Summer Bucket List 2017: In Review

Summer has come and gone and we’re finally out of the triple digit temperatures here in Las Vegas! Kids have been in school for a month and our days are packed and busy again. Anyone else out there ready for a break already?!?

I thought I’d go back and relive a little bit of our summer fun! As you all know, we’ve been putting together a summer bucket list for years now, but I think this year’s was a little too ambitious and it’s no surprise we didn’t get to do everything on the list. Some things we didn’t do together as a family, such as the grandparents taking the kiddos to Dave & Buster’s while we were away in Napa and Jason taking the kiddos to the drive in movies while I had book club. Diego got to go to Wet N Wild water park with some friends and I took Elysse to Gravady Trampoline Park last weekend with her friend. Sure we didn’t get a chance to try rolled ice cream, but we did enjoy plenty of ice cream this summer, including the famous Salt n Straw in Portland! YUMmmm! Although we didn’t get to visit Zion National Park, we did visit Sand Hollow Sate Park in Utah.

We’ll have to try to get to doing some ice skating this winter, try to get a camping trip in this spring, even if it’s close to home in Mount Charleston, and Spring Mountain Ranch Super Summer Theater will be back on the list for summer 2018!

Hope your summer was fun and that you got to spend time together as a family and make some messy memories together!! XO

Summer Bucket List 2016: Update

I cannot believe summer is almost over. I’m not gonna lie, I am looking forward to cooler temps and getting back to my routine. This summer has got to be one of the craziest times for us! I’ve been pretty much MIA from blogging most of the summer. Not cool, I know. I miss it and have so much I want to share! Kids in year round school makes it tough to plan a whole lot, plus add to that packing up for our move in the middle of it, and well, it was not the most adventurous summer we’ve had. Did I mention it felt like the hottest summer in Vegas too? With temps in the 100+ most days we did not want to be outside. Ugh…Hello Fall!

Of course, we knew this summer was going to be busy with not-so-fun adulting stuff like buying a house (more on that later), shopping for appliances, painting, packing and unpacking, etc. so we didn’t make our bucket list too long or too ambitious. Yet, even though we kept it simple this year, it helped us to slow down and take some much needed breaks because the boxes to unpack will still be there when we get back, right?

Here’s a recap of what our summer bucket list looked like for this year:

From this list we have done:

Camping at Navajo Lake, UT

Wet N Wild Water Park

Ice Cream Treat at DQ

Mystery Adventure

Movie Night

Still to do are:

Xtreme Flip Out | Beach Trip | Picnic at the Park | BBQ with Friends

The only thing we have scheduled is our annual trip to the beach at the end of summer. We normally go the 3rd or 4th weekend of August, but this year that was not possible for a few reasons. So, we’re turning my Ventura Half Marathon into a little racecation and spending some much needed family time away for 3 days! The other 3 things may or may not happen before Labor Day but that’s ok. We’ve have a great summer and I will be posting individual posts about our camping trip, Wet N Wild, and Cowabunga Bay in the next few weeks. I also want to share more about our house buying experience soon too!

So, how have you been spending your summer? Any fun adventures? I’d love to hear about your summer bucket list too!

Tips for Creating a Fun Family Summer Bucket List

On Monday, I shared our family’s 6th annual summer bucket list! We’ve made so many fun memories and traditions since we started participating in the summer bucket list challenges put on by The Happy Family Movement. They’ve discontinued the yearly challenges about 2 years ago, but the site is still up and you can go there get more info and ideas for creating a summer bucket list.

I got interested in the summer bucket list challenge because we always had ideas of things we wanted to do over the summer, but lots of times we got so busy being busy that we forgot to have fun. Creating a summer bucket list has been a great way to ensure a fun summer. It becomes intentional and we’ve made it a point to enjoy our time together as a family. Since creating our summer bucket lists is such a huge part of our family life, our kids look forward to it every year.

Here are a few tips that have worked for us (through a bit of trial and error) on creating a fun and successful summer bucket list that everyone can enjoy.

Don’t be too ambitious. Every weekend doesn’t have to be spent at a theme park or away from home for it to be fun and memorable. Kids just want to spend time with you. They don’t need every activity or event to be super elaborate. This is especially true for younger kiddos. Some of our fun and simple activities have included: going out for frozen yogurt, backyard camping, geocaching, and watching the sunset.

Get the whole family involved. Everyone will be more excited if they have a say in the list, so we make sure to talk about it together. Dinnertime or driving in the car work great. Kids will come up with some pretty far fetched activities sometimes, so it’s good to give them boundaries and suggestions as to what kinds of activities you can/prefer to do, especially if this is your first time putting the list together.

Limit your list. We found that keeping the list to about 10-12 activities is much more realistic than trying to include 20+ things. Putting too much on your list can add stress about getting it all done and that’s the last thing you want. Your list should be about sharing a fun time together.

Display your list. Once you have our activities all picked out, make sure to display the list in a place where it can always be seen. The last thing you want to do is create all this excitement and then forget about it. You know the saying, “out of sight, out of mind”. Through the years we’ve put it at the bottom of the staircase, on the fridge, and on a banner across the kitchen window. Bonus points if you get the kiddos involved in creating a fun way to display your list 😉

Include traditions. Most of our traditions became traditions purely unintentionally, but now that we have them we are intentional about keeping them. We make sure to include them each year in our bucket list. I’m sure you probably have summer traditions yourself already and maybe you just didn’t realize it. Things like, BBQing with friends, watching fireworks, going to the beach, these may all be things you do each year that can easy be incorporate into your family’s summer bucket list.

