Summer's coming!

Summer must be on its way. I know this because of a very distinctive and dear-to-my-heart aroma I smelled last week. No, it wasn't lilacs (although they're getting close), it wasn't freshly mown lawn (although I have been enjoying that one too) and it wasn't newly tilled dirt (hopefully I will get my hands in some of that this week though!). Anyone have a guess? It was sunscreen!

The fabulous smell of sunscreen says "Summer!" to me like none other. Wade thinks I'm crazy. "It stinks!" he says. But to me sunscreen smells like the carefree bliss of summer vacation.

It's the signal that the thermometer on my parents' window finally hit 80 degrees, the designated put-on-your-swim-suits-and-run-through-the-sprinkler temperature. It's getting ready to take a boat ride or play on the dock at Ross Lake. It's getting pulled behind a boat on an inner tube at a church camp-out. It's playing on the beach. Sunscreen is picking blackberries in our backyard in Lynden. It's filling up the kiddie pool or hooking the hose up to the slip-n-slide. It's watering the garden. It's eating lunch at a picnic table. It's mowing the lawn. It's water-balloon volleyball. It's hanging laundry on the clothesline.

Perhaps it's not the most pleasant smell (that would be lilacs), but it's one of my favorites purely because of the treasure trove of memories it conjures up every time I smell it. So when my boys actually requested it this past week, I gladly slathered them up, even if it wasn't entirely necessary yet (though it certainly couldn't hurt). Perhaps one day when they are grown they too will catch a whiff of Coppertone or Water Babies and smile as a rush of summertime memories wafts through the air.