The end of summer blues

If one more newspaper article or sales advertisement reminds me that summer is almost over I may scream. I love summer. I get excited about spring because it reminds me that the misery of long, dark, wet, cold (pick whichever adjectives apply) days may be over soon. I adore the start of autumn with all of the new school supplies and the start of a clean slate as well as the promise of cool days filled with warm soups and all of the fun of hibernating.

But to me, summer has is about just plain fun. Fun every day. Going to parks, pools, the beach, fairs, festivals and all that wonderful stuff which is so often free (minus the cost of an ice cream cone maybe). This is kind of ironic when I think back to how I spent my middle and high school summer days - lazing around with a book trying desperately to avoid going outside. But things change. With a new city and a new climate and much less humidity, I've discovered the joys of the outdoors in summer!

This is why I am always saddened when the media seems to gleefully herald the end of summer. And then a day like today dawns. It's cool here and the fog has rolled in. We don't expect to see temperatures much about 70F. That's cool for a summer day even by Seattle standards.

Please excuse me while I stick my head in the sand and ignore all the signs of summer's end. My parents will be here in just about one week and I'm hoping that a bit more of the summer weather will linger. Just enough so that we can enjoy a few walks in the park with Peanut. Just enough to take advantage of the fair. Just a little longer please...

While you were out....

Okay *we* were out. It has been, as I'm sure many of you have heard, unbelievably hot here in Seattle. It reached 100F (I've even heard 103F) the other day. Our main living area is on the 3rd floor and we have no air conditioning of any kind. Needless to say, we decided it was worth it to get out of town for a night. We headed down to Long Beach, WA to enjoy some cool, fresh ocean air and a decent night's sleep!

On the way back we stopped at Mt. St. Helen's. I was astonished by how close we were able to get to the mountain (volcano!!) itself. It's no longer spewing lava - apparently that stopped in early 2008 after it was triggered by an earthquake in the fall of 2004. Still, there was plenty of amazing natural beauty and the effects of Mother Nature to stare at in awe.

This weekend we're looking forward to watching the Blue Angels (the navy flight demo squad) perform as part of Seafair. Every year part of the flight path for their airshow goes right over our house. We're able to sit on our tiny deck and watch them pull off some incredible stunts. It's loud but never dull and it's one of the reasons I love Seattle in the summer.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.