Exhale

Last week, in the midst of a brain-draining day at work, I looked at the calendar and had the sudden sinking feeling in my stomach that I had missed something important. And then I realized what it was.

Summer.

July is half over. The beautiful, warm days are already starting to fade a little faster--barely perceptible, but the darkness slips in a few minutes earlier every evening. The red raspberries, which we have been feasting on for weeks, are nearing the end of their bearing; the black raspberries shriveled to their end last week. I have had more conversations than I care to count about preparing Elaina for the beginning of preschool, which starts tomorrow in a month and a half. And last week, on a day where we broke the record for the "lowest high" (70 on July 15th), I donned my autumnal uniform of jeans and a fleece.

This is July?

I grabbed my day planner and started flipping through the pages, and then I saw where summer has gone. We have had something going on every single weekend since the middle of May. First came Brycelynn's birthday party, followed by the girls' first sleepover at my parents'. We took the next weekend "off" and went to the pool and had our first picnic. And it has been go, go, go ever since. Claud-Ellen days. Our anniversary getaway. Enchiladas with the family. An art festival at Luthy's botanical garden. Fireworks.  Friends over. Party prep. Ellie's 3rd birthday party.

We have had great experiences and made wonderful memories. The girls' lips have been stained with popsicles and their fingers sticky from s'mores. We have been to the river to collect shells, to McDonald's for a cold frappe, to the farmer's market where we came away with rhubarb and espisote plants and kettle corn and balloon animals. We have played in the pool. I have made black raspberry lemonade and a couple summer pies. Josh has grilled out more times than I can count. We have eaten plates of sweet corn and cherries and watermelon and pulled carrots and peas and tomatoes from our garden. The days have been full.

Summer is half over, and we have been so busy I feel like we've missed part of it. We haven't gone to the park enough. We didn't pick enough wild raspberries with the girls (though we have bags upon bags from our patch frozen). We haven't caught any lightening bugs. There is more than we could possibly do in a given summer, but I worry that we have gone so much that some of the fun of a random summer afternoon has evaporated like the morning dew.

And so, when I looked at my planner for this weekend, I smiled.

For the first weekend in weeks, we had absolutely nothing to do.

We went out for dinner on Friday night to a Chinese buffet--a first for our little family--where we all feasted on fruit and rice and sushi and, for Ellie, dill pickle spears. The girls slept in until 8:30 Saturday morning, which was glorious and practically unheard of. We relaxed in the morning. Josh and I sipped our coffee with no urgency, and we had an early lunch before heading to Costco and Target, where Josh treated me to an iced caramel macchiato. We visited our neighbors Hans and Jo, and then I took Ellie to the grocery store while Josh took Elaina shopping for my birthday. We ate kabobs and corn on the cob and charcoal-roasted potatoes for dinner, and Josh gave me my gifts. We made s'mores on the leftover coals and we let the girls stay up late to play on their playset. When they went to bed, Josh and I had margaritas and read and laughed and relaxed.

Today we went to church and the girls played in the pool in the afternoon. We had dinner at Famous Dave's with Mario and Rita for my birthday. The girls helped Josh trim his hair, and I froze green beans from our garden and from the farm.

And now it is after 10:00, and I have to get ready for another week, but somehow I feel more ready.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like I was able to let my breath out and soak in what's in front of me.

Summer.

And I still have half of it left.