Shootin’ my foot

 

I love summer.

I love getting up early and having it be light. I love having time to run and get lost in my garden before the kids wake up and get hungry. I love it when they come out in their pajamas to find me digging weeds and watering. I love how they linger and snack on peas, find bugs and tell me stories. I love that all this is just the beginning.

There are also vacations and camping trips and too much time spent reading. There are art camps, library trips and swimming.  Long days full of things we didn’t think we would ever have time to do and laying down at night being completely exhausted with the windows open. 

I love how summer is whatever we want it to be. How in the beginning I can be completely satisfied with a rope swing and the next minute find myself  in the middle of putting together a monstrously ugly swimming pool in the middle of my back yard…

More than two years ago the kids asked if we could get a swimming pool. Not just a kiddie splashing pool, but the kind in the big boxes cluttering the isles of wal-mart. I told them of course they could, if they paid for it. so they started to save.  They made it quickly to about $35 and they lost steam, and I figured I was safe. they would add  a dime or even a quarter every now and then…and then, unwittingly, I shot myself in the foot.

My great plan to encourage my kids to memorize scriptures, to save a little money for each month they willingly memorized. We were saving money for a mini vacation to Etlitch Gardens. They worked hard and before we knew it we had saved the money. Then we realized that Bingham was just an inch too short to go on all the fun rides with us, and what good is a family vacation if you don’t get to stick together as a family? So we had a little meeting and I asked what they would like to do instead. Next thing I knew we were leveling out a 16x16’ circle in our back yard. I take comfort in the fact that my back yard is pretty unfinished and not much to look at any way….might as well put a pool there. It was just as much work as I thought it would be, but I have been a little surprised with how much the kids have enjoyed it. Now that it’s all set up it’s really not so bad and I’ve enjoyed a dip or two myself. So, I’m making peace with the idea, after all it is summer,

and I do love summer.