Summer days spent at my grandparents’ house were my absolute favorite. Before they moved houses, they lived in a grand two-story house with the most perfect backyard on the corner of a small neighborhood only 5 minutes from my house. Half of their beautiful backyard was home to a royal blue in-ground pool equipped with a shallow end perfect for a young me to learn how to swim or for each grandkid to play with their own plastic boat we each had, a deep end perfect for diving/jumping competitions, and a waterslide the color of the sky on a cloudless day.

The best days were spent under the hot July sun running around the pool and the yard. Next to the pool was the rest of the yard. There was one incredible tree right in the middle that provided the best shade if needed. In the back, close to the yard of their neighbors was a swing-set with three swings and a slide. The grandkids would always fight for the swings because it was 3 swings for 17 of us. However, the slide was a different story. We used to do this thing where the oldest cousin would slide all the way down but with their legs over the sides of the slide so they would stick at the bottom. Then the next cousin would follow suit until as many of us as we could fit were stacked up on the slide (there are many pictures of this as it was a common occurrence). In many of the pictures there is little me at the top smiling as wide as I possibly can with absolute happiness all over my face as I always had so much love and admiration for my cousins and loved when we were together.

I learned to swim by floating in the shallow end of their pool until I was eventually pulled by an older cousin or aunt/uncle into the very deep end. I would simply sit their and learn how to tread water. I was never that afraid of it until one day when I finally knew how to swim and my older cousin wanted me to try the waterslide for the first time. I had watched every single cousin laugh their way down the slide, but I was (and still am afraid of heights) and to a little first grade me that height was too much to handle. And so, I waited at the bottom and watched everyone joyfully slide down. Growing up as one of the younger cousins, every older cousin wanted you to cling onto them. They loved it when one of us younger cousins chose them as basically our guardian. It was ever-changing who we would want to be with, but one summer I chose my cousin Matthew. Still terrified of the slide I watched him go down it many times. One day I was feeling brave after he encouraged me to just give it a try and so I walked over to its ladder. I stood at the bottom and stared up at it as it seemed like the most daunting thing I had ever faced. I slowly walked up the ladder, and sat down, shaking at what was ahead of me and slid down to him at the bottom. Throughout my life the encouragement of my cousins is what made nearly impossible feats much easier to do.

Although when we go home from summer I won’t be floating around in that giant pool surrounded by my millions of family members, I still have my plastic boat I used to always play with and the many hilarious pictures of us cousins squished on the slide.

Happy almost summer everyone!