Wednesday, September 06, 2006

The Top Ten Things I'm gonna miss about summer...


The kids are getting ready for their first day of school (be still my beating heart ... a whole day without hearing their names yelled shrilly by each other ... a whole day without the phrase: 'I'm bored ... there's nothing to do ..."

I can hardly wait ... a coffee ... a good book and peace before I head off to work !!! But first I've been reflecting on what I'm going to miss now that summer is folding into fall ... here it goes:

1) Hanging Laundry on the line outside in the sun ... I love hanging laundry on the line ...

2) Biking with the kids ... seeing Beetle on her little pink bike, dressed in pink with her braided pig tails poking out from under her helmet ... flapping in the wind behind her as her little legs pump the pedals fast and furious ... Lovely !!

3) Sitting reading in the sunshine ... in the hammock ... in a lawn chair ... at the beach ... in the park ... there is something luxuriously lazy about reading in the sun ...

4) Having no schedule to get up to ... the lazy days of summer with no rush or no hurry are delightful ...

5) Swimming in the lake with the kids ... this summer we had grandkids of friend join my crew and together they splashed and played with the tractor inner tube ... it was great ...

6) Travelling with the kids and exploring the world as it unfolds over the next hill, and around the next bend ...

7) The warm sun and vast trackless sky ... to stand on the prairie is to know how vast and how beautiful the world really is ...

8) The Long Prairie days ... they seem to start early and end late and can be filled with hours of activity, fun and just hanging out ...

9) The incredible palate of colours that you find on the prairies ... the yellow of canola, the indigo of flax, the blue of the sky, the white of the clouds, the black of thunderstorms, the blue-white of lightning, the gold of grain fields ripening in the sun, the sparkle of sloughs and ponds, the colours of ducks and birds and geese, the earth tones of deer and prairie dogs and hawks and of course the seemingly endless varieties and tones of green ... it's all good ... and indescribably beautiful ...

10) Last but certainly not least ... Just hanging with the kids ... at the lake ... at home ... in the tree fort ... biking in Riding Mountain ... or heading down the high way ... one of my favourite things to do in the summer is to just hang with the kids ...

Many of these things will still linger as fall truly begins ... but it won't be the same. We can hang the laundry on the line, we can still hang and go biking and so on ... the temperatures may still stay warm ... but today as Noahkila, Ms H, and Beetle step out the door to begin their new school year it's different ... summer is over ... The summer of 2006 is packed up and put on a shelf where we can take it down and remember the moments ...

It's been a good summer ... I hope my three and their teachers and classmates have a good fall ...

1 comment:

Katie Bowen said...

Dear Rev. Shawn,

Wow, thanks for sharing all of that with your readers. (It's great to see you writing so much!)

I love the stories of your delightful children, I LOVE the picture of the two standing at the back of the boat. Hey! I have an idea, how about we switch places for a while? You can come out here and check out the Big Apple, and I'll happily spend some time in your glorious Canada.

I also laughed (out loud) at the "Mobile" home story.

But my question to you...the thing that's been pressing on my mind is... what's this obsession you have with laundry?