How to join us:
- Complete one or more of the activities Colleen suggests below, and let us know in the comments which one you did (or what you did and modified). You’re entered!
- You can enter additional times for every time you tweet about this contest, post on Facebook, or post on your blog. Link back to this post. If you want to post the button on your site, you can right-click and copy it.
- Entries good through midnight EST July 18, 2010
What you can win:
- A Basket o’ Fun, filled with many of the supplies you need to savor your summer as Colleen suggests below, as well as something special from her Distant Shores shop
- A Box o’ Summer Reading, which will be my chance to mail you some books that have been gathering dust, at least four books, and maybe more, some Catholic titles and some general titles (yeah, this is the consolation prize)
Now, on to savoring the summer…
Beach Towels
Sitting all wet and prune-fingered wrapped in the cozy comfort of an over-sized, extra-absorbent beach towel with big stripes and bright colors is one of summer’s sweetest pleasures. Don’t wait for pool days or beach vacations to enjoy it. Use your beach towels all summer.
- Hang them on hooks on the back of the bathroom door and bring a splash of summer to bath time every night.
- Hey, why not throw the goggles and the dive rings into the bathtub and pretend it’s pool day!
- Or after a particularly hot day at the ball park or the soccer field, throw the beach towels in the dryer for a few minutes while little ones splash in the tub, then wrap them up in warm, cozy comfort.
- Is Mom in need of an afternoon pick me up? Take a quick shower and wrap your wet hair in a bright beach towel for a few minutes. It’s hard to be grumpy when you are a parading around as a boldly turbaned, bobble-headed queen of summer.
Fancy Flip Flops
Whatever your rules and preferences are for sensible shoe wearing, throw them out when it comes to flip flops. I can’t claim to be very sensible when it comes to shoes myself: I like shoes with flair. But I do hate kids’ shoes that are emblazoned with webs and wheels and wing dings of all sorts and I try to avoid them at all costs. But when it comes to flip flops, why be sensible? They’re totally impractical as far as shoes go anyway. They only cost a few bucks, and they won’t be around next summer.
- So, hey, you want the flips flops with Buzz Lightyear zooming to infinity and beyond? Go for it.
- Oh, you, you want the tattered-edged flip flops that look like somebody else has been wearing them for a year? Sure!
- What’s that? You like my hot pink sequined flip flops with butterfly centers? Thanks!
- You get the idea. Get a little fancy with your flip flops. It’s summer. Celebrate!
Ice Pops
Now I know there are all kinds of new fancy-pants popsicles in pretty colored boxes that are shaped like cool things or glow in the dark or whatever. But you must, at least once this summer, bring home a net full of 100 tubes of colored I’m-not-sure-what and pop it in your freezer, then wait the tortuous few hours it takes for them to become frozen deliciousness.
And then you must rip them apart, hand them out, cut off the tips with scissors and slurp out every last drop from that itty bitty tip before you throw it away.
And then, you must sit outside in the sunshine, squinting and slurping, until all that frozen goodness is slurped away and you tilt your head back and hold your little plastic tube in the air and let the last of its cool juice trickle down the back of your throat.
I’m not suggesting you make ice pops a mainstay of your summer diet. My boys and food dye do not pair well. But at least once this summer, if it poses no serious health threat for you, you should eat a net full of ice pops. It’ll make you smile.
Watermelon
I have been picking up those cute little seedless watermelons at the store lately and really enjoying the ease they afford for making watermelon a regular part of our summer menu. But, really, they’re all wrong and buying them is so cheating on summer.
Summer is all about hauling in that big heavy melon and icing it down in the cooler. Summer is about cutting it in chunks that are way too big so that there is no choice but to get its sticky sweetness all down your arms and on the tip of your noise. Summer is about eating a little too close to the rind just to taste the tartness.
And it’s about the seeds. It’s okay to spit in the summertime. Spitting watermelon seeds onto newspaper-covered tables or deep into thick green lawns is what summer’s all about. So by all means, enjoy those small neat little critters that fit in the refrigerator with a week’s worth of groceries, but don’t skip out on the real thing.
Eat. Get sticky. Spit. It’s all right; it’s summer!
Ice Cream in a Cone
If possible, you should acquire said ice cream from the cutest, most quaint little ice cream shop you can find that has benches outside for sitting, and licking, and dripping. But really, any ice cream and any cones will do.
The only rule is to pile them high and let them drip. Down your arms. On your shirt. Into the stray hairs that stick on your cheeks. You can wash up after. While you’re eating, enjoy. Savor. Get sticky sweetness between your fingers.
