88 Days of Summer: Day 1

Okay, basically this is our summer journal. Yesterday was the last day of school, and there are 88 days of summer vacation this year before school starts again on September 2. We've spent most, if not all, of our summers in recent years doing a whole lot of nothing, just vegetating. The kids have watched an embarrassing amount of tv and played an embarrassing amount of video games. Just hand me my Bad Mother badge, thank you. I don't really like the high heat of summer and I'm kind of a cave troll, preferring to hide away in my house, and I'm just not a very outdoorsy kind of person. But the kids really need to get out and DO things, get off their rear ends and play. So I'm determined that this summer will be different!! I want us all to have much more physical activity and to do some interesting things away from the house. I've been telling the kids that the first day after school let out that we'd all sit down and make a BIG PLAN. Did we do that today? Ummm, no. Dani had already made plans and had a sleepover last night and hung out with her friends all day. But that's okay. I'm not going to let any deviation from a plan let the whole thing get derailed.

While I want to have some overall goals (like improved fitness), I'm going to let a lot of improvisation happen. I think if I make THE PLAN too rigid, it's going to fail. Some days, it might be that the only thing we did other than tv or computer will be something simple like we made popsicles, or something. I'm not going to get all bummed out about that. I just want us to have an overall improved summer where we get out of the house as many days as possible.

For Connor's last day of school, his grade got to go to Arthur Park and eat pizza and play. Sam, Emma, and I went over to visit and join in the fun. I was talking to Connor's teacher, Mrs. Anderson, and she talked about how she had this goal when her kids were younger to visit every park in Rock Springs. I think we'll take on that goal. Should be fun!!

So, our official activity today was water fun out in the front yard. I picked up some water squirters from the dollar store last night and the kids ran around squirting each other. I also bought a toy water pump for water balloons and Connor took over, making water balloon ammunition for he and Emma to have water fights. I had to keep Sam stocked with water balloons because he would throw them as soon as they were made, which irritated Connor so much he refused to give Sam any of his stock pile. Sam also played bubbles for a little while with the cute little ice-cream-cone-shaped bubble wands I bought at the dollar store a few nights ago. He and Emma already played with those, so it was kind of old hat. Mostly it was all about the water balloons today. I'm sure they'll get bored with that sooner or later, and we'll have to find other things to do. Either that, or I'll get sick of buying bag after bag of water balloons and they'll just run out of ammunition. The yard is covered in little bits of broken balloons tonight. Clean up will be in the morning.

Here are some pics from the day: