Things to Love About Summer

The rich chocolaty brown of Ellie's skin, getting deeper and darker by each moment she spends under a sunny blue sky.

Freckles appearing, more and more, on noses and cheeks and foreheads.

Sipping gin and tonics (with extra lime) and lime margaritas on outside patios.

Powerful, loud, crashing, lightening flashing thunderstorms that only a prairie sky can produce.

Seemingly endless evenings when the dark stays away.

"Sev" walks down St. Mary's Road for Slurpees, 3 girls and me.

Dirty, filthy, stinky, deliriously happy people at the end of a week at camp.

A tub full of brown water and sweet smelling clean bodies after washing the week at camp away.

Fresh picked strawberries.

Alarm clocks on "off".

Days full of pajamas till noon and empty calendar squares.

Unfolding your patchwork beach blanket and laying it down on the sand - fresh and ready for the day of adventure.

Lunch kits put away, out of sight and out of mind.

Watermelon juice running down a chin.

Bathing suits hanging to dry on the hooks in your laundry room, recovering from another day of action.

Little curly-haired boys holding frogs and toads in one hand, with their other hand cupped over top.

Cold beer, BBQ on, and a makeshift potluck with neighbors on their deck till the mosquitoes start to bite.

Stacks of books on your bedside table that you want to read, not that you have to read.

Time for new dreams and new plans to permeate in your mind and soul.

Golden fields of canola lining your highway travels.

Anticipation of friends and visits waiting for you at the end of your long holiday journey.

Piles of flip-flops in your entrance.

Pretty dresses.

Not leaving the house without your sunglasses.

Feeling the hot sun warm you from the inside out, thawing away the harsh winter you survived.