Summer Bucket List

These days, I live and die by my MobileMe calendar.  We're a little Apple-obsessed, and their web-based calendar tool allows us to manage our whole family schedule simultaneously and remotely.  The calendar refreshes itself on our iPhones every fifteen minutes, so if the husband adds an offsite meeting to it and I'm across town trying to schedule a doctor's appointment, I always have the most up-to-date family schedule at my fingertips.  This is absolutely crucial for a one car family!  Needless to say, I look at this calendar many times a day, and I like to think it keeps me somewhat grounded in time.  So imagine my shock when I discovered the following:
1) September is now apparently two weeks away.
2) Football season, the true harbinger of fall in this household, commences in just four short Mondays.
3) My sister's wedding "this fall" is three weeks from Saturday.

Shocking.  Where did the summer go?

I've always loved the autumn season, and am excited for cashmere sweaters, butternut squash soup, apple cider, crisp mornings, and cuddling under blankets again.  Still, the end of summer is always bittersweet, and I'm not quite ready to let go. August is still kicking, and so I'm determined to seize the day and suck as much summer out of the next few weeks as I can.   Which is why, without further ado, I bring you:

SMJ's End of Summer Bucket List
1) How have I gone the whole summer without eating a single sweet, succulent Maine lobster? Luckily the end of the summer is when they are sweetest and best, so this is the perfect item to kick off my bucket list.  Shellfish bliss, come to mama...

Photo via getmainelobster.com

2) One of my favorite days this summer was when the three of us packed up early on a Saturday morning and spent the day together at Crane Beach in Ipswich.  We built sandcastles, played in the water, made friends with fellow parents chasing toddlers, and worked on our tans.  It was glorious.  We need at least one more beach day before New England beaches require ten layers of wool for a visit.

Little man digging it up at Crane Beach.

3) Another favorite day this summer involved driving out to western Mass to go blueberry picking with another mama friend and her two little ones.  Everything about the day was lovely: how into berry-picking the little guy was (at one point he turned to me with a huge grin on his face and said, "Mom!  Berries is FUN!", the phenomenal blueberry smoothie I sucked down for lunch (seriously heaven in a cup), the ridiculous blueberry cider donuts I brought back for the hubs, spending time out of the city in the peacefulness of the farm, and enjoying the company of good friends on a fun excursion.  I must go back for one more fix before berry season is sadly over.

So proud of his haul.

4) Speaking of freshly picked fruit... after that trip to the berry farm, I was headed directly out of town for the weekend, and so the fruit was gradually eaten over cereal or in handfuls by the little guy until it was gone.  What I'd really like to do is go pick another bounty, and then bake something like this...

Drool.  Photo via From Me to You.

Soon it will be all apple goodies all the time.  I need some more summer fruit pies/cobblers/muffins in my life before then.

5) One of the best ways to enjoy Boston is by people watching from a tiny table at an al fresco cafe.  Restaurants only offer outdoor dining for about half the year here, and that half is quickly winding down.  I'm not talking about going out for a four course dinner, I'm talking about slowly sipping a strong cocktail and watching the beautiful people go by (and giggling over the over-the-top fashion). 

6) We haven't been out to the Cape since moving back to Boston.  One of my favorite memories from the early days when we were still dating and living here was a camping trip we took out on the Cape at the end of the summer.

 

We ate at clam shacks, attempted surfing in Wellfleet, and snapped this photo of a perfect sunset in Truro.  We've haven't taken the little guy camping yet, and an end-of-summer Cape camping reprise could be just the thing to cap off this summer correctly. 

There's more where this came from, but these are things at the top of my list.

What do you want to do between now and first frost?