When I Met You in the Summer

This is going to be a different summer than I've ever had. I'm looking forward to it. 

Growing up, my family spent summers on what my sister affectionately called "field trips." Having a historian as a father meant that we would spend a week or two at various LDS Church History sites, battlegrounds from the Civil War, national museums, national parks, and various Krispy Kreme locations throughout the country (man do I have a Krispy Kreme story that will kill the appetite for donuts in seconds). My mom would manage to schedule in a day or two we all referred to as "fun days" amidst the tours, fact-sharing, and picture taking. We would hit up a theme park or spend an afternoon at the beach. While we joked about rather being in summer school than reading one more plaque about how the Native Americans sewed their own clothes, they were always filled with laughing, sunburns, and memory-making moments that we still share around the dinner table. Even though we individually went to various summer camps, hung out at pool parties, and even went camping in the mountains a handful of times, the memories that seem to be the longest lasting are the ones we spent as a family, driving in an 18-passenger van, headed to the Sacred Grove, the Nauvoo temple site, or the Newel K. Whitney store. Summer is really about spending time with the family.

Summer also meant summer jobs. I worked various summer jobs including picking up poop at an animal hospital, waiting tables, working in a library, selling TV services at Walmart and county fairs, and interning at Mass Mutual for a day or two. I think of all the jobs I had, I liked selling TV services for the now extinct USDTV the best. My friend Shelly and I would heckle shoppers at various Walmarts asking them if they paid too much for cable/satellite. If we got someone to stop, we then tried selling them on a TV system that to be honest, I'm not even sure how it works or was different than what they had, except we guaranteed them it was cheaper. If we were able to make a sale and sign someone up, we celebrated at Sonic with tatertots and lemonades. Shelly was a bit older than I was, and so we joked that we had a sort of Demi and Aston thing going on (although to be clear, we never actually did anything of that sort...). 

But summers with kiddos are different. There's something undeniably exciting about summer when you have kids. Maybe we're transformed back to the time where summer meant more than just sweating in a shirt and tie. We remember what it was like relaxing for days at the pool, eating hotdogs with way too much ketchup, not having to worry about homework or quizzes or Mrs. Barns (my third grade teacher who ruptured my eardrum picking me up out of my seat by the ear). Ya, summer was pretty sweet when we were kids. 

This summer I won't get to go on field trips with my family, and the summer job I've got lined up is studying to take the Utah Bar. To be honest, I didn't think I'd be spending my summers alternating weekends with my kids. No one really sees that coming. But that's where I'm at, and it's not a bad place to be in. I love how someone said, "Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." #truth. That's pretty dang encouraging. While this summer will be different from any of the summers I've had before, this one is going to be just as great, if not better. Why? Because I get to spend them with these two nuggets.

Oliver: pensively contemplating color combinations. 

Lottie: way too busy to have time to look at the camera.

Here's to a really great summer! I'm looking forward to watermelon, water slides, and epic water-balloon fights. It will be a summer full of reading, relaxing, and running after my kiddos. I'm not sure I would trade it for anything. Nope, I just checked with myself and I wouldn't. Boom! Summer 2014- it's going to be EPIC.

Oh, and why is it that pictures of my daughter reading a Book of Mormon story book on the toilet makes me laugh like a five year old?