a picture of our summer of 2012 and how we plan to wrap it up

summer days driftin' away.
to, oh-oh, the summer nights

oh, well-a well-a well-a well.
uh-huh.
uh-huh.
uh-huh.

oh... sorry. i was carried away singing a song that's been stuck in my head. summer nights from the musical grease. come on, sing with me. youuuuuuu know it! i know you do!

this little diddy has been stuck in my head lately, because i was thinking about how we are so soon on the eve of autumn, and i feel like summer only just got here and it's already drifting off. i gotta say... makes me whimper a little bit. this summer passed more quickly than any summer i remember. and this was supposed to be a bang-up, long summer filled with fun and frivolity  in the sun. {okay, maybe not so much the frivolous part.} but those days are a-driftin'.

to be honest, it was really just too hot and dry to be outside as frequently as i had hoped. crazy thing is, we could have spent it in cool-summer style if what we did last weekend had been done a lot sooner in the year. we went to the most wonderful beach in our town... a brand new beach and recreation area that was established on an old quarry. {SOOOOO PRETTY!} it was very clean and refreshing... not like some beaches that have been around for years and have become all gooped up by dirty boats and stinky fish. the best part was that it was FREE... to residents of our town as well as any accompanying guests. so even our out-of-town friends caught a little break! {if only the coffee shop where we all met up before-hand had given us our food and drinks for free, too.}

tightening the belt on our spending diet, it was not in the budget for us to buy some sort of pool pass, and we don't have one of our own. correction... isaac does. but it does not quite cut the mustard for us taller cats. so a free beach just minutes away from home is just what we've needed.

and everything was so new and clean. oh... it was such fun! swings. splash pad. jungle gym thingies to climb. twirly things to twirl on. clean, rock-free sand. perfect water temperature. gorgeous views of nothing but water and trees. culver's concession shop with oodles of umbrella-topped patio tables to sit and eat sweet frozen custard and wisconsin deep-fried cheese curds at. no-commercial radio hits playing endlessly. and friends {not new, but definitely clean} who love our isaac... i think quite possibly almost as much as we do!

though a bit late in the season, i'm just glad we discovered this summer gem of a pastime when we did!

enough chatting about it, though... pictures will do from this point forward! {maybe some captions, too}

i know it might not look like it here, but isaac actually loved his new floatation device. {courtesy of his great aunt mary for his birthday}

here are our friends.



see?... he's enjoying it. just took a little getting used to.

this is one sweet girl. i adore how much she loves my son. there's times where she seems more like his aunt than just his mama's good friend. is she not the cutest? her personality is every bit as whimsical as this photo is. i love how she looks sort of amelia earhart vintage chic. she's pretty much always styled vintage in some way. yes... i just love her!

i can tell he loves her... he hung on to her leg almost the whole time we were at the coffee shop. mom is no longer even in the room when she is around. =)

"uncle" bobby looked on as we all swam. he's also great with isaac. at the coffee shop, they bonded over carrot bread and milk, and he had isaac sitting on his lap whenever he was not hanging out with kellie. {so mom and dad pretty much didn't need to be there as far as isaac was concerned. *wink*} i can tell they are going to make great parents some day.

this was not intentional... but after seeing the above photo, i realized it could be an engagement photo... with her wedding ring in focus at the forefront and the two of them blurred into the background. i once took their engagement photos. but we were nowhere near the beach. now they're married.

and as you can see, still quite in love... 

well, that's about it for my beach day photos. we had so much fun, it wiped the little guy out. his eyes were closed and he was in a deep chin-hit-the-deck sleep before we even left the parking lot for our long walk back. z...z...z...

can't think of a better way to ring out summer.

sans-friends, we did it all again yesterday, and we are off to do it all again today {maybe with friends again}. during the week, mr. b. walks over after work to meet us... that's when the fun really begins! mid-80s. blue sky. beach almost to ourselves 'cause most kids are back in school. how could we not? we fee like we've got an entire summer worth of fun to fit into one or two weeks, and that's just what we plan to do.

right now, tropical "isaac" is wreaking some havoc. but this midwest isaac is hittin' the beach in style and wrapping up summer on a high note!

that said, i still get sort of sniffly when i think about it being over soon. i always used to look forward to autumn all summer long. but this year {maybe because i've got the little squirt}, i was hoping for a lingering summer filled with all the things that make summer grand.

here's what i was really hoping for... a whole lot of one of those things that make summer grand {one of the best, in my opinion}... eating out {both in terms of away from home and in terms of in the open} on warm nights... the kind of night where you don't need a sweater or anything to keep warm, but because it's night, it's cooled enough to sit out in comfort and warm enough to know it's definitely summer. sidewalk cafes on summer evenings... does not get any better than that! theres no better season to enjoy nightlife out on the town. it's what sets summer evenings apart from any other season. my memories of past nights spent this way are among my favorite. there's just something about the streets lit up by the city lights and the aromas of good food cooking up in a cluster of restaurant kitchens.

we live near the train, so i had high hopes of taking the train all summer long to quaint towns like this one {downtown arlington heights} along the train line and eating out at all the outdoor cafes like this one...

but we haven't done so all summer... not even once. *frown* realistically, having a one-year-old and a strict budget does not mesh with this lifestyle. thus, the reason it's been since may that i did something like this. {no... not technically summer, but it was already hot by then.}

maybe when isaac is a little older and we are on firmer financial ground we can be a summer nightlife family... until then. beach days and evening walks close to home. so i linger in photographs before the eve of summer comes and goes. i relish the days we did do summer this year. and i dream of the nights for future summers that we didn't get to do this time around.

of course... summer's not over just yet. if it's not through with us, then we don't need to be through with it, right? technically, we've got twenty-five more nights. just might have to splurge one time!

i know there's still almost a month. but it always feels like it's over once labor day comes and goes and once kids have gone back to school. still being home with one not yet in school leaves us feeling a little bit abandoned these last few weeks of summer. i think that's what really has us wishing we could go back a month or two.

well... there you have it... our summer in all it's reality and all that we hoped for it to be {and still hold out hope for}.

i hope yours has been all that you hoped for it to be and that you enjoy what's left, too! cheers if it has! if you were sitting at a cafe with us one evening, i'd raise a glass to that!