What a timely post!
As we speak I have my kettle on to make tea for a tea party with my girls. Rainy day here in NJ, so we are stuck inside. I stopped doing laundry, decided it could wait, and we shall have tea, in real china tea cups. Maybe I'll find a boa and tiara and wear it for the occasion :-P

One of my favorite things was to make pine straw houses. We lived in the country and played outside from morning to dark. I would rake the pine straw into little short walls, like the blue print of a house. I spent hours making room after room. We would then play house, but really the best part was the building. No grandkids in sight, so I'm just taking a walk down memory lane.

Growing up in a small town near Toronto:

1) Riding bikes until dusk. Hearing mums calling each child -- and my dad could whistle so loud that you could hear it all through the neighbourhood -- and hearing kids argue about going to bed when it was still light outside!
2) Being told "Its a lovely day -- OUT you go!"
3) Lying on the cold tile at the tiny library and reading through all of their E. Nesbit collection.
4) Soft ice cream at the Tastee Freeze. Even better -- chocolate coating. Not being allowed to eat it inside Dad's car! ((the infamous Rust Queen))
5) Laundry on the line -- taking it down in a rush when the rain came
6) Hearing the lawn mowers and the smell of cut grass
7) Homemade popsicles
8) Picnics with real tablecloths and dishtowels. Dad cooking on the Coleman stove (do you remember the "tick tick tick" sound when they primed it??? LOL!) Hot tea and hot coffee in the red plaid pair of thermos.
9) Farmers Market. Taking along a couple of coolers and the car would be FILLED with so much food!
10) Parents having garden parties with pitchers of Harvey Wallbangers; Bloody Marys; Gin&Tonics. Icy glasses that ran water. Carrying around trays of goodies. Cleaning out the ashtrays.
11) Driving Mum CRAZY when the town would re-tar the roads -- we would go out and play with the tar bubbles! Get tar all over our shoes and hands -- and have to be "CLEANED OUTSIDE ... NO TAR INSIDE MY JUST-CLEANED HOUSE"
12)Taking the train downtown and Mum wearing fresh white high pumps and a white purse. We would have lunch at the "Georgian Room" at Simpsons (a nice downtown department store)
13) Swimming at the local community "Lion's Club" pool. COLD water and those horrible smelly rubber swim caps! Slipping on the pavement beside the pool

Visiting my grandma in Scotland:

1) Picnics "aye its a FINE day -- let's take a lunch up to the Lead Hills" Packing up sandwiches (potted salmon, chicken, ham, tongue, tomato); salad; lots of small packets of crisps (potato chips); bottles of ginger beer and lemon squash (like Seven-Up); chocolate biscuits (cookies) and of course huge flasks (thermos) of hot tea. A blanket to sit on -- and wood folding chairs. And me? I'd be wandering around the stream and up on the hillside with the sheep and heather. ("aye, well noo (now)-- the child would bring home a sheep if we'd let her" and everyone would laugh and shake their heads .....)

Jan at Rosemary Cottage

I still feel the need to catch (and release) at least one firefly on the first night I see them because to me that signifies the beginning of summer.

I lived in very remote Nor Cal, town sign said 200 but I never thought there were more than 50.

My bff's mom would take us to the river to swim, it ran along back side of town.

Bff would get 35cents allowance on Sunday and we would go to our store and spend probably an hour picking out the most amount of candy with that 35cents.

Taking hikes in the hills behind our houses, barefoot. We would be gone for hours and were only 7 or 8yrs old.

Dad would go fishing and I would hide in bed of truck and surprise him when he got to his hole. I think he may have known I was there but just acted surprised.

Making homemade fruit rollups. BFF had a small truck camper sitting on property, it would get hot inside during summer. We would puree fresh fruit, lay it on a baking sheet and set it in trailer. We would also make sliced apples that way too. It was the best.

HHireno- my dh is from St. Louis. He would gather fireflies in a jar and the university would pay the kids a few cents for them. They were doing some kind of research. When we lived in Atlanta and dd was about 2 we went for an evening walk. She loved the fireflies and wanted to hold them. That was until one landed on her chest and she freaked out and smooshed it. Then it was "Eeeeewwwww, get the buggy off me". It was so funny.

Grew up in AZ.

playing outside in the rain- every time it rained( not if thunderstorm tho) After a really big rain we all would hop in the car and go for a drive "to see what the rain did" as we called it when we were little.

Not owning an umbrella!

soft serv vanilla ice cream cones.

walking to the public community pool, with 10 cents to get in and some money for candy from the snack bar.

Sunday picnics in the desert in the winter months.

skinny dipping as a family in a river when we were camping.

London bridge, ring around the rosie. red light green light, mother may I , simon says.
being gone all day riding bikes everywhere having to be home before dark.
Playing cowboys and Indians for hours on end, shooting each other with capguns we would fast draw from our holsters.

Building forts out of tumbleweeds.

And we did most of this when it was over 100+ degrees outside. no heat alerts for AZ!!

