Three Little Words

End. Of. Summer.

I don't like those three words one bit!

So instead of telling you about how adorable my girls looked on the first day of the new school year,

I'd rather tell you about the really, really, really fun day we spent on the lake.  Ironically, the first week back to school was also the hottest week of the summer! 

We spent most of our Saturday soaking in that summer sun, gripping the season almost as anxiously as we gripped the handles of the "tube" (or whatever you call it):

That one kind of hurt.

Oh yes, we did a little bit of skiing and knee boarding, too.

I think we might all be feeling the effects of this day in a mildly unpleasant way tomorrow, but sunburns and sore muscles are a meagar price to pay for a day such as this.   It was glorious!

When it comes to my mental battle against the changing seasons, I'm not ready to surrender.

There is Beauty All Around

At Albion Basin, among the wildflowers.

A Sliver of Summer

This is what summer feels like to me.  A teeny tiny little sliver of the year.  It feels so playful, but then I notice that the sun is setting, and the apples are growing on the trees already.  Summer brushes by in a blissful blink, and then it's gone.  If summer were one day, this is the time of day it would be right now...nearly dusk.  I am not ready.

The three younger girls had two weeks of swimming lessons.  I think Olivia became more fearful--or at least more stubborn--about putting her face in the water.  But Hannah really polished her skills and swims independently and confidently now.  She even jumps off the diving board at the community pool now.

We are supposed to have summer jobs--housework, school-type work, etc.  But I am such a sucker when it comes to enforcing that schedule.  I don't want to work away the lazy days of summer, inside my house, ignoring the sun.  It's not very mature of me, but I don't fight my instincts on this. 

Even our garden has been slothful, producing a squash every day or two, and a cucumber now and then.  I harvested our first two cherry tomatoes yesterday, on the first day of August, and I proceeded to wash them and pop them in my own mouth, one after the other.  I didn't even show them off to anyone else. 

Summer brings out the most selfish parts of me.  But it just doesn't feel like there's enough of it to go around.