Reminiscent of summer

I don't know what it was about the evening tonight, but for some reason it left me thinking about the summers of my childhood. It seems that they twenty-something-dates of June were about when the summer "routine" set in. My parents, wanting to teach us the beauty of responsibility, would usually decide we'd had enough un-scripted days, and would leave us a list of chores to do. These chores were to be completed before we had any freetime for the day. Nana was the enforcer (which meant we had about two hours of grace time built into the system). The list usually looked something like this:

Berglet to-do:
1. Weed two rows in the garden.
2. Pick up the dog poop in the lawn.
3. Help Nana with the laundry.
4. Water the trees.
5. Go to swimming lessons.
NO MORE THAN 30 MINUTES OF TV!!!

Love,
Mom and Dad

The tasks were usually completed by noon or 1 p.m., and we were then left to our own devices. This usually entailed Griff and I running off to play, and who knows what Laine and Candra (the "Little Girls") did.

Griff and my play list usually included the following:

1. Halter-break the calves. (We tried; they didn't want to be trained.)
2. Swim in the creek.
3. Ride the 4-wheeler.
4. Ride the horse.
5. Go for a bike ride down The Backroad.
6. Swing on the ropeswing in the top of the barn.
7. Play on the swings.
8. Play in the dirtpile.
9. Race our bikes.
10. Run through the sprinkler.
11. Capture every snail that came down the river.
12. Practice baseball.

As the "Little Girls" got older, we incorporated them into our activities. We're kind siblings like that.

I hope that Olive and her little sibling will play and get along like I did with my siblings. And, I hope they're creative in the way they fill their days. I so glad we weren't over-scheduled and had time to just be kids.