Summer Begins

Officially, Summer starts on my birthday, June 21st, the longest day of the year. But in relation to human events- school getting out, holidays, barbecues- it seems that the official first day of summer is really Memorial Day.
My family always took flowers to the cemetery that weekend, visiting our extensive family sites: my grandpa on my mom's side, my great grandma and grandpa, my dad's parents, and others whom I never knew personally. Each year since I've been married, I've mentioned to Joseph that it would be nice to walk around a cemetery to commemorate the holiday, even if we didn't have relatives there. Somehow, this has never actually happened until this year.
I don't know if its because Joseph's mother died when he was young so he doesn't like going to visit headstones, or if it just didn't appeal to him, but I've always been sad that we've foregone this tradition the six years of our marriage. This year, my mom reminded me about our great, great grandparents buried in the cemetery in the town where I live now, so on the spur of the moment, I dragged everyone to the store to buy a flower and we headed over to the town's main cemetery. (It's literally two blocks from where we live, so I don't know why we haven't done this before!)
I was surprised by how many people and flowers filled the place with life: it was a wonderful sight to see. It was also fun to note that we must have distant relatives nearby, because someone else had already left memorial wreaths at our family's graves! I was glad to be able to teach our kids about this holiday in a little more personal way this year.




During the summer, we've always liked to go on walks in the evening as a family. Unfortunately, so far its been strangely overcast and rainy most days of the week! The other evening we went out anyway, and found a "secret" side street we'd never been down before. I love finding secret places. This street led off of a main street in town, but it felt like we were suddenly several miles outside of the city, as we passed a cow pasture and some verdant fields full of white dandylions. The road also stretched along one of the many canals crisscrossing town, adding to the feel of a country stroll.
It wasn't very long- at the end the street turned either toward a private road or back to main street, so we stopped there to engage in one of my kids' favorite activities: throwing rocks in the water, and blowing on dandelions.



Jonah was enjoying the show, but was getting frustrated by all the pop grass surrounding his stroller, just out of his reach. I finally pulled one and handed it to him, knowing full well he'd be doing this:


but I wasn't too worried about it... at least he was content! Mmm, chewy.

Another summer tradition we have is going to various parks in the area, and we're lucky that our town has many parks to choose from.
Elora likes to pose:



Josh likes climbing and sliding:



And Jonah has fun hanging out with Daddy.



Finally, remember how we found all those baby ducks down the creek a while back? One of those families (or maybe an entirely new one?) has taken to visiting our apartments on a daily basis. I'm sure this has something to do with everyone giving them tons of bread when they come, for which they're willing to endure small children chasing them all over the place. This was the very first day we saw them on our lawn...they're already a lot bigger than this now!


Not a bad start to summer, wouldn't you say?