Summer's Here!

Today is the first day of summer .... unofficially. The official first day of summer is June 21st, otherwise known as the Summer Solstice. If you're into being a know-it-all the following will help you out:

Sol + stice derives from a combination of Latin words meaning "sun" + "to stand still." As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky.

As a major celestial event, the Summer Solstice results in the longest day and the shortest night of the year. The Northern Hemisphere celebrates in June, but the people on the Southern half of the earth have their longest summer day in December.

Around here though everyone knows that Memorial Day really marks the beginning of summer. School is done for the year, pools are open, and people celebrate the holiday with parades, memorial services, family get-togethers, cookouts, baseball, and fireworks.

The Frazier clan rang in our newest season by doing what we do best. Eating! Yesterday after church our family and some friends gathered at the Ghengis Grill where we feasted on Mongolian stir fry dishes.  It was soooo good. I highly recommend you try it out but do your homework first and checkout their website so you'll have an idea how it works and what to use to build your bowl.

This afternoon we lunched at Taco Bell/KFC  where our food selections were split, two ate chicken, two ate tacos and nachos. It's a cheap lunch where we all find something we like and we ignore all the naysayers who claim it's not "real" food.

Tonight we dined at home, eating cheese ravioli covered in a garlic/onion marinara sauce, garlic bread, and salad  (oops, I never made it back to the grocery store so the salad was missing). We made up for the missing salad by having Dairy Queen blizzards for dessert. Yum, I love a heath bar blizzard.

There are some people who would claim in order to be really "American" our holiday menu should be comprised of grilled dogs and burgers, served with corn-on-the-cob, potato salad, and watermelon. All this, topped off with apple pie and homemade ice-cream, screams Americana. However I will argue that our diverse range of food selections is indicative of our country as a whole. America is made up of many ethnic backgrounds, each of which comes with it's own array of traditional food favorites. We, as a family, strive to include as many of those different cuisines as possible into our diet and I'd say for the most part we've been successful!

All this talk about food ... I guess it might appear that we're obsessed with or at the very least focused a little too much on it. Sadly I'll admit it's probably true seeing how most of our holiday family get-togethers are centered around eating. What can I say other than we really like to eat! Nothing yells fun more than an extended family seated around a dinner table enjoying each other's company and good eats.

Back in the days when the kids were younger, when Dale's brother's family lived in Georgia, when Grandpa and Uncle John were still alive, we spent most of the "summer holidays"  (Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day) together, usually in Rome.  It was all about family, food, and fireworks.

Andrew and I were going through the scrapbooks today and I found a few pages from 1998, 2000, and 2001.  at our house for Memorial Day, and
    in Rome for the 4th of July  and again in Rome 2001 

Things are different now. Time, distance, and life circumstances has made it difficult to continue the extended family holidays. For now we'll have to live with the memories of holidays past, and focus on creating new traditions. More importantly we need to remember to focus on the real reason for the holidays.

Today is Memorial Day and as our four immediate family members gathered together we took time today to remember past family gatherings. We also reflected on the brave men and women who serve our country and the memory of those who gave their lives so we could continue to live in freedom. We gave thanks to our Heavenly Father for the many blessings of life.

And then,

as irreverent as it sounds .... we chowed down.

And finally,  if you're not convinced that summer is really here, take a look at the coming week's forecast.   See all those 90's? Yowsa, I'm melting already!