Pools, sprinklers, green grass, sunshine and kids at play all day long. These are all things that remind me of summer. Kristen Lamb shared a fun post this last week that allowed us all to skip through our childhood summer days. Nostalgia is a wonderful friend, is it not? I encourage you to jump over there and relive your memories of days gone by, if you haven’t already.
When I think back to summer vacation as a kid, I recall what a big deal the family holiday always was. Coming from a family of meager funds, we weren’t whisking off across the country, or to other countries, for that matter. We were loading up the house on wheels and motoring off to whatever destination our father felt like torturing sharing with us that year.
Come on, tell me you had these experiences. Weren’t they all the rave back in the day? We got to see the Grand Canyon from every possible angle…
Scott’s Castle in Death Valley… 
Climb inside the Mystery Shack, stand where little Joe and Hoss once stood and throw our dad in the Bedrock jail! If we could drive there, we did.
These days, summer means a whole lot of things to me. Yes, it’s about fitting in those small trips with the kids. But it’s also about projects. Cleaning out and organizing spaces that get cluttered and crowded during the busy school year and fixing up those neglected spaces you’ve been dying to indulge yourself in for some time now.
For the next few months of summer, we will enjoy a new Summer Files feature where we will look at small improvement projects around the home, organizing techniques, planning small adventures out and about, and anything else that fits the bill. The kind of things that fill up our summer months. If you see something you’d like to return to, pinning is encouraged.
Now… because we love looking at everyone’s pictures, and sharing is fun, we would like you to dig through those pictures of yours and send in a picture of one of your favorite vacations. It could be recent or old – only requirement is that it’s someplace you’d recommend as a vacation location. Send your picture and information by Wednesday, July 18th. You have almost six weeks to find the perfect share! Send your contribution to DebraKristi@gmail.com. Come on! Participate! The more the merrier!
Moving on… Our first topic in the Summer Files is directed to the writers in the house…
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Organizing Your Writerly Side
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This last week exciting news hit the WANA waves and it can effect you, as a writer, if you choose it let it. You can start taking advantage of it TODAY. And personally, I suggest you do. WANA has gone international with a cool tribe hang out, offering discussion groups and classes to help you connect and power up your skills with the force of WANA behind you. What is WANA you ask? WANA stands for We Are Not Alone. No writer should stand alone in the storm of publishing, fighting the uphill battle. And those of us in WANA help, not because we expect something in return but, because it’s the right thing to do. WANA peeps help one another.
Read up on the launch of this brilliant support network and all that it has to offer through co-founders Kristen Lamb and Ingrid Shaffenburg. Head over and see what Marcy Kennedy, Lisa Hall-Wilson, and Jenny Hansen have to say regarding the classes they will be teaching. There is great stuff to be learned! These are some of my favorite writers and bloggers. You will love working with them, I just know it.
Click on the link and join us there now!
I can’t think of a better way to rev up your writerly summer. Now, don’t procrastinate. Get motivated and get moving. I look forward to seeing you over there. 😉
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~NEVERISM~
Never stop until your good becomes better, and your better becomes the best. ~ Frank Zappa~oOo~
Oooh – your vacations sound extravagent. We had one-day-wonders my dad used to call them. We went to Canada’s Wonderland, African Lion Safari, Marineland, and Petroglyph Park (all within 2 hour drive). (those were 4 family vacations 4 consecutive years) At best, we spent a week camping at Algonquin Park. Before Paramount bought Canada’s Wonderland, you used to be able to go to Hanna-Barbera land and hang out with the Flinstones – but there was nothing as cool as a bedrock jail. 🙁 Thanks for the mention. Marcy and I are running a free giveaway right now in celebration of #WANAparty – deadline is tonight.
Extravagant, huh? I guess it’s all a matter of perspective. As kids we weren’t thrilled to be hauled around in the camper. We tried the camping thing with a tent trailer once, but it wasn’t a fit for my mother. 😀 I also recall trips to Marineland, Bush Gardens, some type of Animal Park and one solid week at “Campland”, which was like a sea of campers and tents for as far as the eye could see. That was a different kind of experience. The small town of Bedrock is in Arizona so chances are good that it was fit in with our trip to the Grand Canyon. Staring down into that big hole, what felt like 50 times, I kept having visions of the Brady bunch going down on the burros. LOL.
