I once heard someone say that teachers coined the phrase "The Dog Days of Summer" because they all got to lay around like dogs and do nothing during the hottest part of the year -- like dogs get to do every day of the year. 

Of course, that's not true, but do you know where the phrase really came from?

We usually think of summer as that time between Memorial Day at the end of May and Labor Day in the beginning of September.  Officially, that's not really the case though.

Meteorological summer runs from June 1st through August 31st -- typically the hottest 3-month period of the year.  Traditionally, however, we use the astronomical definition of our seasons. 

So here's more about "the first day of summer"... and for that matter, "the first day of winter".  We'll try to make sense of what's going on during summer solstice and winter solstice.