It Was A Good Summer

Well, I guess there's no denying it. Summer is unofficially over. There was a little bit of a nip in the New Hampshire air today, and I saw quite a few reddish-orangeish (as my girls would say) leaves out there. "sigh"
But it was a GOOD summer. First of all, I got to spend a lot of time with Louisa doing shows and having fun. She just started high school, so it's really more important to me than ever before to stay close to her. She's a good kid, and funny. I'm lucky. She introduced me to a lot of new music, and to what has become my favorite song of the summer: A song called "Lake Ponchartrain" by the band LUDO. I LOVE IT and have played it over and over again! You can hear it here on their MySpace: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=3021298. WARNING: I always assume that young children are not reading my blog, and I write for the parents. You should know that this song has the H-E-double toothpicks word in it and one of their MYSPACE friends has a sort of naughty picture. But your kids can't get on MySpace unless you let them anyway. Just don't say I didn't warn ya!
Moving on.... didn't spend as much time with Emma because she was away doing an internship most of the summer, but what time we did have was GOOD. We laughed a lot. We had our annual Bar Harbor weekend and enjoyed lobster and a fun play at the Acadia Repertory Theatre. We made the most of the rain and went to see "Mama Mia" together, which I wouldn't have seen without her and which I thoroughly enjoyed. But I spent a lot of the summer missing her.
Then there were all the great places I got to play and all the great kids and families I met. I especially enjoyed my shows at the Milford Drive-In. That was a total blast! If you've never taken your kids to a Drive-In, plan to do it next summer. The Drive-Ins that are left are a dying breed and a relic from a very cool time. We're lucky to have some left.
Oh, and I can't forget...this was the summer I got to meet DAVID CASSIDY!! I only went to see one other concert this summer, though, and that was TALLY HALL in NYC. They're terrific, too. I love their music!
I went fishing for the first time in my life this summer when my father-in-law took the girls and me out on his little motor boat in Freeport, Maine. We didn't catch any fish, but what a lovely day. It was good for all of our hearts to have that time together. And besides, I'll never forget Louisa's reaction to the worms!
I read a really good book that took me all summer to read, called "A Voyage Long and Strange" by Tony Horwitz, which is a sort of travelogue/history book about the actual MANY discoveries of America. It was fascinating, but because it was non-fiction I didn't have that drive to keep picking it up to see what would happen, so it took me all summer to read it.
At the end of summer we had our annual trip to Santa's Village, which is more precious every year because my daughters are both teenagers now but they (and their friends) still love going there. Maybe they do it now mostly to humor me, but I don't care! It's always a good time. Now, if I could just get them to go to Storyland.....
We only went to Hampton Beach once, and we only went to Bear Brook State Park once, so that sort of bums me out. But it was such a rainy summer and I worked a lot, so there weren't that many beach opportunities.
Speaking of the beach, though, I did get to play at the Hampton Beach Children's Festival and the best thing about that was I got to reconnect with my old pal Dan Grady, marionettist extraordinaire. In addition to being a true craftsman and artist, Dan is wondefully imaginative and talented, and a REALLY nice guy. If you'd like to find out more about him, check out www.puppetmandan.com.
Well, if you've read this far, I hope I didn't bore you! I'm just feeling a little nostalgic tonight. Must be that nip in the air.....