Childhood summer vacations!

When I was growing up we did not have allot of money. So instead of taking elaborate vacations to expensive places we took creative vacations to fairy tale places! Mom and dad would take us kids to the mountains and we would camp by a fresh water stream I remember the grassy meadow the old growth tree's and the little brook near by. Blueberry bushes were every where wild rhododendron bushes in all kinds of vibrant purple, pinks, and orange colors covered the meadow. Deer would hop across the meadow to check out the new neighbors that had just moved in for the week. There was a little bunny family living under the blueberry bushes. The birds chirped and sang to welcome us.
Some one who had camped before us had made a little shelf in one of the tree's. Mom used the shelf as part of her out door kitchen to store her cooking spices. We would wash our clothes in the stream and hang them on the clothes line dad put up for mom. Our dining room had a tarp for a roof. There were little chairs carved out of large blocks of wood. A table had been crafted from a log and smoothed flat on the top. Mom fried bacon, eggs and pancakes in the morning and serve fresh home baked bread, potato salad and fried salmon for lunch.
We would swim in the stream catching bullfrogs, salamanders and spend hours trying to catch trout in a bucket. Mom would take us black berry and blueberry picking and we would have them on our morning pancakes. We picked wild flowers to put in our hair and on mom's kitchen table. Dad would build a fort out of branches so my sister and I could play house.
Then our whole family would play hide and seek. Mom and dad enjoyed chasing us to the point of screaming and collapsing in laughter. Dad took us fishing showing us how to bate a hook. I couldn't bring myself to poke the little worm with the hook. I always had to have dad do it. By the end of the week as mom liked to put it our "little love cups were filled up"! As we fell asleep each night memories of our summer vacation would dance in our head and rock us asleep.

I am forever thankful to mom and dad for showing us how to think out side the box. Memories are made with love not with money. I can't wait to fill my children's love cup with summer vacations like these.