The delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday and I have watched the trailer for the much anticipated “Frozen 2” more times than I care to admit, and I was glad to see that my favorite character, Olaf, will appear in the new movie. Six years after his debut in “Frozen,” his song still dances through my head, as Olaf dreamed of all the things he could do “In Summer.” His introduction: “But sometimes I like to close my eyes and imagine what it’d be like when summer does come.”
The irony of the song is that the adults in the room know the inevitable – a snowman in summer equals a puddle. But for Olaf, “winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle, but put me in summer and I’ll be a – happy snowman!” The inclusion of this happy little fellow makes my heart glad for “Frozen 2.”
Growing up, the seasons were defined by our outdoor activity. Winter brought sledding by the Niagara River and ice-skating at Ives Pond until our cheeks were pink and our toes frozen. Summer meant exploratory bike rides, and slipping and sliding on the homemade plastic-lined incline in the back yard as the hose helped to quicken our ride to the bottom, turning into a mud slide as the day progressed.
While it’s likely the words, “I can’t wait ‘til summer” have escaped from my mouth this week, we have also discovered a magical way to bring a glimpse of summer to our winter days through the advent of the indoor water park. The first was built in 1985 at a mall in Edmonton, a chilly Canadian city. Nine years later, Great Wolf Lodge opened in Wisconsin Dells, and the rest is history.
Our extended family enjoyed a day at Splash Lagoon in Erie, Pennsylvania, in an after-Christmas meet-up on a blustery late December day. While my spirit still yearns for the thrill of daredevil spiraling slides, my body knows its limitations, so I stuck with the wave pool and the kid’s area with Elizabeth. My favorite? Even though it was crowded that day, there is nothing like floating down a lazy river as the snow flutters through the sky.
As February trudged closer to March, I thought about taking the girls for a magical Nana day at a water park, but here in Ohio, the closest are in Sandusky. Knowing that it takes a fat wallet to spend a day at Great Wolf Lodge or Kalahari, we’ve opted instead for riding up and down the escalator at the mall, or a dish of ice cream with sprinkles and a cherry on top. Still, as it does for Olaf, summer still calls our names.
When the Ashland Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center was originally built, Larry and I, supported by a local steering committee, were charged with developing a facility to offer affordable educational, recreational, and artistic opportunities to the whole community. While Joan Kroc’s legacy gift was generous, and many local friends contributed substantially to the project, our dreams were limited by budgetary constraints. We’ve always lived by the belief that you can’t spend what you don’t have, and so the Kroc facility opened without a mortgage, and has served the Ashland community well for ten years.
Now, as the final accounting is being completed for the Kroc estate, there are dollars available for expansion, and Ashland has received the “winner, winner, chicken dinner” call to the tune of seven+ million dollars. While details of the building design won’t be announced until the ten-year birthday bash on April 13, I’ve got it from a good source that summer is coming to Ashland year-round. Woohoo!
I can picture it now. It’s a frigid February day, and I’m floating down Ashland’s own lazy river with Madelyn Simone, Elizabeth Holiday, Henry Kyle and Emma Belle, singing along to the Louis Armstrong classic by Hoagy Carmichael and Sidney Arodan: “Oh, up a lazy river where the old mill run . . . how happy we will be.” We’ll be sure to be on the lookout for a happy little snowman floating alongside too – in summer and winter, spring and fall!
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