My fondest summer memories as a child are the days spent swimming all day long at my grandma's house. I remember standing next to my grandpa anxiously waiting for him to finish testing the ph levels in the water and then clean the pool so we could swim. We literally swam all day with the background noise of metal clicking and the occasional oh escaped the mouths of my dad, his brothers and my grandpa. They always played horseshoes on the side of the house while we swam. We meaning my brother, sister and cousins. It was great. I would have swim races with my sister, we would try to figure out what the other person was saying under water and then we made up our own games like mermaids or torpedos. I remember one summer, when we were a bit older, a boogie boad was added into the mix and we would run and try to jump onto it. I also loved swimming to where the "waterfall" was so I could get my face/ hair wet. When night time came, my grandpa turned on the pool lights which made the pool even more awesome. The lights would change and just everything seemed magical. Those were wonderful summer memories. Years later when I found out my grandpa had sold the house, a moment of saddness occured because I realized there would be no more pool memories.
Now lets fast forward to now. Now I am a mother of three kids and I quickly found out bored kids means bickering so the teacher in me made up a schedule. The schedule consists of going to a public pool where we can swim for free in the morning. Once again the excitement of packing up the car and heading out to go swimming has begun but now I am the driver and there is a new generation of kids. Once again a child learns how to dive in the deep end. Yes, I watched Jonathan go to the diving area and have a ball jumping in the pool and then swim to the edge by himself, with a lifeguard watching of course! So exciting. No resemblance to the little boy who did not want to get his face wet. Today he is just a boy. Once again kids make up their own games and just enjoy the summer. Ella's games usually consist of filling up buckets and emptying them out. Leia is just along for the ride but for some reason loves to stick her face in the water. It makes me incredibly nervous. Once again memories are being made that will hopefully never fade. Life is good.
