Summer Fun

The summer that I got to be a stay-at-home mom was my absolute favorite summer of my entire life..  Seriously.  I love to be the idea person and I love to bring my ideas to life so every day was a fresh challenge.  One of my closest friends always gets to be a stay-at-home mom (lucky!) so we did a lot of things together.....mostly to keep ourselves sane!  We usually spent 2 days together each week, one for fun and one for something crafty.  The rest of the week was my own - which I think is important too, you don't want your kids getting tired of their friends or becoming dependent on them for fun.

I'm a bargain hunter so the first thing I do at the beginning of the summer is find the deals!  There are usually one or two free bowling programs for kids in our city - I sign my kids up for both because they both have different adult deals each day too.  Also, there are movie theaters that do "Family Movie Festivals" each summer - all the movies are ones that are out on DVD already, are either G or PG rated, they show on one or two days a week, and most movie theaters charge $1.00 admission!  This is an awesome break in the monotony!  We went every week that summer (it was actually free then which was even better).  Most libraries have a summer reading program and they usually do puppet shows, reptile shows or magic shows once a month. 

Summer fun can add up so don't knock trying to save a buck by using the freebies!  Not to mention its a great way to show your kids that fun can be free or darn close to it.  Try keeping track of how much you're spending on summer fun on a poster board - tell them if they keep it under a certain amount that they can split that same amount on themselves at the end of summer.  Or set up a dollar amount you are willing to spend on summer activities and tell them that whatever is leftover goes to pay for a mini-vacation the last weekend before school.

Annual passes to certain things can be a big chunk of change but can pay off if you use it enough - the zoo is a great one that we have, the aquarium is a great deal too.  If you're sharing your summer with another family see if you can combine your families on one pass - then you get to split the cost and it's really worth it!  I constantly tell people about Zoo Annual Passes because the zoo never gets old and it's a great deal!  And the pass usually covers 120 -150 zoo nationwide.  That's is a deal!

I am a crafty person.  If you say, "Shannon I need a hat that looks like a birds nest."  I will make one for you in less than an hour.  I do need to specify that I save everything I deem even remotely reusable or craft-able and I constantly stock up on things I craft with often so crafting costs for me are lower than they'd be for you.  That summer I went to the craft store and looked in their dollar section and found tons of sand art, photo albums, painting projects, magnets, sun catchers, all sorts of fun (and cheap) activities for my then 4 and 7 year old.  I also splurged and spent $10 on a tie dye kit because we do that almost every year and it's super fun (really).  We would do a craft with our friends at least once a week.  Keeps little fingers nimble and at the end of the summer they had a shelf of crafts to look at and be proud of.

I'm also a fan of trips to the park.  It's free, you can take a blanket and a picnic and stay as long as you can stand the screaming children and there a lot of parks to choose from so you won't get bored.  We never did try this but I always thought it would be fun to get a map of your city, pin it to the wall somewhere where it can stay for the summer and then let your children pick a different park each time.  I'd suggest having them choose a back-up park just in case that is one without a play area or is in an area you'd rather not stop your car in. 

I feel like I must be boring you with all my summer fun talk but I really wanted to make a list of off-the-beaten-path ideas that you might like to try.  I'll save it for tomorrow I guess!