Sweet Summer, Summer, Summertime
Sassy enjoying the dog days of summer.
This blogpost needs some background music…que up DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith…Drums, please! (This was the first song that came to mind when I thought of summer, then Len’s Steal my Sunshine. My taste in music is likely questionable, but I can’t help bobbing my head and singing along to that 90s earworm.)
Our sweet summertime can be summed up by two things: baseball and big trees.
Summer isn’t officially over until September 23, but with the start of school this week, it is as good as over. Goodbye to the boys’ lazy evenings in front of the tv or at the ballpark and hello to homework and soccer practice.
To say the last ten weeks passed in the blink of an eye is an understatement. It feels more like it passed at the speed of light. While DJ Jazzy and Mr. Smith sit back and unwind during the summer, we spent most nights at the ballpark cheering on our two favorite sluggers.
Ethan showed up to his first practice dressed in a hand-me-down Chicago Cubs Ryan Theriot jersey, earning the nickname “Cubbie.” The next practice he arrived in a St. Louis Cardinals Albert Pujols shirt and was called “Albert” for the evening. He clearly lives in a house divided (Go Cubbies!). He grew from playing in the dirt the last season he participated in America’s favorite past time to hitting and catching the ball.
Levi carried a fear of being hit by the ball over from the previous season. Every time he stepped up to bat, I silently willed him to swing the bat. By the end of the season, he was finally swinging and sometimes made contact with the ball. The highlight of the season was watching him pitch. He was often called in to pitch as a last resort but ended up striking batters out to end an inning or a game.
The baseball season is busy and exhausting. The nights can be long and hot, but it’s really neat to see the boys grow in their skillz and in their love for the game.
Speaking of love for the game, Levi has a goal to go to every MLB stadium in the United States. We crossed another off the list this year when we traveled west to see the redwood trees.
We spent two days sightseeing in San Francisco before renting a car and driving north. We saw a lot of the tourist attractions, the sunbathing sea lions at Pier 39, Golden Gate Bridge (we drove across it twice and paid two hefty tolls when we got home), the Painted Ladies (made famous by the Full House opening credits) and of course Oracle Park.
Our evening at Oracle Park started as a snoozer. The Padres were winning 4-0, but as the game crept on, the Giants made a very exciting comeback. In overtime, Mike Yastrzemski sent a ball into the bay, and it was Bye, Bye Baby for the Padres. As the mass of fans inched toward the exit, everyone cheered and chanted for the home team. It was a neat experience and hopefully one the boys will never forget.
The next morning, we hopped into our rental and literally wound our way, and our stomachs, north. Kevin was hoping to drive on the scenic Highway 1 that goes along the coast and when Google maps said, “similar ETA” we took a detour. Dear readers, it was not a similar ETA. It added at least two hours to our trip, but it was beautiful.
The Pacific Ocean at Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, CA.
We stayed in an Airbnb in Arcata and spent a day driving and hiking the Avenue of Giants. The size of the trees was breathtaking. I knew the trees would be big, I just didn’t realize how big. The redwoods and the vast Pacific Ocean really made me feel like a grain of sand in the world.
We headed north the next day and hiked to a waterfall where we saw a bear on the trail, went to Elk Meadow and checked seeing an elk off Kevin’s vacation bucket list, went to a lighthouse in Crescent City and finished the day with my favorite hike of the trip, Trinidad Beach Trail.
The hike takes you up a huge hill with tall plants and vegetation on each side and sometimes over the path. I felt like I was in Alice in Wonderland. While my biscuits burned from the incline, the views of the Pacific Ocean were well worth the workout. After the hike, Kevin crossed another thing off his list, touching the Pacific Ocean. It was cold!
I LOVED the Pacific Northwest. The food was wonderful, the people were kind and the weather…60 degrees and no humidity. As soon as I walked out into the thick humid air in Indianapolis, I wanted to go back.
And that sums up our summer…baseball and big trees. In a couple of short days, the boys will swing their backpacks over their shoulders and climb onto the bus. I will watch the bus head down the road, singing, “Bye, Bye Baby” to summer.
