Summer Wishes

At 11:40am on Friday, Summer officially began for us...and we brought summer in in style.

Autumn helped me pick out these balloons and make and hang this welcome home sign.

Which the kids were happy to bust through when they arrived home.

Later, we wrote our "summer wishes" on our balloons and set them free...I remember sending balloons off into the sky one field day as a kid with notes of some kind asking for return letters and also for a young women's activity with balloons the colors of the values.  The eco-friendly movement has put the kibosh on that magical moment for many kids, but we did it, and it was just as magical for my kids as I remember it being for me.  (Way better  than the devastating experience of accidentally losing a balloon...we launched ours!)

I wasn't actually sure if the balloons would take flight, because the intense heat of the day had zapped them of their potency.

But float and then fly, they did, almost in slow-motion, into the unlimited and the unknown...

 to have adventures we could only wonder and dream about...

...never to return to this one moment in time when we held them in our hands and vested them with our secret wishes to be carried far and wide by the wind.

And of course, the unforeseen outcome of this activity was that the swiftness of the passing of childhood was demonstrated so clearly...reminding me to enjoy every moment of every summer day that I have to spend with my children.  My wish for you is that you will do the same.