Summer Vacation: And We're Off!

Tuesday marked the first day of my children's summer vacation. As a mostly stay-at-home mom, I always start the summer with grand ideas of how we will fill our days, and what exciting adventures we will have during the long weeks of summer. I have high hopes right now, as it is still week one.

So, I will share with you some of my plans. First, this summer my kids and I plan to have some International Nights. We will choose a country, do some research about the country, find some recipes, make some crafts or flags representative of the country, and then have a dinner eating the food we have learned about and sharing the information we have learned.

I also have in the past created my own home summer camp, which we will likely do this summer on weeks that the kids aren't going to Art Camp or Secret Agent Camp. The first year I did this, I named it Camp Neverwhine, because I told The Boy and The Girl that they could never whine at Camp Neverwhine as we would be having way too much fun. Each week would have a different theme, either based on the kids interests, or what kinds of crafts and activities I could find for cheap at the dollar store or the craft store. I had the kids name their cabins (bedrooms) and make signs for them. We would have a morning meeting to go over the day's agenda, have cabin inspection, do a craft, an activity, and at some point during the week we would go on a field trip related to the theme. We never did camp every day, and never all day, but it's certainly a nice diversion from the same old thing every day all summer. This year my kids want to make it Scout Camp rather than Camp Neverwhine, but I hope they understand that they still aren't allowed to whine.

We have two community pools here in Seven Oaks; we've signed up for free bowling at Greenway Bowling (see kidsbowlfree.com ); and I've got the schedules for the free movies at Bowtie Cinemas in Annapolis and Cinemark at Arundel Mills. The Girl learned about the people and places found on coins while in kindergarten this year, so I'm certain a trip to the Lincoln Memorial is in our future. 

I always plan so much more than I actually end up doing, because the calendar gets in the way, and summer laziness get in the way. But, the way I look at it, that's OK, because that's what summers are for. The point of my planning is to prevent summertime boredom.  So, if we get off track and stop for a while, it's easy to pick back up with some of the activities I've already thought out. 

I'll try to let you know of any other  exciting things we do, and please let me know if you have any ideas for me and our fellow Patch readers ....