summer list::

I've mentioned it before and some of you were curious, so here's a little more info on our "summer list" tradition. {better late than never, right?}

For the past few years, we sit down as a family near-ish to the beginning of summer and brainstorm our "summer list" for the year. Anything that is spoken will be written down. If Jacob says he would like to "go to the moon" this summer, I'll write it on the list . . . although the chances that we'll take a summer trip to the moon are pretty much nil! Then, as we are looking for ideas of what to do with our days during the summer, we consult our list. Often during our list-making, one idea leads to another which leads to another. Many times we do really fun things that weren't even on the list {like last Saturday when we went to Split Rock Lighthouse and visited Duluth, or the weekend before when we went to the Kelley Farm}. Many things on the list remain undone by summer's end. But, we like having the list to consult from time to time. I try hard to write down dates of things from the list that we've done, so we can remember that, contrary to what the kids often say and think, we do do fun things. Things they wanted to do in the first place!

Here is our list for the Summer of 2010 {click on the pictures to enlarge them so they are big enough to read}::

How do you decide what fun things you will do with your summer? {We do a similar -- although abbreviated version -- for other breaks too::Christmas winter break and spring break, for example}

You'll notice there's still lots of stuff that we haven't done yet this summer that they kids would like to do. Hopefully we'll get around to a bunch more of them in this last month of summer break {we will go to the State Fair, no question about that. It's a given. You just can't go until the 2nd Thursday before Labor Day, so we still have a few more weeks until we even have opportunity to check that one off!} We never intend to do them all, but it's fun to dream big. Also, some of them are givens that we do very often, if not every day::play outside, family walks, etc. I don't even bother writing dates on those usually, but, trust me, they're getting done! So, yup, we do eat supper {which was an item someone wanted added to the list!} . . . most every night even!

Here's to a fun last bit of summer for us . . . and for you. Enjoy!