Oh, you’ve got me excited to look through my pictures! My favorite vacations are beach vacations! Fun in the sun. 🙂
I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Every time I see that statement, “Empowering artists…” it makes me happy. Stoked to be sharing the WANA revolution with you!
It’s a wonderful revolution! Loved your post. Beautifully done, as always.
Ditto what August said! Thanks for the shout-out Debra, and your vacation photos ROCK. 🙂
You are so very welcome for the shout out! Let’s hope we get the word out. I have no doubt it will spread like wildfire. Glad you enjoyed the pictures. Can we talk you into sharing one of yours?
I will be looking forward to reading your Summer files! Love the photos! Go WANAs!
I hope you find something useful in the Summer Files. I hope to see a picture from you for the post as well. Come on, send us something from a place you loved or think everyone should add to their bucket list. 😉
Definitely! Go Colorado! I would love some visitors!
Colorado is beautiful! I missed my family reunion held there eleven years ago because I was pregnant. When I finally did get to go a few years ago I didn’t get nearly enough time. There is so much more there to see. It is a great place to go and take the kids. Make sure to send a picture so I can include it in the post at the end of next month. 🙂
Sounds great. I will!
And please let me know if you are ever in the area Debra!
You know I will!
Hi Debra, I love these photos. Summertime was pack up and hit the road time for us. I’m not sure how exactly to participate in the Summertime Files, although I’d love to. Should I write a summertime post with photos and send you the link, or is there a special place to send stuff?
P.S. Thanks for the WANA info.
If you want to write a post for your own blog, that’s great! Send me the link and I’ll attach it in our final post. But I’d love a picture to include in the post as well. At the end of July we’ll post a picture post of recommendations from you all (the readers). It will be made up of the vacation pictures everyone sent in linking back to your individual blogs (if the sender is a blogger). Vacation destinations labeled and any relevant accompanying post links attached. Hope that all makes sense, I’ve been a little sluggish today.
You are very welcome regarding the WANA info. If on twitter, look up WANA by the many hashtags and if/when you make it over to the new WANAtribe, look me up and friend me. 🙂
Your pics are great. I’ll have to dig some of mine out.
I must stop by the #WANAPARTY today on Twitter 🙂 Have a great weekend, Debra.
I look forward to the picture share. Old pictures are a hoot!
I hope you made it to the #WANAparty. I got there REALLY late. LOL. I don’t know what happened. I made it through my daughter’s graduation in the morning and then passed out till my alarm went off to pick them up from school. I was SO tired. Hmmm. Missed out on a lot of blogging, FB and twitter activity. Booo!
Your daughter’s graduation is more important, Debra. I spent an hour on Twitter but it was Friday night here when it kicked off and I had to go out! 🙂
We didn’t have a home on wheels when I was a kid. We had a home with a propeller for vacations. Most every vacation we spent at a marina somewhere, hopefully with something interesting nearby and a pool for my brother and I. As I got a little older, I hated it, but now I actually miss it. Some of my best memories are listening to oldies with the spray in my face as my dad piloted and eating peanut butter and honey sandwiches with the fresh smell of the lake in my nose.
Those sound like wonderful memories. You are very lucky to have them. I can’t imagine what it would be like to jump in a private plane and fly off for family trips. I hope you share a picture with us. Wish I could tap into that memory you have of lake smell. That sounds delightful!
Summer vacation as a kid meant the annual trip to north from Huntington Beach to San Jose to visit the grandparents. With one exception driving back east to Ohio and Michigan, again to visit grandparents. All that driving gave me a love of road trips. I’d rather drive than fly, anytime. Of course, that has nothing to do with me being a Type A (I have NO control whether that plane stays in the air!), with a huge fear of flying. Oh no! But give me a full tank of gas, some tunes, or podcasted Coast to Coast AM, Hub, the dogs and a destination…good to go!
Road trips can be a lot of fun. You get to see so much that is missed by flying over the top of it all. 😉 I, too, enjoy quiet time in the car with my tunes. It’s some of the best time for ideas to bloom. I’m also a Type A personality, but have learned to let some control go when it comes to flying. Thanks for stopping by!
And you have that sweet ride to cruise in!
