Sum…Sum…Summertime Giveaway :-)
Hi all!
Let’s have ourselves an ol’-fashioned, watermelon seed-spittin’, swinging from a tire swing down at the swimming hole party.
Time for a cool summer giveaway.
Simply leave a comment today and you’ll be in the pool (pun intended) for the drawing for this basket-in-a-box summer giveaway. It includes:
*A copy of a fantabulous summer beach read, The Mailbox by Marybeth Whalen. (Click here to read about it)
*A cute, summery, flip-flop kitchen towel
*Some Jelly Belly tropical jelly beans
*A watermelon sticky note pad with matching pen
*A box of TAZO tea for brewing some of the season’s famous beverage
* A Colonial at Home jar candle in Sea Glass (just smells like the fresh air at the beach!)
*And a box of Fralingers salt water taffy, “with sea air and sunshine sealed in every box!”
Okay gals…..here is the dealio. I am needed greatly the next few days by both my family and my ministry, so y’all will have to party without me. I’ll be back on Tuesday to announce the winner. In the mean time, here’s what I want you to do:
Leave a comment here on your favorite summertime memory.
Then, hop on often between now and Monday at midnight Pacific time. Check out the other comments. See if anyone else’s comment makes you think of another memory or provokes another comment from you. Each time you comment, your name will be entered into the drawing. No limit. (But don’t go getting too crazy and leaving like 100 or anything!)
Have a fun party!
I’ll be splitting my time these next few days between cheering for our boys at the ball fields in two different towns, and at some nearby coffee shoppes (with my laptop in tow) as I prepare my talks for our Proverbs 31 She Speaks Conference next month.
But before I exit, let me leave one of my favorite summertime memories. Going swimming at the Portland Country Club pool as a 10-year-old, buying a mounds bar at the gift shop, slathering my legs with Coppertone cocoa butter (I still love ANYTHING that smells or tastes like coconut) and then after a few hours, heading into the clubhouse to have a sandwich with my dad after he was done playing 18 holes.
Your turn….what memories of summer do you have? You could win big!
Summertime Blessings,
Sitting on the front porch with my dad as the sun went down, watching for the lightening bugs to come out, and then enjoying their glittery show while we visited about anything and everything…
Eating Jello Pudding Pops in the hot sun on my grandparents’ deck…
For years I played soccer and the end of the season tournament was always at the hottest part of the summer. One of the player’s dad was a firefighter. He brought the firetruck and sprayed us all down with the hoses after winning the championship. We all had so much fun and loved it!
Another favorite vivid memory I have is of my first day at church camp. (I spoke of the camp in a previous post) and one of my church friends introduced me to a friend of his that he played baseball with. The boy he introduced me to became one of my good friends and we later became counselors at the camp together, spent the summers up there having a blast. Eleven years after we met became husband and wife. :)
I loved summer evenings when Dad was home from work. He owned his own business and worked long hours, even working til noon on Saturday. A very special memory is when August rolled around and the blackberries ripened. All day long we would impatiently wait for him to come home. He would make us kids buckets out of Crisco cans (remember when Criso came in a metal can?) and put wire handles on them. As soon as supper was over, off we would go, to the edge of the woods where the blackberry patches abounded. Dad would loop his belt through his bucket handle and pick with both hands but we girls wore simple summer dresses with no belts so we would pick more slowly using just one hand. Sometimes we would upset our buckets when we swatted at those pesky mosquitos. And back at the house Mom would be busy making us blackberry pies which we enjoyed with ice cream on those hot summer evenings. I still have her recipe. And although Dad passed away years ago, the memories are still a treasure. And the lesson I learned from this is that it doesn’t take money and gifts to make kids happy; just time spent with our parents.
thought of another one….
Homemade Ice cream! (Sniff Sniff) :-)
We always loved going to the drive in to watch movies….my dad would have to park in 3-4 different places to find the best speaker…which was funny in itself because if I remember right they weren’t even stereo speakers! lol
One of my favorite summer memories is of going to Vacation Bible School. My grandmother was usually the director so I got to go with her to pick up the supplies at the local Christian bookstore. I loved singing “Jesus loves Me” and “He’s got the whole world in His Hands” with the other kids. The smell of crayons and paste can take me back instantly. We always had the final celebration out on the grounds with the food on fence wire strung up between trees.
Camping with my family in the White Mountains of NH is one of my favorite summer memories.
