The kids are back in school — here’s how I did on the Summer Fun List

Back in May, I posted my Summer Fun List — things I wanted to do to make summer feel memorable, rich, and full. I dream up one of these lists every summer. I don’t want to get to the end of the summer and think, hey, I wish we’d done… The Summer Fun List helps guide my leisure and weekend choices.

And wow, what a summer! We ended strong, with two weeks at the beach and then a week in Norway. Now the kids are back in school. The first few days have not been the easiest in the world, though we have all survived the drama, including me. Now it’s time to revisit the list.

I posted an initial update earlier this summer — chronicling my outdoor music (Taylor Swift in May, Billy Joel + Stevie Nicks in June, and then Phish in July — and none got rained out!) and eating lobster in Bar Harbor, Maine. Early July brought the Best of Both Worlds meet-up, plus my writing retreat in Lititz.

When I posted that initial update, I had not yet gone to any beer gardens, but I wound up going to two — at Longwood Gardens when we went to a special fountain show night, and then in Asbury Park during the beach trip. I did Mommy Days with the three older kids, and my husband did Daddy Days with the two younger ones.

As for bike rides, my husband and I went on a date bike ride one Saturday, which we combined with a brewery stop, and then we went on a family electric bike ride in Norway. This was a definite highlight of the summer, and something I’d like to try again.

I did fairy well on running in the AMs, and I will miss having this be a readily available option during the school year. These first few days of the school year I’ve had a really hard time seizing a good window during the day to run. Granted it’s been 90 degrees, but still.

I enjoyed the yard, at least during the period of time when the pool wasn’t green. I have high hopes for next summer on this one! My 8-year-old and I made a number of fires in the fire pit, I read in the hammock, and walked around a lot.

Fruit picking was mostly a bust (think tiny and sparse strawberries in June) though perhaps we will go apple picking this weekend. Honeycrisps are a late summer/early fall variety so this is the right time.

I didn’t really refresh my summer wardrobe (though I did just buy a few cheap fall staples…). But we did travel internationally twice! There was the Turks and Caicos trip in June (which was a reunion for my husband’s family), and then we did Norway at the end of the summer. Traveling with kids over age 8 is so much easier than traveling with little ones, and has me thinking about how travel in general is going to get better in summers to come.

Of course, while a Summer Fun List can help guide leisure and travel choices, plenty of fun stuff happens that one might not know about before. For instance, I didn’t know I’d go on the Today Show this summer, and that was a lot of fun. I sang in summer choir with my 16-year-old. I watched my 11-year-old star as the Wicked Witch of the West in her theater camp production of The Wizard of Oz. We had a few fun get-togethers in our pool. I went to a Phillies game and enjoyed that.

Still, even if fun happens that wasn’t planned at the beginning of the summer, knowing a few goals can help keep time from slipping away. So now, as the kids are in their first week of school, I’m thinking through my Fall Fun List. Stay tuned for that!

In other news: I’m running a September Time Tracking Challenge next week (Sept 11-17). If you’ve ever thought about tracking your time, this can be a good opportunity for some support. Sign up here to get daily motivational emails from me. You can download a time tracking log here (I use the 30-minute Excel version). September is often a time of new routines, so by seeing where the time is going now, you can decide what you like and what you don’t.

Please join me!