Fun idea Debra. It’s got to be Hawaii… for me as an adult, since I don’t have any photos from vacation places as a child. My favorite place as a kid was a ranch in Modoc County, Ca. My parents best friends owned a cattle ranch and we would spend a few weeks there every summer… I wrote a blog about it… which I will shamelessly post here>>> http://tedstrutz.com/2010/06/28/my-favorite-summer-memory/ We also would spend time at Lake Tahoe. I’ll try to find some pics.
I’ll send my favorite Hawaii pic from 2 years ago with my granddaughter…
I look forward to seeing your Hawaii picture. Hawaii is one of our favorite spots. It’s a real bummer that you don’t have any vacation pictures from when you were a kid, but I’ll be sure to include your post. Heading over to check it out now. 🙂
Ah, summer vacations. Those pictures of yours really brought back fond memories Debra. Raised in sunny southern California, I too visited those places. Although I don’t have pictures of them unfortunately. But since we live so close to the beach, I feel like I’m on a virtual vacation all year round. As you know my kids are older and out of the roost, so it’s just me and hubby. I miss them, but not that much. It’s quiet. And we like it. Have a great summer Debra. I know that you’ll be creating some awesome new memories with your children on this summer’s vacation! 🙂
It must be lovely living so close to the beach. We have a nice drive into Malibu when we feel like a beach day. If ever you miss having little ones feel free to borrow mine for the day! LOL. We are now into our second day of summer vacation. Spent the first full day at the pool. Today we are being lazy. I am watching movies with Monkey and have dragged my laptop down to the television with me. So far she is letting me work while we watch. 🙂
You may not have pictures from your childhood, but maybe a favorite stop you took with your kids when they were young that you feel comfortable sharing? 🙂
Cool pictures Debra. Great to keep memories like that.
Cheers!
Thank you, Nigel! Cheers!!
we used to go camping as a family. it was fun. living in alberta, we had the badlands of Drumheller nearby (where the dinosaurs roamed), and the stampede. and we went to Spokane Wash once to visit relatives. but mostly we went to see my mother’s family … it was lovely to see my cousins.
The badlands of Drumheller sound interesting. I’ve never heard of that. I’ll have to google it. Spokane, Washington is a beautiful area. I’ve only been there once. I’d like to go back someday. We usually fit family in during summer as well. My father’s family lived really close and we saw them all year long, but my mother’s family was up in San Fansisco where my grandfather was stationed at the Presido. We would drive up there and stay for a week or more every year. Isn’t that the magic that childhood memories are made of? 🙂
Ohmygosh, Debra, we totally had that camper truck! I think we went everywhere you did, and probably at the same time as well. Wouldn’t that be a hoot if we were somewhere together, but didn’t know it? I’ll try to find my favorite pic from our vacations. I’m wearing these hideous red and purple shorts (I totally loved them!) and we broke down outside of Vegas. It was awesome!
OH MY! That would be a hoot! Let me know if you see someone that looks like me and my dad in any of your photos. LOL. I swear we must have looked at the Grand Canyon from every possible angle. Hehe. I can’t wait to see your picture!!! I have pictures in some pretty hideous outfits through the years as well. What were we thinking, right? Breakdown outside of Vegas? Wow!! At least that’s a decent place to stay. Too bad it wasn’t as cool for kids back then.
Aw, I love anything that brings back memories from when I was a kid. We didn’t have a camper (and does the sign behind it say Bobbitt’s?), but we went on vacations every year. One year it was to a place called Call of the Wild, another we camped in the thumb area of Michigan, at Saginaw Bay. Other times it was the Upper Peninsula, once to Florida. But usually it was with my mother’s family. All eight of them, including spouses and children, and we’d rent 3-4 cabins and stay all week. It was crowded, and you couldn’t take two steps in one direction without running over someone, but it was great! The very best times, and I’d give anything to go back there for a while. 🙂
Sounds like you had some really cool trips, Kristy! I bet you saw some really beautiful things and have some very special memories. I hope you share a picture with us of your favorite! We hope to rent a cabin with the kids in the future, maybe up in Yosemite. We don’t need to worry about the crowding issue you had. We are a small family. I think the sign behind the camper does say “Bobbetts’s.” I have no idea where that was taken. No one thought to write that information down.