note non of these items involve going to a popular fun adventure park or in any way spending money. Because back then on a teachers salary it just wasn't in the budget (especially when your youngest daughter took up equestrian pursuits which whipped though the family budget not to mention a whole lot of time. I swear one summer Mom somehow paid the horse to throw me off so I would break my wrist freeing up her schedule for 3 months of lounging in the back yard with her books and coppertone/babyoil). Most of our summer days were simply playing with the neighborhood kids and hours in the pool until we all looked tanned and shriveled (kinda like Aunt Edith from Boca Raton). Oddly enough I could not tell you one meal that we had back then other then "helpyselfy" nights and the family pizza night that was actually not pizza but a few bags of eggrolls from Lee Chu's, the ONLY local Chinese restaurant back then. I can not even tell you how good those were. Nothing like what is on a menu today.

I bet Mom misses those summers too.