Oregon Summers

Yesterday while three of the nieces and nephews were playing various made-up games in the blow-up pool in our backyard, I got to thinking about how great summers were when I was a kid. We had a few favorite methods for beating the heat in Mississippi. When we got our first VCR, my sister and I would do the same thing nearly every day while my parents were at work: we'd turn the air conditioners up full-blast, lock the doors to the house, and one of us would walk to the video store for Ghostbusters, Real Genius, or Poltergeist while the other would trudge up the hill to the convenience store for Doritos and Lemon-heads. By the time we'd meet back at home, we'd be drenched in sweat, so we'd take a few minutes to lay flat on the orange shag carpet and cool off in the frigid air. Then we'd eat tuna casserole made from boxed macaroni-n-cheese and canned green peas before digging into the junk-food and movies. It's no wonder I was such a pudgy kid, and my sister and I might be solely responsible for the current climate crisis with the amount we ran the AC.

My sister came to visit last week, and it was fun to do some summer hanging-out again with her, though this time in cooler Oregon.

We found a lake in view of Mt. Hood where my sister jumped right in.

When we got home from our trip up to Mt. Hood, we discovered that Mr. Ed, my father-in-law, had been sitting on our front porch for a couple of hours reading/napping. We asked why he didn't just go in the house since he's the one who gave us the lock-box with a key, and he said that he just liked it on the front porch. That's another great thing about Oregon summers: front porch sitting. When we started looking at houses up here, we passed right over any house that didn't have a hefty front porch. They're such social things, so healthy for a neighborhood.

So my sister and niece ended their day in the hot-tub, listening to whatever pearl of wisdom Mr. Ed was passing on.

So along with AC and tuna casserole, front porches, lakes, lemon-ade stands, and visits from Ed, a few other timeless things I love about summer are:

Fuzzy baby ducks.

Farmers market crepes.

Cold drinks and swimming pools.

Pop-ice.

Picking ripe berries.

Water-gun fights.

Naps.

I hope that your summer is as slumbersome and fun as ours. What were/are some of your favorite things about summer?