Oh, Summer. We are going to miss you like crazy

Sunday, we woke up feeling a little but rough from Saturday night's reunion.

Duh.

But, I remembered telling my classmate who catered the event that I wanted to have breakfast at her restaurant the next morning.  I knew Ben would never be down with this plan because he hates eating breakfast in general and also hates eating at restaurants with our children.  So!  I didn't even ask him if he wanted to go, just got in the shower to wash off badly applied liquid eyeliner, Deep Woods Off, and bonfire smoke, scrunched up my wet hair, threw on a Hillary Clinton t-shirt (natch) and rounded up the kids.

The Cooper threw himself on the ground and screamed for 15 minutes because he really wanted to wear his new Power Rangers sweatshirt again even though it was both covered in chocolate ice cream (not that big of a deal) and totally wet from spending the night on the floor with a towel and a wash cloth on top if it (deal breaker).  So he stayed back with Ben and my parents and we brought him takeout pancakes.

The boys and Dorothy and I had an excellent breakfast, and I immediately regretted leaving town without trying the lunch specials.

Then, hangovers and all, we piled in the van and meandered home to celebrate the end of summer.

First up, a classic summer patio party

Complete with a nunchucks wielding Big Bad Wolf

 And Monday?  Monday was the day we have been sadly anticipating for a few weeks now.  THE LAST DAY OF THE POOL.

The big boys and I headed over promptly at noon when the place opened and spent a glorious 4 hours with friends ordering everything the snack shack had remaining and forgetting to reapply sunscreen and remembering why we love summer so damn much.

Ben and the little kids came over at 4 for the last 2 hours, and pool was jam packed.  Dorothy and I took our last 10 or so rides down the slide, and she jumped off the diving board as many times as she could stand the line. 

The moms showed off our slide technique.  The dads did ridiculous cannonballs and belly flops.  The kids enjoyed generally unfettered access to all the candy and soda they could order.  It was madness.

Then, at 5:56, the lifeguards blew their last whistle and the pool manager directed all the kids to the far side of the pool and told them they could all jump in one last time.

So they did.

 And then Cooper threw himself down on the concrete and screamed because he didn't want the pool to be closed, and I am pretty sure that everyone agreed with him even if we didn't all show it like that.

We trooped pretty much en masse across the street to the restaurant for dinner but I was super crabby because all I had for lunch was a couple of Corona Lights.  Ben went ahead of us and all of our food was waiting when I got there, which was good for us and bad for the other eleventy billion kids whose parents didn't come ahead, especially because we ordered the last order of wings.  Sorry not sorry.  We left early because I immediately clicked over into first-day-of-school mode as soon as the final whistle blew, and  was GRUMPY.  I am sure no one was sorry to see us leave.

And this is how hot an humid it was on our first day of no pool (my hair size is always a great indicator of tropical weather):