The Ultimate Summer Thrill List

The kids saw a trailer for a bad Judy Moody movie when we were at a local Chinese food restaurant, but it gave them a great idea. In the movie, Judy creates a Not-Bummer-Summer list of things to do over vacation to keep life exciting. My kids came home and drew up the Ultimate Summer Thrill List.

After much haggling and debating, they approved the final list just in time for vacation. It is completely hilarious and genius and I am sharing it with you in case you want to steal it for your own kids. If you have younger ones, you can create a version that applies to their skill, coordination and death-wish level.

Each kid participating puts in $5, and the first kid to collect 75 points wins the kitty. Each activity has an amount of points attached. The list includes the instruction that when you complete a task, “always yell ‘THRILL’ … and wear a helmet.” There is also an awesome disclaimer, which leads me to believe my daughter might end up a lawyer: “We are not responsible for any injuries to yourself or others!!!!! Everything on this list is AT YOUR OWN RISK. … Happy Thrill.”

There are 31 items.

So far we have knocked off three: Climb a tree at last 20 feet (8 pts; mother intervention: between 10 and 20 feet); Jump off a dock (3 pts); Surf a wave (5 pts).

Among the rest:

Ride a zip line (10 pts)

Catch a frog (4 pts)

Go tubing (4 pts)

Have a picnic on your roof (8 pts; mother intervention: This ain’t happening.)

Eat a raw oyster (7 pts)

Let a crab pinch your finger (5 pts)

Lie on the edge of the water and let a wave crash on you (4 pts)

Crash a party or a wedding (8 pts)

Go stand up paddle boarding (8 pts; mother intervention: coincidentally we just bought a paddleboard)

Ride a surfboard backwards (2 pts)

Swing from a rope into a pond (6 pts)

Ride a roller coaster (5 pts)

Catch a foul ball at a major league or minor league baseball game (20 pts)

Ride a horse or pony (4 pts)

Lie on the ground and cover yourself in snails (2 pts)

Get buried in the sand up to your neck (5 pts)

Throw an awesome party (8 pts)

Eat a snail (5 pts)

Get pooped on by a seagull (5 pts)

Go off a jump on a skateboard (6 pts)

Throw the first pitch in a major or minor league baseball game (30 pts)

Participate in a flash mob (10 pts)

Go up to a random stranger and ask if they know the definition of a “hobknocker.” **Remember stranger danger** (3 pts)

Shoot a Nerf dart through someone’s open window (7 pts)

Build a secret fort (5 pts)

Pull an awesome prank on someone (4 pts)

What I love most about this list is the fact that 99 percent of these activities are straight out of 1952, and if my kids and their friends manage to pull off most of this list then it means they will have spent their summer outside, in the sun, at the beach, doing fun things that don’t involve text messaging or Wii or Facebook.

What a thrill.