The Busy Last Days of Summer Break

Kai starts school today but he made the most of the last few days of break with a fun visit with his grandparents in Michigan.

Kai looks forward to going to the beach there, and this time he went five times in five days.

Bubbe always has fun activities on tap. This time they went on two different boat rides including this duck.

The duck ride was fun, as was getting ice cream afterward.

Another of Kai’s favorite activities this time of year is going fruit picking. This time he picked blueberries, apples, and peaches.

And best of all, he spent a lot of time with his grandparents, including hanging out on the front porch with Papa.

You would think after all that, he would have been tired out, but as soon as we got home late yesterday afternoon, he wanted to head over to our neighborhood pool to get in one last swim before it closed for the year.

Kai has been a pretty good swimmer for a while now, but this was the first time that he wanted to go to the deep end of the pool and dive in. I was happy to see his courage, until he started to insist that I try it, too.

I am not nearly the swimmer that Kai is now, and going to the deep end of the pool makes me a bit nervous. But what could I say as Kai persisted?

“Come on, Dad, you can do it!”

“I’ll catch you!”

Well, after years of encouraging my son to be brave and try new things, I couldn’t be a hypocrite now. I went over to the deep end of the pool, climbed out, and then dove into the water. And then we each did it over and over again.

Kai also tried the small slide at the pool for the first time in years. In the past, he has always shied away from this little tunnel slide, but once he went down yesterday, he wanted to keep going again and again, alternating between diving at the deep end of the pool and going down the slide.

We stayed at the pool right up until they rang the bell that closed up shop for the summer, making the most of the last moments of summer break.

It was a fitting wrap to summer, one full of fun and momentous times. But it went by fast.

Is it really nine months now till next summer?