Although as I grow older and summers aren’t as big time – wise (three months with no obligations?! Sign me up!), They still have their moments of utter contentment. But I just thought I would write about some of my favorite summer memories today, as the kiddies toddle back to school.

•  Spending a month with my Nana in Prescott. That was always a major highlight, because of all the possibilities. My relatives would come and bring me things (I still have The Secret Garden book my aunt gave me when I decided to hang out with her instead of go to Mass with my Nana!), I would get to help my grandma in a garden that would actually sprout things, and all my cousins were here so if I ever got bored by myself (which rarely happened), I could go and freeze some soda for a summer slushie with one of them. Yes, my cousin Muffin and I used to freeze soda into bowls and sit on the stoop and scrape away at our ghetto slushies.
• Swimming for hours upon hours with my dad and sister. My dad lived in an apartment with the best pool ever. It went super deep, was always clean, and we would never want to leave. I remember on more than one occasion my sister and I would be begging my dad to stay just a little bit longer, and our lips would be purple it was so cold in the pool.
• Making summer foods. Besides the above Soda Slushies, my cousin and I would also get as many fruits as we could round up and slice them all up into mounds of fruit salad. My favorite were the blackberries and bananas, which there were never enough of! My dad would also encourage my sister and I to think up fruits to put in popsicles, but we usually just stuck with strawberries. I also recall making lots of pudding and being impatient for it to fully form in the fridge. That pudding was always amazing because the wait was so excruciating.
•  Nothing. I am truly in awe thinking about the time of my life I didn’t have to do anything, with the exception of the odd-job (cleanup the house, wash the car). Summer was all mine. Discovering hobo castles in the wash behind my house, reading until my eyes crossed, trying to entertain my sister by playing dressup with my mom’s Stevie Nicks’-inspired outfits. Or, just lying around, listening to the fan spin madly. Truly magical.

What are your favorite summer memories?