My five-year-old took this picture last night as we were driving home from visiting family in Park City. “I think it’s a good one,” he said, holding the phone out so I could see the picture.

I told him that it was.

There are fingerprints and tinted glass in between the sunset outside, and the picture is blurry because we’re driving home, and somehow this picture sums up exactly our summer so far. There have been good moments, hard moments. There have been bottles of sunscreen, dinner on the back porch, six weeks of swimming lessons, home run derby played with wiffle balls, peach cobbler, trips to see family, birthday parties, books read on blankets, flip-flops and learning to ride a two-wheeler. Last night, the neighbor girl invited my son over to sit on the grass and draw chalk pictures as the sun set and the crickets began to sing.

I just turned in a draft to my editor, which means that I am taking a couple of weeks’ vacation from writing. I’ll still have kids’ appointments and getting ready for school and all of that real life stuff that being a mom of four involves. But the timing is nice, the way it’s arrived right at the end of summer.

And it feels wonderful to have a version of this story on paper. I think it’s a good one. But even if it’s not, it was a good one for me to write.