It’s summer break for kids while my husband and I are still working. It creates a bit of a dissonance. Because kids want to do things, go places, and we are stuck saying “Sorry! We have to work! Go play.” One of my kids has been asking if I have ever considered becoming a teacher. Because teachers can take summers off!!! (nope, don’t want to be a teacher, even if it means summers off*).
We celebrated the end of the school year last week by going to a local ice cream shop. We met up with another family and watched our kids devour their ice cream cones in a park (sticky drips, sticky hands, sticky faces… ah-h-h, childhood). Our older daughter, who usually struggles to finish desserts, was able to eat her entire “small-sized” (2 scoops! In a giant cone!) treat all by herself. I think that’s a first. When I asked if it was good, she said “It was OK… not as good as the one at the farmers market.”
This summer, we decided to re-join our local pool. We didn’t go at all last summer (because of you-know-what), but some of us (3/5) are now fully vaccinated and we are hoping that if we go early in the day, the pool will not be crowded. We went Saturday a little after 10 – and we were the only family there (it is a very small pool). Around 11, more people came, but it still didn’t feel crowded because they were all young families with kids hanging out in the baby pool or at the shallow end. We left around 12, feeling very happy with ourselves. Our son no longer needs to pass the deep-end test (it is only for kids under 12), our older daughter was able to pass on her first try, and the youngest is trying very hard to keep up with her siblings in and out of the water (she is going to need a few days to regain her swimming skills).
Yesterday was Father’s Day – we had a nice low-key celebration with lots of delicious food. We went to the farmers market in the morning and got some local produce. I love fresh food! The cherries are full of flavor, the strawberries and blueberries taste like actual strawberries and blueberries (instead of the weird lack of flavor in berries we sometimes get at the store, which make me wonder if I have lost my sense of taste). My husband grilled, I made fresh salads, and we had the ice cream from the market that the kids like so much (this time, we got chocolate and rhubarb-strawberry crisp flavors… so rich I can only have a tiny bit at a time).
The kids found a couple of early black raspberries in our yard (not planted, just wild-growing) – we each got to eat a berry. We are all eyeing our boysenberries, raspberries, blueberries, and wild blackberries with great anticipation… Hopefully we’ll get at least a few (birds and chipmunks like our berries, too… maybe we should net the bushes).
Dear reader, do you have a favorite berry? When I was a kid, I was crazy about wild raspberries. Now, I think I am a little more partial to blueberries (wild are great, but I’ll take the farmed ones, too, as long as they freshly picked – or I get to pick them myself).
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