Summer Parks Tour

School is out, sprinklers are sprinkling, ice cream trucks are parading up and down the streets, and it is summer.  I always loved summer as a child.  I enjoy it now, but am less enthusiastic about the yard work, and don't seem to tolerate the heat like I used to.  

I have fond childhood memories of summer.  I loved walking to the candy store with my brothers and sister, flagging down the Frito Lay man for overdue chips, sleeping on the trampoline, dodging the june bugs, playing softball and soccer, and of course running through the sprinklers.  

I love sewing.  I do it all year long.  I don't however, want my boys' memories of summer to involve watching mom sit at the sewing machine.  I hope that I can help them form fond memories that they can share with their children.  

My kids are still young, but Clark is old enough that he remembers what happened last year, and he's certain to remember quite a bit from this summer.  So, in an effort to make our day to day routine a bit more interesting, I'm trying to make a plan.  My husband's work schedule is different every day, week, and month. He rarely has two days off in a row, so unfortunately many of our regular camp outs and reunions aren't going to happen this summer.  So our plans, are going to be local, and achievable in a day.

I've started writing up a summer bucket list, little things that we can do each day.  I've also compiled a list of all of the local parks in our city.  I'm hoping that we can tour all of our local parks, and explore our own backyard. I printed out a little summer passport. You can find the printable passport here, courtesy of Heather Carson.  We are stamping the passport as we visit new parks.  It's just a little something that we can do to encourage exploration.

Heather provides little shapes that you can stick to your passport, but we are just using Clark's McQueen stamps.  

I've also decided that we are going to visit all (or maybe just the best) ice cream shops in our town.  Ice cream and summer time go hand in hand right?  Anyway, we are hoping to hit a different ice cream shop every week or two.  We're recording our ice cream sampling adventures in the passport as well.

It's not much of a plan, but I really think that it will get us out of the rut that we've been in.  We also signed Clark up for the summer reading program at our local library.  I've been pretty impressed with the incentives that they give the kids: ice cream coupons, passes to local play centers, etc.  It is also encouraging us to read books from different sections than we normally do.

So, what are your favorite things to do with your kids in the summer time?  What do you do in your home town?  I'd love some more suggestions for our bucket list.