One of my favorite summer memory is when I was a kid and we would go visit my aunt and uncle who lived on a lake. We would go for boat rides, fish, water ski and swim. It was always so much fun on the lake. Plus my aunt was an excellant cook and we would always have special dishes to eat.
One of my favourite summer memories is of when my dad used to take us swimming in the river. It was such an accomplishment when we swam all the way across.
Family and friends at The Lake of The Ozarks.
Susan, I agree, dinner from the garden is the best!! My fav? BLT’s with corn on the cob. Gotta love the huge garden tomato juice running down your arm!!! Okay, now I’m getting hungry, just another month and the tomatoes and corn will be ready!!!
Another summer memory of mine is going to beach every weekend with my family. I grew up on Long Island so there are a lot of beaches. We would pack a picnic lunch and go spend the day swimming, reading, eating and having lots of fun as a family. Now that I am older, and married and living in Virginia I miss this weekend ritual.
Riding my bike all over the small town. No cell phones. No one worried. Coming home at dark for supper from the garden. Field peas, creamed corn, fried okra, butter beans, and corn bread!
One of my favorite memories is when my sister’s summertime beach vacation plans took a turn for the worst, so instead of cancelling altogether, she took her much younger sister (me). We had loads of fun on the beach! Sweet memory!
Prayers and blessings,
Rebecca
My favorite memory growing up had to be our annual vacation. For one week in July, every year we headed to the Ozarks in MO. Our family as well as more than a doz. others who were close friends of our family dominated that entire resort. We just played all week long. Most of us grew up in a rural town, and we worked hard on the farm. But this week…..we just played and swam and boated. We ate when we wanted, stayed up late and talked, we shopped, we rode wave runners, and just got to do all sorts of stuff that we never got to do for a whole year. But most of all, it was the closeness of our group for that week. Lasting friendships. Great memories.
We joined a “country club” (and I use that term very loosely- it really was a glorified pond with a fancy name attached to it) when I was in mid elementary along with about 10 other families from our church. Every afternoon during the week would find all the moms and their kids pond side. And then on Sunday afternoon all the dads and the cute teenage boys that worked all week would join us! Our Sunday evening service didn’t start until 7 so it made it perfect for swimming all afternoon and then still making it to church on time. I remember one year the powers that be tried to change the start of Sun evening service to 6 and there was a major revolt by all the “country club” members b/c it would hinder our Sunday afternoon soirees. I loved those lazy afternoons swimming and diving and playing in the water.
Eating Zagnuts with my friend at the city pool.
Another summer memory is every summer my WHOLE family [aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents] would head up to the mountains in upstate NY to go to Camp-of-the-Woods! We would have so much fun spending time with each other. My grandparents have been going up to this camp since before they were married! It was always my favorite summer tradition :)
These are fun to read! I’ve seen a couple of mentions of fireflies (lightning bugs). I love fireflies! I used to love catching them when I was a kid. Unfortunately, the weather where I live now is too cold for them, but my kids were able to be introduced to them just this spring. They were fascinated!
I have wonderful memories of my family vacationing with relatives in the Pocono Mtns. of PA every summer. We would head down to the Lehigh River with all my cousins and jump in! It was always freezing cold (think mountain stream, brr!). There was a water fall for sitting under and we even occasionally took our showers there (soap, shampoo and all). It was great fun and made for special memories.
Taking vacations as a kid. Sleeping in the back of the station wagon while mom and dad took turns driving. Didn’t really matter where we were going. They were all special. I loved the family vacations. I hope that I’ve pasted that on to my kids. I loved taking them on vacation when they were young as well.
These are so fun to read! The thing I loved most about summer as a kid was the ‘carefree-ness’ of it. My greatest “worry” was asking my mom what was for dinner. :) Almost every day we went to our local beach called Lake Minear (Chicago area) and spent hours there. My mom would pack a lunch which I hated as a kid–I wanted the junk food stand–but now it’s one of my favorite memories. The smell of Coppertone sun lotion and the feel of sand are still 2 of my favorite things. My sister and I played for hours together there. Then we piled our stuff and us into the station wagon and would wash off the sand at home outside, have a snack, and count the hours until we could catch lightning bugs with the neighbors or play SPUD.
It’s funny how easy it is to forget these fun times when you’re an adult. I think I’ll try to do something fun with my 4 kids today. :)
It’s a toss up between going to Nags Head with our children for summer vacations or my own childhood vacations to Myrtle Beach!