Hello everyone!

Summer is coming, and this summer we want to have a Frog and Toad inspired summer! Nostalgic. Whimsical..slow and cozy. Full of books and berries and cake and picnics, fireflies and stars. Swimming, gardening, and just filling ourselves up with all the simple joys that summer has to offer.

I have spent my morning with Wyatt, making plans, although if the plans don’t work out, we are flexible. I do have a bit of Toad in me though, and I am a list maker.

I was looking at hipcamp sites, and places to rent canoes. I have promised Billy I would go on a family camping trip and eventually I need to actually do it. I am planning nights of stargazing and watching fireflies in our yard. I think we will go pick blueberries, and make jam, and bake lots of blueberry pancakes and have them with lots of fresh maple syrup. And picnics! Our family, and Frog and Toad, love a picnic! We have a special spot that we go, under a trio of shady trees, where the breeze blows off the water and keeps us cool even on the hottest days. We take our books and art supplies, listen to birds, kick off our shoes and sometimes one of us will just lay down and close our eyes, listening to the sound of the birds or the music from cars driving by, down the hill from where we sit. These days are always so drowsy, and Wyatt is happy to paint and draw the afternoon away and we are happy to let him. He is surrounded by sun and birds and flowers, fresh air. We don’t need to spend every minute on the run to the next big thing. We want to teach him to enjoy the small things too, these quiet moments.

I hope to do lots of reading, whether inside or out, and board games on Saturday nights with my brother and his kids. Afternoons picking books at the library to emerge with a giant bookstack, that we can hurry home and start reading. Swimming at my in-laws in the evening, and taking a tired boy home to bed. Movies outside on the garage wall with friends.

We are slowly planting our garden, and are thinking about pesto and turkey sandwiches, tomato and cheese sandwiches, made from tomato and basil from our garden, all on homemade sourdough bread. Fresh picked flowers in small vases scattered around the house. We planted some flowers already, all yellow lilies and pansies, and some snapdragons too, because Wyatt wanted dragon flowers, in the space around the Little Free Library. Then we added some gnomes while we were at it, because it just felt like a space gnomes would like too. Maybe we will turn the apple tree into a fairy tree, or…a goblin tree. Save the fairies for the stump in the back garden.

Of course we will meet friends for ice cream, the kids all sitting in the back of the car, carefree, happy. And we need strawberry shortcake with homemade shortcake. I want to make moth sugar, and plant milkweed again. And parades! This is parade and festival season. I think Frog and Toad would approve of that. And then there is a block party at Greenfield Village one day, and strawberry days another.

And even if we don’t do all this, or even half of it, I just want a summer that feels like a summer I would have had as a kid. Without a ton of technology. With more emphasis on small simple moments. Like I said, nostalgic, whimsical. Like a summer Frog and Toad would approve of.

And that is it from me today. I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!