Moments from lately.

• During a work meeting, my boss passed around a video she took on her iPhone of me "surfing" on the indoor Flowrider. It was from our company party that was held at Provo Beach Resort. At first I was embarrassed. Then I got the guts to watch the movie and realized I looked pretty awesome. And then I watched myself fall face first and get water blasted into every crevice of myself. Not so awesome.
• Moongazing. And stargazing. On a rooftop. Listing every single verb we can think of that starts with the letter "p." And then, out of the darkness, two giant water balloons. Hurtling down from the sky. Smacking on the roof. 3 feet away from our bodies. Horrifying. Images of water balloon murderers flashing through my mind. What if the water is poison? What if the balloons are only a preliminary attack? What if they have guns? Afraid to stay on the roof. Afraid to get off the roof. Sitting on the roof and thinking that this must be how it feels to live in a war zone. Discovering who did it. Feeling stupid for being afraid. Realizing my imagination makes my life 1,000 times more dramatic than it actually is. Writing the last line of this paragraph and feeling like the whole thing reads a lot like a MasterCard commercial? Priceless.
• Running through the neighborhood, pausing only to pet the cats and to watch the clouds become liquid gold as the sun sets over Utah Lake. Admiring the gardens and the elderly people who work in them, hunched over and then looking up, smiling wrinkly smiles that feel like melty ice cream.
• My mom telling me she had a surprise for me and it turning out to be the most cozy and beautiful cardigan, complete with pockets.
• A customer at work ordered dozens of lemon cakes from La Jolla Grove to be sent as a gift to the corporate office, which just so happens to be where I work. They were perfect, yellow mounds of sweetness, with bright raspberries and cool mint leaves placed delicately on their tops. They were divine.
• 99 cent bowling games topped off with half-price mini Coconut Cream Pie shakes from Sonic, sipped under the sky of a clear summer night.
• Experiencing the consequences of parking under a telephone wire. Counting the number of bird poops on my car. Total: 9.
• Going camping up in American Fork Canyon with wonderful people. Cuddling up with two of my closest friends in a 5-man tent. Losing the shape of myself to the mounds of sleeping bags, pillows, old blankets from hotel rooms, and a quilt stitched together from pieces of my old blue jeans. Falling asleep in the middle of the conversation, cheeks still swollen from smiling.
• Wearing my new tiger face t-shirt with jean shorts, sprawled on my friend's couch, watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty for the second time and thinking about how the lessons it teaches correlate with the Parable of the Talents. Wearing the same shirt the next day because I like it so much.
• Celebrating Father's Day. Watching my dad open his card from the family with tickets to see Bill Cosby. Giving him a Turtle Pecan cupcake from this place, which he promptly scarfed down, before eating his dinner, claiming the right to eat dessert first in the name of Father's Day.
• Thinking about how excited I am to go to Nebraska for the wedding of one of my best friends in a few weeks. Imagining how much fun we're going to have at the Omaha Zoo the day before, how stressed she's going to be the morning of, and how beautiful she's going to look dressed in white when the moment finally comes.

Man, I love summer. I love the long days and the dewy mornings. I love the breezes, the shaved ice shacks, and the ease that seems to nestle itself into everybody's heart. Don't leave, summer. You're too much fun.