Hints of summer

My mother-in-law says this is the smell of her childhood. If that's true, I think it must have been heaven. There are hundreds of these blooms on the giant bush in our front yard, if you can call it a bush, it's at least one story tall. I make up excuses just to pass by it so I can catch a sweet whiff.

These are the days when the shoes come off, fleece cover-ups are too hot and the kids are flying out of them both,

and running wild.

Last night they decided to bury each other in grass clippings in the mowed field and gave a collective, "aaawwwwww!" when I told them it was time to come in for showers. It must have kept them occupied for 45 minutes or so.

When people wonder why we live where we do, or can't fathom the idea of not living in a suburban neighborhood, these are just a few of the things that come to my mind that I don't want to live without. I'm carried back in time here to a simpler way, to fun of our own making, to a less confusing place, where the magic of childhood is alive and well. I couldn't ask for more.