Summer 2015: Day 9

The heat is back after a long hiatus, but I'm not complaining. We turned on the AC yesterday, and though we aren't running it at night (Lori and I both still like having the windows open as much as we can), it's provided some relief. The boys had swim practice in the indoor pool, and I sat by the outdoor pool and worked. This may sound dreary, mixing leisure time with work, but it was actually nice to earning a living while wearing swim trunks. Unfortunately, the wind picked up and blew some clouds in front of the sun, and I put my shirt back on and never actually jumped in the pool. No matter -- I still got a lot done all day (not just at the pool).

We returned home to the Ramona Avenue block party, which was in full swing. The boys and I didn't stay too long, but we did eat and congregate with our neighbors. Took the dog on a good walk in the comfortable evening air. I'm now on the porch finishing up some writing before going to bed.

Today was June 1, and I had a realization that was a bit sobering: Michael is seven years away from college. As the summer hits it stride, we have about four good years -- four good summers -- before he becomes a disinterested high schooler. We have six with Ben. As a family, we need to make these years really count. We've had some great summer memories over the past decade. It's time to make some more.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summer, Day 8

Today was Memorial Day, and as far as Memorial Days go, this one seemed somewhat anticlimactic. The sun came out after three less-than-stellar days, perhaps preventing the weekend from being a total bust. I worked late last night but was awake earlier than I wanted to be this morning. I fell back asleep and woke up around 10:30 to a thumping sound outside. Michael, Lori and my father-in-law got the rest of the sand in the base of the new basketball hoop, and Michael and his friend from across the street were shooting around. This was Lori's parents' last day in Utah, so we treated them to The Cheesecake Factory at the new City Creek mall downtown. I had the macaroni and cheese burger and most of a piece of Oreo cheesecake (no matter how much I pushed on my sons -- they wanted to share Lori's banana cream cheesecake). The boys and I wandered City Creek a little and came home. The afternoon wasn't much more eventful. Michael and I took Popcorn to the park for about
Read more

Vacation finale

Image
As expected, the last three days of vacation were much less eventful than the first 12. This happens every year -- we get back from Wisconsin for at least one day before leaving for Utah, and it's just wind-down time. And that's OK -- going nonstop for two weeks isn't easy, especially with kids. And vacation is supposed to be a time to relax, and for the past three days, that's what we did. The past few days weren't that relaxing, however. Monday, we met my mom, who is in Chicago this week, for lunch and then to Old Orchard Mall. That night, we met some friends at the new Superdawg (my favorite Chicago hot dog restaurant) in Wheeling. Tuesday, after pondering going downtown, we ended up just seeing the Smurfs movie with my dad. Last night, we went to dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant here in Edgebrook. Wednesday was mostly devoted to getting ready for our return trip Thursday morning. The heat and thunderstorms finally subsided -- this might have been the m
Read more

The Little Red Machine

Image
After blogging about Eldest's baseball experience (as well as mine as an assistant coach), I decided to write about my five years playing organized baseball as a kid. Long ago (the mid-1990s), I wrote about two of these seasons, so I will dig those up and transcribe/edit/add/revise when I post on those two seasons. This post will be about my first season, in 1978 on the Reds. We had moved into our new house in 1977, and my new friends, especially Marc, loved baseball and collected baseball cards. Even before we had moved that spring, I was started to become interested in baseball, so my interest exploded that summer. I had played basketball for two seasons at Norwood Park, so my father signed me up for t-ball in the spring of 1978 and bought me a glove (mass-autographed by Mickey Rivers!). I was placed on the Reds. The team was coached by a couple teenagers, including the older brother of one of my teammates. I don't remember many of my other teammates, except we had a bi
Read more