Oh, and if one scoop drops and somebody’s bottom lip begins to quiver, get him/her a whole new cone and start over. It’s summer. Nobody can cry over ice cream.
Sensational Salads
Gardens are bursting with fresh bounty and the heat of the oven is a bane to your existence. So throw together salad after salad of summer’s earthy goodness.
- Become a salad artist.
- Experiment with things you don’t usually use in salads. Throw in a surprise or two. Spinach salad with strawberries and crumbled pretzels. Butter lettuce with almonds, sweet peppers and mango. Add a handful of blueberries and some sunflower seeds to your standard house salad. Add fresh cherries to your favorite chicken salad recipe.
- Put veggies in bowls on the table and let kids push them onto kebob sticks to made salad swords.
- Make salad pizza—bake your pizza crust with a brushing of olive oil, then layer garden fresh tomatoes and basil and slices of cool fresh mozzarella on top and eat it cold.
- Take a note from Mother Nature, and play with your food a little this summer. Do something fresh and fun with summer’s garden.
The Library
Even if you are among that rare species of person who doesn’t frequent your library regularly, you simply must go in the summertime. It’s free, it’s air-conditioned and it’s full of summer fun. Of course there are books, but during the summer, libraries are chock full of all kinds of good stuff. At our favorite library, we can go watch a family movie, attend story time, craft time, or free kids concerts, stock up on DVDs and audio books, in addition to the books to earn us our summer reading certificates. There’s just something special about the library in the summer. Go — you’ll see what I mean.
The Stars
Summer nights are a unique gift to be savored. Stargazing is one way to ensure you soak up some of summer’s nighttime beauty. As you get still and quiet to gaze at the sky, you earn the bonus of hearing the cicadas hum, watching the fireflies flit, and feeling the sweet brush of a warm breeze.
Plan a star-watching picnic this summer. Drive a pick-up truck into an open field and layer its bed with cozy quilts to lay on. Climb up on the backyard trampoline and lay your heads on one another’s tummies. Sip sparkling beverages on the deck of some lake house or vacation condo. Make it fun. Make it memorable.
Whatever you do, find some time to lay still and look at the stars.
Late Nights and Laughter
A side effect of summer’s long days are its late nights. When the sun is still shining bright at 8:30, it’s hard to convince little bodies to sleep. But they are usually a little sun beaten and worn out by then. It’s the perfect time to bathe them and put them in too long t-shirts and cuddle up for some late night laughs.
- Watch old cartoons.
- Look at photo albums.
- Tell them the stories of your childhood.
- Let them build forts and sleep in sleeping bags with visiting friends.
- Put fresh sheets on your bed and cuddle up with a favorite summer story.
- Pop popcorn on the stove top and watch classic westerns and old musicals.
- Turn out the lights and tell jokes until you fall asleep. Whatever you do, laugh.
Late night giggles are the chorus of summer. Sprinkle your summer song with them liberally.
Games Galore
Summer was made for game playing.
- Little League baseball games.
- Card games around a vacation rental’s table.
- Board games on the living room floor with visiting cousins.
- Freeze tag in the back yard at dusk.
- Marco Polo in the neighborhood pool.
- Relay races with rarely seen family members.
- Rock, Paper, Scissors in the back seat of the car on a long drive to somewhere fun.
Dig into your memory file and teach your kids your favorite games. Play their favorite games with them. Break out the board games and settle in for a marathon on a rainy afternoon. Play cards with your older kids after the littlest ones are in bed one night. Watch baseball, some way, somehow.
And play something that involves running and sweating and rolling in the grass with laughter when you are tagged, captured, or frozen by someone else. Summer games are not a series of gold medal events that happen every four years. They are the filling in the middle of summer’s many layers. Play them. Watch them. And store away the memories in your mind’s forever box. You may need them come February.
Now, get savoring! 
(And don’t forget to come back and get entered for this contest!)
Colleen Mitchell is a Catholic wife and mother of seven sons: two saints in heaven and five little souls she tends here on earth. She lives, loves, learns and writes from Southern Louisiana where she and her husband settled after three years of service in the foreign mission field. You’ll find her blogging at Footprints on the Fridge and as footprintmom on Twitter. She also has an online shop, Distant Shores.
Here at Snoring Scholar, you'll find marriage and motherhood, book talk and rambling remarks, observations and distractions, in the midst of life in rural Ohio on a farm, with kids, critters, and Catholic flair.
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