I’ll be the one to say it: Summer is 1/3 over. There. Are we all a little more depressed now? If you’re anything like me, you hear that and a cloud of anxiety sets in – “I haven’t gone here yet or taken the kids there yet or eaten at this place yet or swam in that pool yet or…”
…PANIC!
Must. Do. Everything.
I may be aiming a little high here (and it may be slightly over-dramatized) but there is so much for my kids to do and see, I just don’t want to neglect showing my six- and three-year olds something I know they would enjoy now – during the summer of 2015!
This is where the “Summer Bucket List” idea comes into play. Some might think it nerdy – like making an hour-by-hour itinerary when vacationing on a tropical island. But for us, it’s a boredom-buster, a surefire way to keep us busy and completely entertained throughout the summer.
Take a cue from Emi, a mom of four who has taken the bucket list idea to the extreme – in the best way possible! Every year, she and her kids create a mongomstrously-enormous, wall-sized rolodex of ideas that they hope to accomplish during our three short Minnesota months. Her advice is to create it early so you can have an idea of what events can happen when, but it’s never too late to build your own with your kidlets.
Emi says, “I am a planner so we love to look at the list at the beginning of the week and decide what we want to do. Or if it is raining, we look at the list under ‘Rainy Day’ activities and pick one. We definitely add items as the summer goes on too.” Her bucket list has all sorts of categories, including: Places to Go, Things to Do, Food Fun, Day Trips, Helping Others, Let’s Learn, Animals to Catch, Events to Attend, Things to Make and Parties to Have. The list seems to include (literally) everything, from donut and ice cream stops to athletic events to shaving cream parties, cooking projects, games to play and good deeds to do. Some cost money (strawberry picking, drive-in movie, Valleyfair) and some can be done right in your own yard for free (lemonade stand, sprinkler day, sidewalk chalk). It needn’t be organized or neat or pretty or spelled correctly or well-researched. What it needs to be is FUN!
Their family bucket list started as 25 items on a small sheet of paper and has evolved over the years to include 100+ ideas, covering a giant wall of their home. Her kids come up with most of the ideas (some from Pinterest, some from friends, some recycled from years past) and they love the challenge of coming up with new adventures every year.
Some of my favorite suggestions your family might enjoy are: bike to an ice cream shop, host a homework-burning party, make homemade salsas and jams, go on your own Twin Cities Donut Crawl, host a neighborhood shaving cream fight, wash a car, take a glow stick bath, camp out in your backyard, blow up an excessive amount of water balloons, or organize a bike parade.
The point of the list is not to stress you out or make you feel inadequate. I love me a good day at home in my pajamas watching Tangled for the fourth consecutive time just as much as the next person. But it’s certainly nice to have these ideas in your back pocket for the times when you feel like being adventurous. We don’t all need to cover a foyer wall in ideas (in fact, my kids and I created ours by taping two letter-sized sheets of paper together and hung it above my son’s bed so he could be the one to cross them out). But I’m learning, just like Emi, that creating childhood memories is only available for a short amount of time so, doggonnit, I’m gonna fill those little banks ’til they overflow!
There are no rules. There’s only fun. And that’s what summer is all about!
Emi is a mother of four who loves staying active and grabbing life by the horns. Thanks to her for sharing her photos and Bucket List ideas with MinneMama Adventures.
