Wherefore art thou, Summer?

We survived our mostly-rainy five days in the woods. The climax of the trip had to have been the double-poopy-pants Friday night (probably not such a good idea to take two barely-potty-trained three-year-olds to a place where the only toilet is eight feet deep). After that, things got much better—the sun came out, we got to hang out at the waterfront all day instead of being forced on slippery death-marches.

Highlights of the week:

Seeing M fishing, standing up in a canoe, wearing full camo pants, jacket and hat. "He looks like he was born at Orvis," I told C.

M being awarded his Junior Ranger by Ranger Gabe (after much agonizing over his imperfect penmanship and drawing skills—where did I get such a perfectionist child? Lord knows I do everything half-assed).

E pointing out EVERY mushroom on our various hikes—“Nunner mushoom! Two mushoom! Fee mushoom! Yedow mushoom! Oranga mushoom! Fairy table! Fairy chair!”—there are A LOT of mushrooms out there, thanks to this relentless rain. I never appreciated how varied in shape, color and size they were before.

Z and E yelling at a guy who got out of his canoe and touched the tail of a garter snake that had come out to sun on the rocks: “No touch snake!!” “No kill snake!!”

Picking (and eating) wild blueberries. Z always picks (and saves) some for me.

Reacquainting with old friends

Lots of good food.

The inside of the tent staying dry.

I didn’t realize how very lovely it was, being out there in the wildness, until we drove into Augusta and stopped to eat pizza at a damp picnic table outside of Al’s pizza, listening to the cars driving by, looking at the ugly strip malls, hearing C’s cell phone ringing off the hook already, watching my kids run across a metal bridge to nowhere that spans a stormwater overflow ditch.

And now with the start of school bearing down on us I’m starting to feel nostalgic for summer. What with visitors and vacations, it’s flown by so fast, like a French train (not like Amtrak, with its delays and late departures that rail line is more akin to winter), that I feel like I’ve missed it. I never even bought my bag of limes and bottle of tequila, we’ve only been to the beach once and I haven’t spent any time engaged in my favorite summer activity, lolling in the hammock with a stack of books and a large glass of limeade. Is it too late to re-wind to April and call a do-over?