Good-Bye Summer
Someone please get me a box of tissues. This is the saddest day of the year for me. Oh, how I love summer and oh, how I hate to see it come to an end. Back in the days B.C. (Before Children), my husband and I would really stretch out our enjoyment of everything summer had to offer. We would hit Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard to celebrate our September 13th anniversary – sans crowds – but still with the last glory days of summer. No more. With two children in grade school, summer now comes to a screeching halt with Labor Day Weekend. It’s time to put away the white pants, store the beach chairs and boogie boards, and brace ourselves for the madness that is the School Year.
Sob.
The worst part? Saying Good-Bye to our Pool Club. 
My son tries to apply his own sunscreen
We have been very fortunate to have been able to join a local Pool Club, the Park Terrace Swim Club, for four years now and it is the best thing we ever did. Back in the days B.C., we went to the beach on the weekends. We’re only 1 hour from Newport, RI, so we did it just about every weekend. And even when the kids were babies, we did the same thing. But then, when they started entering the pre-school years, we became inundated with birthday parties and activities. It became harder and harder to escape to the beach. Additionally, gas prices had soared due to Hurricane Katrina, and traffic was crazy. So instead, we joined the Pool Club. Like I said, it’s the Best Thing Ever!
Whenever we’re not working, we go to the Pool Club. Yes, we pay a substantial fee for the summer, but it is worth it. Although the Pool Club has a snack bar, they allow you to bring in your own food, so we always pack healthy lunches and sometimes even dinner. You can even have pizza or other takeout delivered while you are there!
We’ve had four memory-filled summers at Park Terrace. There have been so many firsts:
First Time Down the Slide
First Time Off the High Dive
Honestly, I could write about our Pool Club all day, but I’ve stuff to do, so I’ll just make it short.
Top Ten Reasons Why We Love Our Pool Club
- The kids get a ton of exercise (there’s basketball and tennis too) all summer long and they’ve become great swimmers.
- The kids get lots of socialization and they make great friends.
- We get to sit. In chairs. With cocktails.
- This goes back to #3. While there is a no glass policy, there is not a no alcohol policy. We have lots of little cocktail hours with friends.
- We get to talk to people other than our kids – because our kids are off playing with their friends, but we can still see them.
- It’s our escape from our house, from the constant to-do list.
- They have free Wi Fi – in case you have an emergency at work – and you need to whip out your laptop.
- They play ’80s tunes most of the time, so you feel like you’re 16 again – until you try to get up out of your chair.
- You feel like you went to the beach, but there is no sand to clean out of your car.
- They have a fantastic Labor Day party.
And Number 10 is why this post will be short. You see, at the Labor Day party, there are contests. Like the kids have swim races. And my daughter has been practicing for weeks!
And the Dads face off in a Cannonball contest.
This was my husband in the Dad Division of the Cannonball contest. No, he did not win. His form was a little off that day.
He did a little better in the Dad’s Division of the Hula Hoop Contest:
But, alas, he did not win that either.
I, however, did win the Mom’s Division of the Hula Hoop contest last year and I am hoping to defend my title. It was so much fun and the kids still talk about it.
This is the stuff that memories are made of.
My husband and I always say that our pool club is like a place and time gone by. It’s just some good old-fashioned family fun – a place where we can enjoy the best that summer has to offer, close to home.
Come Monday, we’ll pack up our stuff that we got to leave at the Pool Club all summer – our chairs, our little cocktail tables, our big green umbrella. We’ll say a sad good-bye and begin our 9 month countdown, until the gates open again next June of 2011.
I hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend.
Now I’m off to practice my Hula Hoop!
The Best of This Summer’s Recipes
I was going to wrap up summer with the best of this summer’s recipes, but my friend Tina did a fantastic job doing that yesterday. So instead I got to blab on about my Pool Club instead and you can just click on over to Trading Up Downtown. Tina gathered all the best of all the summer recipes we made here on A Better Bag of Groceries and Trading Up Downtown, so if you’re cooking this weekend, enjoy!
Posted by: Melissa 4 comments
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on Sep 3rd, 2010 at 8:29 am
I will be cheering for you in the hula hoop contest while sitting and drinking my cocktail…..LOVE the pool club too!! Might make that rotel dip and bring it with me that day!!
on Sep 3rd, 2010 at 8:38 am
Speaking of the pool club and summer recipes – what yummy dish are you bringing to the Labor Day pool club party this weekend??
on Sep 3rd, 2010 at 9:40 am
That sounds like so much fun! When I was a kid my mom took my sisters and me to the pool. I miss it a lot!
on Jul 18th, 2011 at 8:58 am
hi – This is sooo true about the pool club – we just rejoined this Summer 2011. We had been annual members when my son was young – and even then it seemed like it was 1960 or something. well-behaved kids who listen to the lifeguars, the snack bar french fries that so take me back to my youth, the silly games involving dads and hula hoops. But my son is now 25 and my husband and I realized it was still a great place to go and so we rejoined. When I am in the water and lie back and look at the beautiful tall pines – it can feel like you’re in New Hampshire. Whoever wrote about the music also completely captured another part of the nostalgic feeling when you’re there. I’m so happy to see these kids of ‘today’ being able to just be kids and have silly fun. And you can be in your 50s and still feel like a kid again.