I have this very strong memory of my mother.

Every summer, from the weekend after school let out until Labor Day, she took us to the beach or the park nearly every day. She’d sit under a huge red umbrella and read trashy romance novels and let us play until we were literally wilted with exhaustion. She’d bring a big cooler filled with lemon Kool-aid and grapes and cheese and crackers and hard boiled eggs. She never rushed us. I can’t ever remember wishing we could stay longer.

Today was the opening day party at our county’s watering hole. It’s the only public pool within 200 miles–a little man-made lake, fed by a warm springs, full of diving boards and slide. And a concrete island called the Cat Walk that kids can jump off of.

I took my kidlings, but not a red umbrella. For one thing, even if every family in my county came to the pool, there wouldn’t be 1/10th of the people as there were at the beaches and parks were I grew up in Los Angeles. Also, no tide to pull them down the beach where they’d need to look for the red umbrella to find me. And instead of reading trashy romance novels, I brought my little notepad and a pen and worked on writing one.

Anyway–here are some pics.

The real Sandy Cheeks…

Shovelin’ it in, before she realized I really had turned into my mother and was going to make her wait twenty minutes before going back in:

My girls (and hello…look at that view!):

My guy: