Article by Wendy McCance
When you have kids, there’s nothing like experiencing those “perfect summer days” as a family. Over the weekend, we had one of those seemingly perfect days. On Friday, we were waiting for my husband to get home from work so that we could do something fun as a family. My husband worked until 3:30pm and the moment he walked in the door, we were more than ready to go have some fun.
The in-laws have a beautiful inground pool in their backyard. We have spent many days over at their house swimming and catching up with family and friends. Friday was an insanely hot day. The high was 100 degrees and being outside was far from pleasant unless you were cooling off nonstop in a tub of water. We decided that swimming would be a great way to cool off on a day like that.
Over at the in-laws, there was music piping out from the stereo system. There are a million floating devices to choose from. We grabbed a few noodles and a raft and jumped in. The kids had a blast. My son has become quite a daredevil in the pool. He did handstands, forward somersaults and backward somersaults. He swam down to the bottom of the deep end and sat on the bottom of the pool. We took turns throwing a frisbee around and my son would jump off the diving board and catch the frisbee midair as he fell into the pool.
My youngest daughter was playing games with her brother and doing races across the pool. I was floating around on a noodle watching all the action and getting whiplash from the calls of, “hey mom, watch this.” It really warmed my heart to see the kids having so much fun.
My oldest daughter was a riot. She acted as her siblings swimming instructor and got them to do all sorts of tricks in the pool. I think the funniest thing to watch, though was my husband. He loves the pool and gets pretty involved with the kids when he’s swimming. He will do handstands on the diving board and fall in to the pool. He can do all sorts of crazy flips into the pool and he will slide down the side of the deep end until he reaches the bottom. It’s all pretty amusing to watch.
The weather was so stifling hot outside of the pool that we brought bottles of water into the pool to keep everyone hydrated. Even so, the pool water felt so good and we had so much fun. Where else can you enjoy watching the goofy side of people. Something about a pool tends to bring out the silly, childlike side in people. I think one of my favorite moments was when the kids wanted to do a tea party with my husband. This is when you go under water, sit on the bottom of the pool cross-legged and pretend to drink tea. It was thoroughly entertaining to watch.
Later in the evening, we got some brats on the grill, brought out a ton of picnic style food and had a feast. We all ate incredibly well. It was still so hot later in the evening and we just hadn’t had our fill of swimming so we decided that night swimming sounded like fun.
As the sky got dark, my mother-in-law brought out glow sticks. Everyone had a stick and would find amusing things to do with them. The sticks don’t float and every time they sank to the bottom of the pool, it looked incredibly cool. We could swim down and find them in the dark water easily because they glowed so brightly.
The best part of the night and the finale to an extraordinarily fun day was fireworks that began to go off. There is a field across the street and it’s a popular spot for people to shoot off fireworks. As we swam in the pool, the fireworks went off (many as big as a formal fireworks display). It made this perfect day complete. I couldn’t have wished for a better more memorable day for the kids than this day.
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Wendy McCance
To contact Wendy McCance about a writing assignment, interview or speaking engagement, please email her at: [email protected]
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Our Wendy, you made me remember when my kids were small, when We went to the coast all holidays and vacations. How good it was. I love to swim, love the pool and the sea. Good times, Gave Me nostalgia. Thank You.
Aw, that makes me so happy. I’m glad it reminded you of some wonderful times.
You had what I would say was a perfect family day! So glad you shared some of the highlights with us…thanks.
You had in one day what I aspired to have last week and failed. Thanks for this it raised my spirits a bit.
I hope this week is a better week for you.
What a wonderful time, filled with great memories. Thanks for sharing.
Wow you all sound like you had a wonderful fun time, time spent with family having a good time is awesome……………
Sounds like everyone had a fun day. Thanks for sharing.
sounds….well perfect…..and good memories
It was a good time.
Sounds like a great day!