Dog Days/Flashback Fridays Mash Up

Today starts the Dog Days of Summer Blog Fest, hosted by Jeremy Bates. In order to participate, sign up at Jeremy’s site here and write about one or all of the following:

1) Describe your favorite summer activity thus far.
2) What activities do you plan before summer is over?
3) If you could have the ultimate vacation ever, where and what would it be?

I considered writing about one of these 2012 summer activities:

·         Rock climbing with hubby in Idaho.

·         Our trip to Phoenix where my dad and I took my eight-year-old son to his first Major League Baseball game (Diamondbacks vs. Cubs).

·         My trip with my youngest to Aurora, Colorado only days after the tragic shooting (because my son had eye surgery only a mile away).

However, today is also Flashback Fridays for me, so I decided to bend the rules a bit and create a mash up of the blog fest with my weekly posting.

Back in the 1980s, my mom drove from Wisconsin to Arizona with my younger brother and me to visit our grandparents. They lived in a mobile home park for senior citizens, and the place had a pool. If you’re familiar with Phoenician summers, you know they are extremely hot. We’re talking 100-degree weather (often reaching 115 or so). So, needless to say, a pool was important to us. Unfortunately, the manager of the mobile home park was a bit of a grouch, so he only allowed children (us) to swim in the pool from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM. My mom took us there for the entire two hours. When we returned to my grandparents’ place, we ate our sandwiches outside in the baking Arizona sun while we drip-dried. We also played Name That Tune. This was a game show that ran from 1974-1981. We had a blast with it, cracking ourselves up. It is such a wonderfully imprinted memory I have of time spent with my brother that I even incorporated it into my current YA contemporary novel, SUPERSTITIONS (which happens to release on August 17th).

 

If you’ve not seen the show, here’s your chance! Check out the prizes and the awesome fashions on the model!

You can find the other participants in today's blog fest here.