We're having one of the worst starts to the summer that I can remember in Vancouver. Every day we wake up and look hopefully out the window to see if the forecast was wrong (which it often is in this part of the world), but no such luck the past couple of months. It seems as though it's either cloudy, sprinkling, or downright pouring with rain. The kids have been out of school for a week and I'm wondering what we will do with the rest of July and August if this weather keeps up the way it has. We miss swimming at the beach the most. My kids, not unlike most, tend to get on each other's nerves when confined to the house for too long. They will bug each other until even the sanest person is driven crazy.
Today we got lucky. A friend and I drove our kids about an hour outside of the city to a raspberry farm and to our disbelief, it wasn't raining! We spent nearly two hours wandering the raspberry patch picking buckets full of beautiful ripe berries. And just as we were loading our precious items into the car, the sky opened up and it started pouring with rain! It was great timing, and we felt so lucky to have escaped the farm without getting soaked. We came home and spent the afternoon making raspberry jam and watching the rain come down while our kids played together in the house. Sure enough, after a couple of hours indoors, two of the kids started bothering the rest of the group and were banished from playing with them. It wasn't long before we heard shrieking and laughter coming from the backyard and upon looking out the window, we found our two children fully clothed in the blow-up pool in the pouring rain! As I drove home with the windshield wipers going at high speed, the windows fogging up thanks to my shivering wet child in the backseat, I had to smile at what a great day it had been and remind myself, that summer vacation comes but once a year and come rain or shine, we will make the best of it.