Another summer memory:

14) Dad cleaning the screens and the windows -- and cleaning and hanging the awnings (brown and creamy-white striped) over the windows

NOTE: Does anyone remember awnings??? .... seems to me that many many houses had them .....way back then ....

15) The old metal (dangerous as heck! LOL) fans whirring away in each room

Jan at Rosemary Cottage

Summer (since that's the season we're in and most people seem to be mentioning):

1. Picking berries (mostly blueberries), eating some in the field, some baked (Grandma's strawberry shortcake, blueberry buckle, Dad's blueberry pancakes) and freezing the rest.

2. Fireflies - still see some occasionally but very late and fewer than I remember - my DD has never caughyt one in her life, DS probably doesn't remember doing it. Are they getting scarce all over or just up north here?

3. Running in the sprinkler and Slip N Slide (my kids love this - DD and my cousins' kids literally spent all day yesterday sliding - and then after dinner the kids started passing water balloons, the adults started throwing them and it turned into a free-for-all).

4. Sunday dinners at my grandparents' house, often picnics at the farm (my great-uncle inherited, my cousin lives there now) and staying late into the night, out on the lawn, most of us barefoot (incl my uncle!) and listening to my uncles singing amazing harmonies (though my grandma couldn't sing and my dad still can't). Enjoyed joining my uncles, 1 aunt, a couple cousins singing around the bonfire last night - DD stayed up til 9pm running around with the other kids and glowsticks (at my uncle's place just down the hill from the farmhouse - he bought the neighbor's house and some of the south field and orchard from my great-uncle, I got the northern woods).

5. Haying (first rolling the bales together in groups for the men to pick up when we were too little to do anything else, then when older driving the truck, then when stronger helping the men pick up the bales and put them in the barn). Not sure that was a "pleasure" but it was part of summer.

6. Playing in the woods behind our house with my brother when I was 7-8, and then a different house with neighbor girls when I was 10-12, before we moved to a *more* rural spot, where my parents still live). They're building a house now in the swamp next to our first house - I can't believe it passed wetlands!

7. Riding my bike to the library where I worked as volunteer librarian in the summer.

8. Riding my horse out in the fields (though mucking out the stalls and rounding up the cows and ponies after the ponies busted out of the fence wasn't fun). The smell of a horse on a hot day - it's been a long time but I still remember it...stopping for a drink at the brook and cool off in the shade of the trees...

9. Camping near the seashore, digging for clams and having steamed clams and homemade chowder for dinner, sleeping in a tent after staying up late sitting around the fire (but I don't miss the sandfleas).

10. The fireman's parade, carnival rides, and fireworks - going this week with the kids. I guess they still have many of the same experiences I had, in the same places, though they don't have quite as many siblings and cousins, they do have some cousins who come visit, and we still occasionally get together (like yesterday) with 2nd cousins.

Why don't we run this thread every season/holiday?

I grew up in a remote area just like Shannon and I relate to her river days. When my sister and weren't called 'The God Dust Twins', we were called 'The River Rats' in the summers. Our town sign post said Pop:125. We used to laugh and say they must have counted all the dogs, cats and flies to come up with that number. I went to a one room school with 18 kids total.

There was nothing better than waking up in the morning, flying through chores before heading to the river for the day, which also ran through the back of our town. In the winter, I listened to the boulders hitting against each other at night, as the river exploded it's banks and took out our local bridges.

When I was 9 my dad restored the tractor he made in the 30's. He put a govenor on the motor so it wouldn't go faster than 35, bought us a Honda 70 and we were set. We drove that pair up and down the river and on every back road that existed in the mountains. Our entire family were very early drivers.

We drove the tractor in parades on the 4th of July except one year when our town made a float using an old claw foot bathtub, in celebration of Wyatt Earp, who spent time in our old hotel.

When we got older, my sister and I would move out of the house each summer, setting up our tent by the river. Loyally, we'd return each morning to do our chores, earning our gasoline before heading to the river to swim in the crystal clear waters of the Yuba River.

After 4th of July, in early childhood, we'd jump in the fully packed car and head toward Indiana for a month. It was there I first learned about fireflies. They amazed me and we would fill jars with them at night. I remember another new thing I learned about in Indiana - chiggers! They loved me! In later childhood, I refused to go and my parents allowed me to stay home. (BIG mistake.)

We camped out all the way to Indiana and as we slept at my Grandmother's in the relentless and humid heat, I remember feeling so homesick for home and my river.

Summers were filled with berry picking here too. Mom made pies all summer and froze berries for winter pies. I miss her pies so much. She spoiled me with her pie crust and I can hardly eat pie anymore because none compares to hers.

August was the county fair in the most beautiful setting ever. Our fair grounds is award winning for it's beauty. Baby pigs were my favorite and I actually bought a couple baby pigs from the fair one year. I still go each year to look at all the great exhibits but I go the first day when it's not so crowded and everything is fresh.

I've been MIA for awhile but I'm back and this was so great to read! Love, love, love it! It was almost like I played w/ you all in a secret childhood peek into your life. How fun!