Summer 2012 Bucket List

For some reason I am super excited about this summer break. Maybe it's because this past year was my first year to school two different grade levels at the same time. Lorelai was in 2nd grade and Toby was in his second year of preschool. (Well, I guess technically it was my second year since Toby did preschool last year. I don't count that first year though because I didn't really plan anything for him. He just "played" school, but he learned a lot.) This year Lorelai didn't want to participate and Toby complained if he didn't do enough school by his standards. Oh, and then there was Seth. Somehow in the midst of coming up with challenging lessons for the other two I had to find ways to occupy his little self, or just clean up the mess he made tearing everything out of the kitchen cabinets and drawers.

You might be wondering why I didn't just put locks on the cabinet doors. I did! But I unlocked them for that reason during school time, and what harm did it do? It kept him busy and was fairly simple to clean up. I say that's a win-win. At least that's how I felt about it the first 20 or so times. It's starting to get a little old now. I think I'm mellowing out in my "old" age though. It used to bother me so bad to know that there was a mess hiding behind a cabinet door or in a closet or drawer. Now I couldn't care less, well at least I care a lot less than I did. Either that or I'm just too tired to care! One day I'll take the time to re-organize everything but I'm good for now.

Anyway, Nick is building a house with his Dad and brothers this summer (Boy will he be glad to teach in an air conditioned classroom next year!) and he's been riding with them. Which means we have wheels! I try not to let having one car bother me. I mean, if we ever plan something to do it's not hard to either take Nick to work or he can use the big van to drive the 10 miles to work and back. But we try not to use the big van except to pick up kids for church because it uses so much gas, so most of the time I have the mind set of staying home all day with the occasional exception for a field trip or other planned event. This morning though, I got a wild hair to take the kids to a park, a new park, and we just threw some water bottles and snacks in the little cooler and went! I didn't even know exactly where we were going when we left, but we found it with the help of a friend. (Thanks Becca!)

Which got me thinking about something I had pinned on Pinterest a few weeks ago. It was called a Summer Bucket List, and I decided to make one. First on the list is something we saw on our way to this new park. Little did we know, we have a drive through safari 10 minutes away! So, here's what we have to be checked off so far:

{ x } Go to Sea World

{ x } Play at the park (will do again)

{    } Franklin Safari  (Didn't get around to this one...maybe when it cools off a bit this fall.)

{ x } Go swimming at cousin Brent's house

{ x } Lions Junction Family Water Park in Temple (Lorelai went with the children's church, does that count?)

{    } Children's Museum

{    } Fireworks at George Bush Library (Seth fell asleep and Nick was exhausted from work.)

{    } $1 Movies

{    } Volunteer at Food Bank (We haven't done this in a while, must do soon.)

{    } Make S'mores  (This is a winter activity anyway...)

{ x } Discovery Camp 

{ x } Read 100 books and go to Cameron Park Zoo (Mission: Accomplished- and zoo trip is planned!)

{ x } Go fishing at Nanna and Papa's

{    } Visit friends 

{ x } Eat snowcones

{ x } Make ice cream

{    } Visit King's Orchard 

{ x } Make popsicles

{ x } And a date night with the hubby would be great! (Finally sort of did this last week-end. My mom came and watched the kids all day the Saturday before school started so we could go work in Nick's classroom and go shopping. She ended up spending the night because we were out so late. I guess you could call that a date.)

I'm sure I'll think of more things, so I'll update it as the summer goes on. It looks like a fun summer to me!

*It was a fun summer even though we didn't get around to doing some of the things on our list. Life is good.