Summer is not officially over until Labor Day (right?) but the soon-to-be changing month seems like a good enough time to revisit the summer fun list. Every year, I make a list of things I would like to do before the end of summer. You can read my 2017 list here (and 2016, and 2015).
Here’s how I did on the list.
See Brad Paisley in concert. Did this in late May. My husband and I had a great time! I also learned, from viewing the crowd’s fashion choices, that what I think of as short jean shorts are not actually that short.
Speak at my high school’s graduation. I did this over Memorial Day weekend. It inspired some really intense nostalgia. You can read more about that here.
Publish a summer reading guide. Done — if you haven’t read it yet, please check it out!
Do Mommy Days with the three big kids. I took the 5-year-old to Hershey, the 9-year-old to Dutch Wonderland, and then the 7-year-old to Dutch Wonderland too. The 2-year-old got a trip to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, so that’s kind of like a bonus Mommy Day!
Pick strawberries. The berries were rather small this year, but still tasty.
Go to Ocean Grove, NJ. We spent a week there in mid-August celebrating my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. We also made a day trip earlier in August. We ate at our favorite ice cream parlor both times.
Go to Brew at the Zoo. My husband and I really enjoyed sampling craft brews while looking at gorillas. We also enjoyed seeing several people (karate instructors, 1st grade teachers) totally out of context.
Go on a long solo bike ride. I did a ride along the Schuylkill River Trail, and then around Valley Forge on another day. I’m not sure if that’s “long” but at least it was done.
See fireworks and the fountain show at Longwood Gardens. We did this right before going to Ocean Grove, and it was amazing. Walking around the gardens at twilight is magical, and we enjoyed the beer garden too (kids had pretzels) before we watched the fireworks going off, carefully timed to songs like Katy Perry’s Firework.
Swim in Lake Michigan. Done several times as part of our week in the midwest around July 4.
Eat a picnic breakfast. This one was kind of a fail. The little guy has really wanted to watch cartoons in the morning, and honestly, I just let him. I have made a lot of waffles and pancakes and such for the kids this summer. We just don’t eat them outside. Though as I think about it, we ate breakfast on the porch most mornings at our rental house in Ocean Grove, so maybe not a total fail?
Eat lobster in Cape May. Thanks to my 13th anniversary trip, this one is now done too. Indeed, we ate at The Lobster House twice!
Inhale some honeysuckle. I found some patches of it growing along one of my favorite running routes. So I stopped and just breathed it in. Lovely. Of course, now I’m obsessed with the clematis vine I found in Cape May (vanilla-scented!) so maybe I’ll have a new vine to smell next year.
And that’s it — how did you do on your summer fun list?
Photo: After a barefoot beach run. I did several this summer!
Porch picnics totally count 🙂 I’m laughing at your shorts observation – I’ll try to remember that the next time I’m fretting over being unable to find shorts that I feel aren’t too short but aren’t knee length, either!
I think I failed in not having a summer fun list. School’s been in session most of this month, so summer is over, but we did a lot of camps in June. Looking back, we did a lot, but not having a list I can check off takes away some of my personal joy 🙂 We did manage to swim 1-2 times a week in July (we don’t have a pool of our own) and a quick weekend beach trip, and my husband took me on a surprise (13th) wedding anniversary trip to Chicago to see Hamilton (!!). I really dropped the ball on blueberry picking! By the time I tried, the season was over – if I’d planned ahead, I would have scheduled a time and made it happen.
It’s funny, but now that school is back on, my kids are playing a lot more with the neighborhood kids – one of my summer activity goals. There’s just a pack of them running feral most afternoons. I guess summer was too hot and everyone was traveling!
@Meghan – you could make a fall fun list! I’m making one this year as an experiment – and will be posting it next week I think. The berry season is always short. There is a metaphor for life there…
I do need to do that! There are a few long weekends here and there, and the mild weather will last through October, if not longer. That can be a fun family activity this weekend!