My sister and I played softball every summer growing up (still do.) After each game my dad would take us to McDonald's for an ice cream cone. Then we would go to Cheny Lake (Anchorage, AK) and feed the ducks. It was so simple yet such a wonderful time to spend with our dad.
I have one special place to thank for all my wonderful summer childhood memories – Town and Country Farm School. It was a daycare on a huge farm that included a pool, all kinds of animals, arts and crafts building, gardens, dance classes, playing fields etc. My memories include building scarecrows for the gardens, learning how to dive at the pool, watching goats being born (gross, I know, but as a kid it was fascinating), catching lizards, making friendship bracelets …never a dull moment during those summers. Wish I could go back and play again…
Summers for me were spent at friends' pools or at the neighborhood pool near my house. I could spend hours swimming and splashing around. To this day, the smells of chlorine and Hawaiian Tropic are extremely nostalgic for me. Or if I wasn't swimming, I was playing jump rope or rollerblading with friends. Side note: never try to play basketball on rollerblades! That was a lesson that never quite seemed to stick with me as a kid...but it still remains one of my favorite summer memories. :)
My family's summer vacations were always really fun. We road-tripped from Ohio down to South Carolina or Florida every summer, and on the way we'd stop in the Smoky Mountains and visit all the tourist traps. Once we got to the beach, we spent all our time either playing in the sand, visiting water-parks, and playing mini-golf. Then when my brother and I got older, we'd play real golf, go jet-skiing, or scuba dive. My dad always worked and traveled a lot, so those weeks in the summer were some of the only time we'd get to spend with him all year, and we definitely packed our days full of cool stuff to do.
I used to live sitting on the front porch with my family, drinking iced tea and shelling peas or snapping green beans from our garden. Also loved playing hide and seek way past the time my mom was calling me in, when the last bit of light was about to leave the sky. And running through the sprinkler, chasing down the ice cream man, and riding my bike all over. Simple things, but so much fun.
Definitely roller skating with my best friend Kassy. We would do it for hours around our houses, blocks, parking lots, and next door to my mom's work. We would rotate between that and lemon baseball, where we would pitch lemons to each other from off of her mom's tree and hit them till they exploded, and then suck on the tart juice. And running through the sprinklers. Ah, the good ole days...
