summer

Summer has finally arrived in Portland, so we've been taking advantage of our new friend the sun. Lots of trips to the park, playing in fountains, late evening walks, and homemade ice cream.







We took Eli fishing for the first time this weekend. We went to a funny little place called Horning's Hideout in North Plains. It's basically somebody's old house with a giant pond and rambling property. But for $3 you get a pole and some bait, and the "lake" is well-stocked. We brought home seven big, tasty rainbow trout.



Eli tried fishing with Daddy, but he was about as patient as you'd imagine. He was more interested in catching salamanders with the net. Or himself.


Summer makes me so happy. I love every season and I'm so thankful to live in a place where we experience all four. But summer is special. The sounds, the smells, the experiences bring back a flood of happy memories from my childhood. I was raised in rural Idaho (I know, what other kind of Idaho is there?), and I spent summers outdoors. My parents were both teachers, and they loved to travel. We spent weeks at a time traveling the country in our RV. We camped in the beautiful Idaho mountains, fished and swam in the rivers and lakes, drank hot cocoa in our pajamas around the campfire. Something about camping is just... magical.

Close to home, most of the summer days were spent outdoors. We had a big, above-ground pool and I was an absolute fish, swimming and diving and splashing for hours. I've always had a thing for swimming, for bodies of water in general, and chlorine is still one of my favorite smells. We played in the sprinklers and dug in the dirt and took long, late walks in the waning evening light. As a teenager, I loved driving home through the country after dusk, the windows rolled down and the fresh breeze blowing through my old clunker car. The scent of mint and onion fields still transports me back to those lovely summer nights.

As my children grow, I realize how much I long to raise them to be nature lovers. Parks and playgrounds are amazing, and we are blessed with an abundance of them here. But in reality, they are man-made, still an artificial substitute for real, wide-open spaces. It is certainly easier to stay home, watch TV and play in the yard. But I trust that the hassle and effort of planning, packing, hauling, driving - everything it takes to get our family "out there" - is well worth it. I think we are raising our boys to love the outdoors, to find beauty and adventure in tall grass and jagged mountains, in crashing waves and gurgling streams, in ladybugs and snakes and bluejays. And, oh yes, in post-adventure sno-cones. Most definitely in sno-cones.