What ever happened to "The Lazy Days of Summer?"

When I was young our summers were full of very long hot days spent playing softball, building forts, with the occasional day at the beach or camping trip thrown in. If I close my eyes I can almost feel that East Coast warm ocean breeze and see a hazy sunset over a cornfield. My point being, when I look back on my childhood summers I actually sigh and smile.
I'm not quite sure how, or when it happened, but now my summers are spent juggling sports tournaments, trips, this BBQ, that b-day party, and oh yeah- there is that thing called my job on top of it all...When my children grow up, how will they feel when they think back on their summers? My sincere hope is that they remember the FUN and not the tension surrounding all of these trips and that "hurry up!- we're late for ___" doesn't echo in their minds on top of their visual memories. Each night before they go to sleep I ask my kids "What was the best part of your day?" This is something I started doing when my now 7 year old was 2. I love hearing what they have to say each night. At the end of this summer I'm going to ask each of them what the best part of their summer was. I am dying to know what stood out to them. I think we all want so badly for our kids to experience things were didn't as children, and sometimes in doing so we overload/over schedule/over commit ourselves right into Fall!
Then I turn that thought onto myself. The first thing that stands out about my summer is the amount of WORK it takes on my part to make these trips, events, outings happen. I truly appreciate the experiences and love watching my kids see a new place for the first time, etc. However, I am being pulled (as I'm sure many of you reading this are) to find a way to put as much effort into having time at home with my children as I do planning these trips, rushing to sporting events, and putting so much red ink onto my calendar each summer.
I think an excellent way for us to treat ourselves well is to start saying "No" more often, especially during the summer. This is coming from the multi-tasking Queen mind you, but I do get a sense of peace when I know on a Saturday morning that there are no plans, and we can glide through a long summer day. I don't think in this day and age we can expect to recapture the long summer days of our youth, but I certainly believe we can re-create just a few of those days in between the chaos!