As the school year starts to wind down and come to a close all I can seem to think about is summer. I catch myself sitting in class thinking about sitting by the pool reading a good book, going on drives with my friends with all the windows down, and my absolute favorite part about summer: working every day and making money. After an entire school year of being broke, I am ecstatic to get home and get back to work. But when I really think about the summertime I'm reminded that while it's fun no matter what age you are, the summer will never be as meaningful and fun as it is when you're a kid. There's something almost magical about stepping off the bus on the last day of school and having it officially be summer.

I could go on and on about my childhood summers and how much fun I had spending time with my friends and family. While that would take writing a million articles, I figured I would just narrow it down to some of the things I truly miss the most about my childhood summers and that you might miss too.

1. Family vacations

Ever since I can remember my entire family took trips to the south to enjoy a week together at the beach. As we've all gotten older it's become too hard to find a time where we can all get together. So, family vacations are becoming a thing of the past, but are something I will always miss yet forever cherish.

2. Playing outside with every kid in the neighborhood for hours on end

I don't think that there's really anyone who could disagree with this one unless they didn't grow up in a neighborhood. There was nothing I loved more than meeting up with everyone in the morning to go on an array of adventures until our parents told us it was time to come in.

3. Staying up "late"

Summertime meant that I was actually allowed to stay up to watch whatever movie was on Disney Channel that night in its entirety. What was even better was that sometimes I'd fall asleep towards the end of the movie and wake up in my bed. Something that definitely doesn't happen when you're 20.

4. Bringing out the sprinklers and Slip 'N Slides

Growing up, nobody around us had a pool. This meant every summer that a bunch of kids would get together with a few sprinklers and a Slip 'N Slide too cool down. We definitely never had as much fun as the kids on the Slip 'N Slide commercials because it usually ripped in half after five or six people ran at full speed and landed as hard as they could on it. Either way, it was still fun to push each other around on it and jump over the sprinklers.

5. Having water balloon fights

I know for a fact that we always had way more fun preparing for the water balloon fights than the actual fight. For some reason, we loved filling up the hundreds of balloons and tying them. The only downsides were the fact that the actual fight lasted about three minutes and we had to clean up all the teeny tiny pieces of the balloons so our dogs didn't choke on them.

6. Riding around the neighborhood on my bike or Razor Scooter

Man, I didn't care if my Razor Scooter was ten thousand degrees and burning my bare feet to a crisp. I would ride the heck out of that thing with my friends behind me and feel the wind blow through my totally untamed hair. What a time to be alive.

7. Bi-weekly trips to the Bookmobile

I can't even begin to explain how excited my little self-got when I saw the Bookmobile pull into its designated spot every two weeks. Either my mom or a neighbor lady would round up us kids and we'd all enter the Bookmobile, library cards in hand, to check out books and movies (usually movies).

8. Watching the Disney Channel Games.

This was like the Olympics for me growing up. Watching the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus and the High School Musical gang all run around in giant blown up hamster balls brought me all the joy in the world. Seeing the Sprouse twins on different teams totally broke my eight-year-old heart, but I still loved it nonetheless.

9. Begging my parents to give me money for the ice cream truck and chasing it down when they finally did.

Okay, begging my parents for money definitely wasn't fun. They always pulled the "there are popsicles in the freezer." They just never understood that a cherry popsicle was nowhere near as good as a Spongebob one or a Choco-Taco. But when they finally gave in my feet ran as fast as they could to catch up to that truck.

10. Going days without wearing shoes

Being a kid during summer means constantly playing outside and playing outside all day means going barefoot. I remember literally going days without putting shoes on. I'd come inside after a long day of playing and would look to see that the bottoms of my feet were completely brown with dirt.

11. Not caring at all what you look like in a swimsuit

God bless the days where nobody cared what you looked like in a swimsuit. Everyone had baby chub and nobody thought twice about it. Also, these were the best days because every summer I got a new tankini from Justice.

12. Doing fun things with my super fun babysitter

My sister and I were lucky enough to have one of the coolest babysitters ever. Every time she babysat us in the summer we always did something different and fun. We never even had to leave the house to have a blast with her.

13. Helping Dad wash his car

Now that I have to wash my own car I kind of can't believe I ever thought this was a blast. My sister and I got so hyped when we got to "help" our dad wash his car. We really just loved playing with the soap and spraying each other with the hose. We also just really liked feeling like we were really helping with something.