A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

"Days like these are my favorite." 

It must've been said a half a dozen times throughout the day on Saturday. And every time either Jared or I sputtered it off, the other one would give an agreeing, "Ahh, I know it."

We love our simple Saturdays. We love schedule free. We love together time.  It was one of those Saturdays.

Jared got up before the crack of dawn to join some friends to run in a 5k race while Jett & I slept in a bit & then tinkered around the house until Jared got home. By late morning, the sun had already cranked  into full force & the day was promising to be a hot one.

We spent a good fifteen minutes going back & forth on what kind of possible adventures the day could hold for us & at the end of our deliberating, decided that Jared would finally tackle the garage he'd been wanting to clean out for months & Meatball & I would set up shop for a kiddie pool kind of day.

Momma dipped her feet in the chilly water while Jett man took no time getting down to business--he kicked & splashed & plunged himself in & out of that pool all day long. We had to change the water at one point because it had risen to bath water temperature & had grass & bugs & every other bit of nastiness that little boys don't seem to mind floating around in their pool.

We were thoroughly enjoying our afternoon of basking under the sun when we looked up to see our neighbor, Jim from across the street, lugging over an artificial, plastic leaved palm tree. He marched over to Jett's sun chair, proudly perched the tree right next to it & declared, "There. Now you're set."  A little sliver of Florida on our front drive? Heck yeah, I'll take it! Who cares if it's pretend? I apologized to Jim, but told him I was never giving that fake tree back. I am now the proud owner of it & every time the blue plastic pool makes an appearance, you'd better believe a plastic palm tree will be close by. I, myself find it to be totally awesome & plan to post up under the shady leaves of that palm tree, chilled lemonade in my hand, waving to all the passers-by who think I've gone & lost my mind--all. summer. long.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon with the top down on the Powerwheels Jeep {it actually doesn't even have a top, but I just wanted to say it because it sounds "summery"}, cruising A1A Beachfront Avenue {oh yes I did just go & bust out some Vanilla Ice lyrics--dun dun dun dun da dun dun--"let's kick it!"}.

We raided the stash of freezer pops in the deep freezer & ate one right after another--just like you're supposed to do. I tell ya, nothing takes me back to my childhood summers like a good old fashioned freezer pop popsicle. I remember my brother & I living on those bad boys when we were little. Make no mistake, freezer pops will be aplenty this summer.

 Jett tries saying "popsicle" & it comes out "hop-shee-u". 

And did you know...that if you build a fake Florida on your front drive...they will come?

It's true. Apparently, I'm not the only one that a rubber palm tree & plastic pool is alluring to.

Neighbors on all sides of us slowly began trickling over throughout the afternoon/evening hours & before we knew it, we had a full blown party on our front drive, complete with plastic Hawaiian leis {I'm still not sure who brought the leis, but we sported them. Somehow, they seemed fitting at the time}.

Eventually we got hungry so between all of the neighbors, we compiled a hodgepodge smorgasbord of steamed tamales {courtesy of Melinda & in honor of Cinco De Mayo}, leftover strawberry cupcakes {courtesy of Alyssa & her third birthday bash}, a couple bags of half eaten chips, some cheese & crackers & a bucket of goldfish. We were good to go.

It was a splendid evening, set to the perfect background music of little bare feet pattering across the pavement & shrieks & squeals coming from our babes, when a buzzing June bug had interrupted their playtime. 

We stayed out long past our kids' bedtimes & eventually called it a night--but only after making our status of "neighbors" official-- by letting our diagonal neighbors bum a cup of milk from us for their two year old's bedtime routine--doesn't get more official than that.

Each of our neighbors promised one another that there'd be many more summer evenings just like the one we'd had, & that they'd anxiously be waiting for the signal--a plastic palm tree perched out on our front drive. 

 My hunka hunka burnin' love of a husband strikin' a pose for summertime.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood if I've ever seen one.


{"Yo man, let's get out of here. Word to your mother."}


Sorry, couldn't resist.