Summer time and the living is easy — yep, it’s a great time of year. It is my favorite time of year even though it is so hot and muggy here in NJ. We aren’t as bad as Houston or New Orleans but we are close! And though I spend most of my time sweating through the summer, I love it and look forward to it each winter. The good thing about NJ is that we don’t have to wait very long for it 🙂 Usually it’s hot by March.
Why do I love summer? Let me count down the ways:
10 It makes drinking ice tea and water and eating ice cream all the more enjoyable. If it wasn’t so hot, ice tea wouldn’t taste as refreshing.
9 Taking pictures. I love to take pictures and summer is my favorite time to take them. I take tons of pictures on our vacations. I have two chips for my camera — 1 gig and 256 mb and I bring along my laptop so that I can upload the shots to make room for more pictures the next day.
8 Strawberry shortcake and ice cream (enough said :-). Plus corn on the cob — I love corn on the cob. We have the best corn in the world (well, us and Florida). And we have the best tomatoes, there is nothing like a New Jersey tomato, fresh from the garden.
7 Summer movies! I love to go to movies during the summer. Nothing like a cool theater on a hot day. The salty taste of the popcorn and a cool, refreshing soda. Oooh! Anything new playing next week?
6 Day trips! I take my kids to local attractions like:

Shopping — we don’t get a chance to go too often during the school year so it’s fun to walk around the local malls, have lunch and ice cream and find cheap jewelry.
5 The beach! There is nothing like going to the beach. I love the smell of the ocean, the feel of sand between my toes and the sun on my body. I love to hear the sound of the surf and the sea gulls. I love the taste of the sea water on my lips. I like to bring a book or magazine and just sit in my beach chair under my umbrella (my days of sun bathing are long over) and read and close my eyes and listen to the sound of the surf and the giggling of the children. Maybe take a little nap. And in the late afternoon, I love to sit on my beach chair, after being on the beach all day and listen to the kids playing in the sand and the surf. It is so peaceful and calm. I don’t want to get up, it’s the only time I don’t feel like I should be doing something.
4 We get to vacation in really fun places like:

DC

And Disney World, Maine, Cape Cod, Cape May, Wildwood, and Shenandoah National Park (before my digital camera so no pictures).
3 I don’t have to get up every morning to commute to school (both mine and the girls). I get to sleep in and stay up late.
2 I get to spend more time with my kids and doing all the fun things that I listed above. I miss the girls during the school year and I’m grateful for the time that I get to spend with them. We have a lot of fun and my goal over the summer is to always make the summer memorable for them so that they can go back to school and say that they had the best summer ever!
1 No tests!!!!! And yes that is my favorite part, not having to study. Yeah!