Summertime

When I was young, my parents used to send me and my sisters away for the summer. We'd go to our grandparents' houses. One set lived in Texas, on a lake, and the other set in New Orleans. I didn't like visiting the lake so much, because it was hot, and boring. We couldn't swim in the lake until our grandpa got home, because our grandmother doesn't know how to swim and she couldn't be our lifeguard. And then, even when we did swim, we still had to wear lifejackets. Sometimes we did fun things, like going out on the boat and water skiing, but that was really only when my mom and my aunt were there, too. So not that much. So basically, we'd spend every day inside, reading, and then in the afternoons, we'd go with Granny to the post office and the video store. We'd rent three videos each day, and come home and watch them all in a row. We also only have one cousin on that side, and he's a lot younger than us, and we didn't see him every summer, anyway.

I did like visiting New Orleans. My grandparents' house was awesome for kids. They had a pool in the backyard, with a diving board. There was a little tiny storage closet under the stairs that they let us use as our clubhouse. They let us eat treats that my parents never let us have, like sugar cereal, bubblegum ice cream, and Happy Meals. We have 7 cousins on that side of the family, and 4 of them lived nearby, so there was never a shortage of people to play with. Because we were in a city, there were tons of options of things to do. When I was younger, I would join the kid's summer reading club at the library. When I was older, I asked to be taken to places like the Hard Rock Cafe. (come on, like you didn't want to go there when you were in 7th grade, too? It was the height of cool) My grandparents also had a house in Pass Christian, Mississippi, on the beach, and we'd go there too, sometimes. I had my favorite sandwich shop, the Pirate's Cove, in Pass Christian. I'm quite sure Katrina destroyed it, and that makes me sad.

I always felt a little bad for my sisters, though. Their birthdays are both in July, and usually we'd be away over their birthdays. Once our cousin Anne Yvette even blew out Amanda's birthday candles!

I always kind of wanted to go to sleepaway camp for the summer, like I read about in books. I did go once, but only for a week. I wanted the whole summer at camp. However, now that I'm older, I can look back on my summers and be grateful for them. I think I got to know all of my grandparents fairly well. A lot of grandchildren don't really have that opportunity. And I was a frequent flyer from a young age.