We penciled in a family fish fry for this past Friday a few weeks ago. I bought fun colored lights and we got a fire pit. I planned a festive outdoor gathering with lights and a fire. The family fish fry part was a success, but my outdoor evening got rained on.
Saturday we planned a spontaneous shopping/eating out trip, but before we left I insisted on some Mother’s Day pictures since I knew Sunday would be too busy. We had 2 extra friends over, but they are just like my own kids so they, along with the dogs, got in one picture.
We got some astonished looks and heard some out loud counting along with some comments like, “5 girls and only one boy!” as we left the restaurant. I never even think of our family of six as being considered large, but you add just two more and I guess people are amazed. I thought it was kind of funny.
It feels completely and wonderfully like summer right now. Even though we do school year round, the long days and so much time outdoors makes it still feel like a summer vacation. We’ve spent a few evenings around our fire pit watching the kids chase lightening bugs after a late evening of baseball, playing and walking with the dogs or just swinging on the swing set. The evenings are still cool enough to enjoy a fire and not yet muggy and so hot that we are just swatting mosquitoes. We come in dirty, smelly and all in need of a bath, but it feels so good.
I’ll take dirty kids who have played hard over clean, bored kids any day.
Long summer evenings are my favorite.
