With Wednesday marking the beginning of summer I thought that it would be kind of cool to start a post where everyone could share their favorite summer memories.

My favorite summer memory is from the summer of 1988. For my 12th birthday my grandparents paid for me to fly out to visit them in Arizona. The flying part was pretty scary because I had never been on an airplane up to this point and here I was, my first time on a plane, all by myself. I spent most of the entire month of August with my grandparents until we drove back to Illinois in late August so that I would be home in time to begin junior high. While with my grandparents we drove to California and went to Sea World and Disney Land. My grandfather and I also went to the Grand Canyon a week after we got back from California. The summer of 1988 remains my all time favorite summer.:D

Wow, so many! I had some good ones as a kid in the late 80s and early 90s--mainly memories of hanging out with my cousins (that was when they still lived on Long Island...now they're in Upstate, NY). We'd go in the pool a lot and take trips to the park nearby and play hide-n-seek with my Uncle (who has always been like a big kid himself). Of course, there's some good memories of running through sprinklers and our parents treating everyone to Carvel ice cream on the really sticky, hot nights.

In the summer of 1998 when I was almost 16, my best friend Ann and I hung out almost every day and that was when I had my first serious boyfriend (so I think I'll always remember that summer). We sat out on her back porch a lot and hung with our other friends. I can recall one specific moment (that'll always stand out in my mind) of both of us laying on our backs in the woods in her backyard and staring at the stars, talking about life. It sounds so cheesy and overly cliche, but what's what we did :D There were also nightly trips where we'd walk to the Dunkin' Donuts around the corner from her house and we made it a goal to steal their 'what to do if someone chokes' poster :rofl: At the time, we thought it was the most hilarious poster in the world and we had to have it. Somehow we managed to get it and kept it up in her room for years afterwards :lol:

As a teen, I also went to various concerts and local shows at the beach nearby. I'll definitely never forget those--meeting new people and bonding over music is awesome. I think I stopped going to those when I hit senior year in high school.

Fast forward to summer of 2004, right before I turned 22. I finally met a girl I had been talking to online for about a year and it was a great experience. Not only getting to know this person in 'real life', but staying at a hotel (which I've always loved doing), riding the train in to the city to visit John Lennon memorial at Strawberry Fields in NYC, going to Starbucks almost every day, taking tons of pictures, and hanging out at the beach and downtown Port Jeff. Those were some good times, perhaps the last REALLY good summer I've had :(

I'll need to remedy that soon ;) Anyways, sorry for rambling.

my favorite memories are in the 90s when i was just hangin out all day with my sister and watching nickelodeon when they had shows like "pete and pete" and "salute your shorts," i dont go on many trips during the summer

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=75586

:rofl: haaaaa haaaaaa i used to be so funny.

The summer of 1985 when my oldest nephew was born. I remember being very excited to be an aunt. My friends and I spent a lot of time babysitting him, dressing him up and pushing him in the stroller. They all thought it was pretty cool that I was an aunt at age 13. Later that year his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer so I look back at that summer with fond memories because it was the last summer that she was healthy and able to enjoy life. I still can't believe that he has a baby of his own now.
The summer of 1995 is another favorite. I spent most of that summer in Europe with my German professor. I saw a lot of cool stuff and had a blast.

I really liked the summer of 2004 (the summer I turned 19). In June of that year, my stepsis found out that a Trading Spaces: Family scout was looking for six families living in my city -- two family neighbors per episode, for a total of three episodes. My stepsis and her best friend (also her neighbor) got on it and signed my family and her friend's family up to be on the show. They (as well as me) spent a good part of that July going through interviews and getting the house into top shape for when the scout would come to check out their house. On July 19th, they found out that they got accepted to be on the show!!!!!!!! OMG I just about died when that happened. I had the biggest crush on the TSF host... still do, as a matter of fact... and I was ECSTATIC to find that out. They would be in the first episode that would be filmed once the TSF crew came to my city. On August 10th, I got to meet Joe Farrell, the TSF host :eyes:, and Faber Dewar (http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/tradingspaces/bio/faber.html), the carpenter, in person. It was AMAZING. My family got to work with Hildi Santo-Tomas (http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/tradingspaces/bio/hildi.html) in their neighbor's house, and their neighbors worked with Christi Proctor (http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/tradingspaces/bio/christi.html) in our house. :D The TSF people were in my city from August 10th to 20th...My birthday fell on one of the days they were still here (August 16th) so on my birthday, we found the location where they were shooting the second episode, and Joe Farrell SANG "Happy Birthday" to me. OMFG, I seriously SWOONED when he did that. On the very last day they were in my city, I got to hang out with Joe and Faber for a little while, and I got a goodbye hug from Faber, and TWO BIG HUGS from Joe. :biglove: Gahhhhhh...That was the BEST August of my life! :D


I also really liked the summer of 2001. Everything was perfect that summer. I spent nearly a week at my family's cabin that July. My favorite teacher got married that July as well, and I went to her wedding...it was so freaking awesome! :) I turned 16 that August, and my dad threw an awesome surprise b-day party for me. :cool:

The summer of 1997 was awesome...I spent the summer working as a junior counselor at a day camp at an elementary school...That was a lot of fun. I ate more cans of Spaghetti-O's than I will ever again in my life. :lol: We went to Minneapolis and Denver that summer...I turned 12 when we were vacationing in Denver. We got to go to Six Flags Elitch Gardens, and that was a lot of fun.

I really really liked the summers of 1988 - 1993, just because I was a young kid during that time. I had my 3rd - 8th birthdays during these summers. But, if I had to pick ONE (or two) of my top fave summers as a young kid, I would have to go with the summers of 1990 and 1991. Man...1990 and 1991 were both AMAZING years. The summer of 1991 was especially awesome. I spent a lot of time with family activities, just being part of a wonderful family, and being spoiled rotten by my maternal grandparents. My paternal grandparents had their 50th wedding anniversary that September, so in August we had a HUGE week-long family reunion, followed up by the biggest family reunion picnic I've ever been at. We got T-shirts and all that tacky crap...I still have it, 15 years later.

I can look back now and appreciate the heavy amount of time I spent with my family during these summers...My parents split up and one of my grandpas died in the mid-90's, and one of my cousins died in the late 90's. I would give anything to go back and enjoy the summers of my young childhood one more time.