Friday, May 11, 2012

Summer vacation scares me

It's hard to believe this school year has passed by so quickly. I'm a little more than freaked out that our daughter only has one week left of preschool. I admit I'll shed a few tears on that first day of Kindergarten come August.  For now, however, I have to tackle summer vacation.  Although preschool is only three days a week for three hours in the morning, it still provided a little bit of a schedule (and some quiet mommy time).  We live in a small town with not a whole lot of options for activities, we are saving every penny for our next house (whenever we manage to sell this one), and we don't live near my family which would provide a lot of fun. Being a stay at home mom can sometimes make you feel like a caged animal and when the school schedule is also no longer there it just makes summer vacation scary as hell. So, last night I started preparing a list of summer vacation activities. Maybe other parents or babysitters out there can benefit from my list as well (although some are personalized):
  • Create a nature journal and go on nature scavenger hunts
  • Spend time at the library/ sign up for the reading program at the library. Our library also has shows for the kids.
  • Create characters out of rocks-paint them, glue together, add googly eyes, etc.
  • Create blender drinks (just leave the alcohol out of the kids drink)
  • Paint canvas type sneakers
  • Make lollipop cupcakes, shark/beach cupcakes, etc.
  • Design T-shirts with paint/puffy paint
  • Make ice pops
  • Free movie Wednesdays! They have that here in our town although last year I think we only made it through one movie- maybe she'll do better this year.
  • Water balloon fights
  • Go fishing. We got our daughter a fishing pole last year and she loves fishing now.
  • Go to the lakehouse.  We enjoy spending time at my parent's lakehouse in north central Indiana-fishing, boating, feeding ducks, campfire with s'mores. 
  • Make your own glow in the dark slime. Google it.
  • Picnics at the park
  • Make homemade pizza
  • Walk the trails around town and at nearby state parks
  • Day at the Indianapolis or Cincinnati zoo/ local zoo for other people
  • Day at the children's museum in Cincinnati or Indianapolis
  • Make cool creations out of cardboard
  • Create streets with chalk on the driveway and make stop signs or stop lights
  • Play board games outside
  • Have kids wash their own riding toys
  • Have kids make their own scrapbooks
  • Make ice cream sundae's 
  • Go to our town's pool--yeah, I put this one last. Not a thrill for me since I'd rather have my finger nails removed with pliers rather than get into a bathing suit for this whole small town to see. Yikes!
I know I will add to this list over the next week.  If I don't have activities in mind we'll both go crazy over the summer.  Thank goodness a week of visiting grandma and grandpa is in the mix with a day trip to Chicago while we are up there. That always gets high marks---a ride on the train into Chicago!
May we all survive summer and come out with little to no meltdowns and only have good times.

2 comments:

  1. What a great list, a little of everything.
    I'm your newest follower.
    http://www.theempoweredmomma.com/

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    1. Thanks for following! I will be sure to follow you back! Stop by anytime and take a look at my blog from time to time.

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