My 5 Monday!

Labor Day will be here in two short weeks!! Can you all believe it?!?! I can't! Before you know it we will be getting ready for Halloween and then Thanksgiving and Christmas will be following behind real quickly. That being said, this week's topic is:

"My 5 Favorite Things About Summer"

1. Detroit Tigers Baseball

I LOVE the Detroit Tigers. Absolutely love them. I generally will try to make it to at least one game during the summer. I missed last summer and haven't gone yet this year, but I still have a month left. Hopefully I will make it! My Tigers started out strong this season, but after the all star break they fell behind a lot. Still love them though and there's always next season!!

2. Bonfires

Who doesn't love a good bonfire. Sitting around the fire on a cool summer night with good drinks and great friends. LOVE IT. Gotta throw in some s'mores every now and then too of course :)

3. Swimming

Whether it is in a pool, lake, ocean or beach everyone has got to go swimming in the summer. I haven't gone down to the pool as much as I should have this summer, but I did go swimming in Lake Michigan, which is pictured above, this summer. I am pretty sure I could have spent all day in that water. LOVED those waves!!

4. Fireworks

Fireworks are always so beautiful. The place to go on the 4th of July where I live is Bay City. Actually Bay City has 3 days of fireworks on July 1, 2 and 3, but they always put on such a great show. I was lucky enough to make it out to the big 40 minute show on July 3 this year and they were very good. One of these years I want to make it to New York City to see their July 4th fireworks. Hopefully soon!!

5. "Up North" trips

Here in Michigan, the place to go for summer get aways is "up north". I honestly have no clue where "up north" actually starts, but everyone seems to head there in the summer. The "up north" place I go to is beautiful Higgins Lake (pictured above), with my bestie Becca. Becca's family has a cabin up there so we try to take a weekend trip up there every summer. It is so peaceful up there. Everytime it's time to go home I dread it. The last few times I have been there we have taken a trip to Traverse City to the casino. I never win anything, but it's always a good time. We of course have to hit the little ice cream shop before heading home too! It was too cold up there to go swimming this year, but hopefully next year we will be able to!

Well there you have it. My favorite things about the summer (in no particular order). What are you going to miss when summer ends??

Ramblings....

Here we are already halfway through summer. I can't believe that in a little over 5 months, Christmas will be here. Seriously! All you people reading this saying "Stop it", it's true. Before you know it we will all be watching football games and getting ready for Halloween. Of course before Halloween is even over the stores already have at least half of their Christmas decor out. Now I'm all for preparing and planning ahead and I'm gonna be honest and say I have actually started Christmas shopping. That is actually more because I have a new nephew and in order to spoil him like he should be I have to start buying stuff early so I don't go broke!

I don't actually know at what age it is that time actually starts flying by. I remember being a little kid and I couldn't wait to grow up. Time seemed to go by so slow. I was so excited to be able to be done with school and be out on my own with a "real" job. Now that I am done with school and out on my own with a "real" job, I miss being a little kid. Of course when I was a kid, adults would always tell me to enjoy being a kid and not to be in a hurry to grow up. Like all kids though, I thought they were full of nonsense. I miss the days of spending my summer vacation sleeping in everyday, having sleepovers with friends, playing outside and staying up all night. Now my summers consist of hearing my alarm go off at 540, working from 8-530, making dinner, cleaning, doing laundry, and watching a little TV. Of course on the weekends I get some nice time to head down to the pool, spend time with friends, and of course make the annual Detroit Tigers trip and Higgins Lake trip if time and money allow for them. Still though, I miss the days of doing nothing and having fun doing it. Don't get me wrong, I like my job and I'm very grateful that I even have a job, but every now and then I think about just taking a week off to do nothing. During my summers while I was in college Becca and I "worked", but we still found time to hang out almost everyday! I'm pretty sure we were attached at the hip for a good year or two straight! I miss that! Even after I graduated from college with my associates degree, I wanted to have one last "summer break". I told myself I wasn't even going to start looking for a job until August. Heck I was only 20 years old, I don't think I was ready to "grow up" yet. So that's exactly what I did. I enjoyed my summer, slept in all morning, stayed up all night, hung out with friends and worked my job as a sandwich artist @ Subway. Then sometime around August 20, I got a call about a job offer in the exact setting and place that I wanted to work. I couldn't have asked for things to turn out any more perfect than that. Five years later, I'm at the same job (which I love) and missing my summer vacations spent doing nothing but what I wanted to do.

So starting now and lasting until the end of summer I am going to try to spend my weekends enjoying the weather and the free time. I'm going to sleep in as late as I can, stay up as late as I can, and do whatever it is I want to do that day. I may not get to do it seven days a week, but I will sure be doing it the two that I can. Enjoy it while you can people, because before you know it the snow will be falling and all free time will be spent shopping and preparing for the holidays!!!

(Side note: If this seemed like it got confusing I apologize. I start off with ideas in my head and then get distracted and don't know where I was going with them. These blog entries will be entitled "ramblings" from now and and trust me, there will prob be a few of them!)