That Day Last September When I Saved the Summer

In many ways I felt like last summer was a bust.  I was somewhat distracted with my recently re-opened Etsy shop.  We had just enough camps and activities on the books that it made it tricky to just hop in the car and go to the park for a day of roaming and exploring.  We usually go to the creek several times every summer, but last year a friend's son got a leech in the water and I could never bring myself to go back there.  We even skipped our long-standing tradition of going to the opening day of the county fair because it was 95 degrees and just, nope.

It was sort of a blah summer - reflected in both our lack of really enjoyable family time and my mood.

In early September we went on a field trip with other families from the study center to see the tall, historic sailing ships in port in Erie, Pennsylvania, a two hour ride from our home.  I'm not naturally spontaneous or fun-loving but I knew this was an opportunity to do something for my kids to "redeem" the humdrum summer we had had.  I told everyone to bring an extra set of clothes (because you might get wet while touring the ships...??)  I packed up lunches and water and snacks and we left early the next morning to meet up with our group in Erie for the tour.  

It was awesome!  We loved the ships and hearing about their sailing from the crew.  I think Aaron especially enjoyed it since he and I had recently watched a few episodes of  Horatio Hornblower :) We enjoyed our lunches with our friends and were finished with the last tour around 1 in the afternoon. It had been a blistering hot day - lots of sweating and re-hydrating while waiting on long lines in full sun.  We were all sticky and uncomfortable and couldn't wait to get in the air conditioned van. The kids thought we were headed home but I surprised them with a spontaneous trip to the beach at Presque Isle.  

I can't tell you how much enjoyment I received from their surprise and delight.  Mom, are you really taking us to a beach??  You're going to let us take our shoes off??  Can we walk in the water???  We know you'll probably say no, but can we swim??  They about fell over when I said yes.  I wasn't acting like myself at all.  They could hardly believe that I would  let them swim and get sandy in their clothes.  Oh!!!!  This is why you told us to bring extra clothes!!!!   I hadn't even brought towels.  They just swam and jumped and ran and splashed until everyone really was getting tired (it had been a really long day).  Even then, it was hard to convince them to get out and dry in the sun.  They were water logged.  And you can imagine the amount of sand in their underwear ;) Everyone changed into their dry clothes in the back of the van - sand and dirt flying everywhere - me trying to remain calm and in my happy-go-lucky-summer-state-of-mind.  We even hit up the ice cream stand before leaving the peninsula.  I taught my kids about ordering extra sprinkles for when the you've licked the first layer of sprinkles off your cone.  We pulled up back at home well into the evening and stayed up late telling Dad about the day and eating pizza in the driveway as the sun set.  

The kids still talk about that day.  I still think about it regularly.  It was the day that made last summer amazing.  For me, at least.  I intentionally let go of so much of my uptight, plan-everything-to-a-T ways, and we had an unforgettable day.  It meant so much to me to be able to give that to my kids, it's hard to really convey how important it was to me in words.  But I've always wanted to share some photos from that day.  They're a souvenir of one of my favorite days ever.  And they're a reminder of the sheer joy it was to make my children so very happy with a few simple "spontaneous" changes to the plan :)