Bye Bye, Summertime!

We spent the afternoon at The Bucket Pool.

Today was the last day our pool was open. We've spent several days each week at the pool since Memorial Day, and it's become part of the story of our summer.

I was struck, of course, by how much Evie has grown in a few short months. First of all, she's several inches taller than she was at the end of May. She can stand in parts of the water that used to be too deep for her. Even her hair is different - if I spray sunscreen on her shoulders, it gets in the hair curling past the nape of her neck. It's grown so long!

At the beginning of summer, we spent most of our time in the Spray Pool. It is ultra-shallow and Evie had tons of fun playing in the fountains and bubblers. She filled up cups of water and dumped them on my feet. She had little toy boats and fish and watering cans that kept her busy.

But she's outgrown the "Baby Pool." Now we head right to the regular kid pool. She L-O-V-E-S playing in the big pool with Daddy. Evie splashes and jumps and "swims" on her noodle. She couldn't do any of these things (except the splashing) when we first came to the pool.

As things were winding down this afternoon, The Girls showed up at the pool. It was a perfect way to end the day. Evie played with them, and I couldn't help but think how lucky we all are. A man kept shouting "Life is good!" to his little son. I wanted to yell back "Yes, it is!"

We took one last ride on the Lazy River. My dare-devil daughter loves going under the waterfalls, so we went around a couple of times. Each time we went under a bridge, we sang out "Nine dogs on a moonlit night - Aoooooooo!" And Evie was finally able to touch the waterfall spilling out from under the water slides. She's been dying to do that all summer.

Bye bye, Baby Pool. Bye bye, Lazy River. Bye bye, Bucket Pool.

Bye bye, Summertime. Bye bye, Baby Evie. Next year when we come back you'll be a real girl. But remember, you'll always be my baby.