Turn Back Time Tuesday: Summers of the Past

So I got off the phone tonight with my friend, and she asked what fun we had planned for this summer.  And sadly? Nothing came to mind.  Because we have nothing really to look forward to.  No vacation.  No concerts.  No baseball games.  Nothing.  How Sad!
I don't really remember any summer well until I was about 10.  I mean - I know we went to Disney when I was five, but all I remember is what I see in the pictures...not the actual trip.  But when I was 10, we went on a cross country trip to my parent's 20th reunion and then on to the Grand Canyon.  I remember that trip.  I remember the van we traveled in.  I remember when the air conditioner broke.  I remember a tour of some Indian stone dwellings on a cliff.  I remember my dad freaking out when I was leaning over the railing to look down the canyon.  I remember wondering why my Dad didn't want to take the donkey tour down into the canyon (turns out A.  My dad is deathly afraid of heights.  And B.  He felt he weighed too much to get on a donkey. - - It's funny what you don't know about your parents at the time, but learn as life goes on.)

My mom was always taking the pictures (Grand Canyon)

Two years later, we went to England.  We visited the town our family is named after (where our ancestors were from, and at one time ruled...ya know, before we got kicked out for killing Thomas A. Becket. But I digress.  I remember thinking it was so cool that I was eating Fish 'N Chips at a pub!  I remember, watching the Smurfs in Gaelic when we were in Wales.  I remember a hotel in London being so crappy (with a sharred bathroom) that my dad said "I don't care about saving money, this is a shit hole!  I'm taking us to the nearest Holiday I.nn.

Two years after that....we went to Hawaii (((My Dad was a traveling salesman and racked up a ton of airline miles, hotel points, car rental points, etc that we got to travel for next to nothing but food costs))).

Basically, I'm saying I got spoiled as a child in the summer.  Excitement!  Fun! Travel!  And then came the teen years.  I worked at a beach or pool with my best friends lifeguarding.  I got paid to for 90% of the time, tan!  And once I hit 16?  I saw a concert at least every single summer!  And let's not forget the credit card debt I went into to go on Spring Break as a Senior in college.

We went horseback riding in Jamaica...yes, in bikini tops - yikes!

And once I had a career as a single woman?  I had extra money for myself, I went on trips to see friends, family, and yes - two years in a row take a Girls Vaca with the girls to Punta Cana and Mexico.

Ben, Brit, Lauren, Me, Joy, Matt & Chris after Snorkel time in Mexico

Later, there was the wedding, honeymoon, etc.  This is the first year without anything. :(  So sad!

Ah, Honeymoon memories (of the margaritas LOL)