Document. Now that you’ve put some effort into creating and displaying your list, you have to go out and do all those fun things! And, don’t forget to document along the way. Whether you use a professional camera, a point and shoot, or just your iPhone, it’s important to snap a few photos for prosperities sake. We tend to use all 3! Here are a few ideas on places to document your summer: personal blog, special hashtag on instagram (ours is #emericsummer2016), facebook album, scrapbook, chatbooks, or even a yearly calendar. There are lots of options! Whatever you choose, it’ll be great to look back at the end of the summer and relive all the cool things you did!

For some ideas on the kinds of activities we’ve included, take a look at our summer bucket lists throughout the years:

2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011

Activities change as kids get older, but I hope to continue our summer bucket list tradition until the kiddos are grown. Again, it’s a great way to be intentional about spending time together as a family, creating memories, and having fun!

Do you have a summer bucket list? What fun activities have you included? What fun adventures do you have planned for this summer?

Family Summer Bucket List 2016

It’s summertime!! Today is the first day of summer in Vegas and we are under an excessive heat advisory, with temps to reach up to 115 degrees. It’s tough to plan fun outdoor activities in this heat, but we try to get creative with our list.

Although the kiddos go to 12-month school and don’t have traditional 3 month summer breaks, we are still excited about having some free time this summer. Today is the first day of their summer track break this Friday and we’re planning to make the most of their 4 week break before they go back for 4 more weeks in July. Their school year ends August 3, so they’ll have another 3 week break before starting up in their new grades at the end of August. Yup, it’s confusing. Yup, we don’t love it. But, we’re making the most of it.

Here’s some of the fun we have planned for this summer:

This is the 6th year of creating summer bucket lists as a family! Take a look at 2 of our past year’s summer bucket lists ( 2015, 2012) and come back tomorrow for some tips on how to create your own family summer bucket list to help you make some awesome memories this summer!

Marking Activites Off Our Summer Bucket List 2015

We’ve officially got about one more month of summer left and so far we’ve had our fair share of, “I’m bored!” and too much TV and video games. We’ve also had our lazy days of summer where it’s just too hot to go out or days when life’s boring tasks of cleaning, running errands, and doing laundry take over. But, we’ve still managed to have some fun times. This is why it’s so important for our family to have this Summer Bucket List done early in the summer so we can not only have fun activities and events to look forward to, but to also make the time to make it happen. We don’t want to get so caught up in our daily routine and life’s demands that we forget to have fun!

Our summer has also included days at the pool at my parent’s place and our friend’s place, a fun day boating on Lake Mead, a weekend camping in Utah, jumping at SkyZone, making ice cream, evening bike rides, and watching some family movies!

We still have a few more things to mark off our Summer Bucket List but so far we’re having a great summer making memories and going on adventures! How’s your summer going?

Summer Bucket List 2015

Since the summer of 2010 we’ve been putting together a family summer bucket list. We’ve had a blast putting these lists together each year and coming up with fun activities to keep the kiddos entertained and happy during our hot Vegas summers. A few things have become summer traditions such as going to Southern California in August, picnics up at Mount Charleston, and movie nights. But, it’s always fun to add a few new things to our lists each year. In 2012 we started to get creative with displaying our list because it’s important to see it and plan around it. Otherwise, we tend to get busy with our regular routine and forget about all the fun plans we had for summer.

We usually put our summer bucket list together around Memorial Day, but this year has been wonky with Jason’s broken ankle and year round school for both kids! So, we waited until our kids went on their summer track brake to really focus on the fun summer activities for this year. They’ll be on summer track break for 3 weeks. Then they’ll be back to finish off the school year for about a month, before having another 2 week break before the new school year begins again. It can get confusing, but that’s where a little preparation and being intentional about making the best of summer comes in handy! We’re determined to make the most of our time together as a family, be it summer or any other time of the year. This year, I purchased this cute chalk banner at Target for displaying our list. I got the kids to each write a few of our activities and then we hung it right over the kitchen window. We’ll definitely be seeing it constantly!

Emeric Family Summer Bucket List 2015

End of Summer SoCal Beach Trip
Family Bike Ride (I plan to just run alongside them, since I don’t know how to ride a bike. They think they’re going to teach me to ride. We’ll see what happens!)
Mystery Adventure
Bonfire
Art Day
Sky Zone
Picnic at Mount Charleston
Make Ice Cream
Camping
Family Movie Night
Swimming

Feel free to check out our 2012, 2013, and 2014 lists for more ideas for your own summer bucket list! It’s not too late to get started on having a super fun summer! What kinds of fun activities, trips, or projects do you have planned for your family this summer?

Summer Bucket List | BBQ with Friends & Wet N Wild

We are having a great time this summer, even with Diego being in year-round school. Tomorrow is his last day in 3rd grade and he’ll have his 3 week summer track break before starting 4th grade. We plan to pack a lot of summer fun in the next 3 weeks 🙂

Here’s a quick update with 2 more things we got to check off the Happy Family Movement’s Summer Bucket List, BBQ with friends and going to Wet N Wild.

We were invited over a friend’s place for a BBQ earlier this month and the kids had a great time playing with the other kids and swimming in the pool. It really was a nice relaxing day with friends. It was exactly what we needed!

This Saturday we finally went to Wet N Wild. I say “finally” because this is the 2nd season it’s been open and we literally saw it being built. The water park is about 4 miles down the road from our house and we drive down that road every day to & from the gym. When it opened last summer, we heard stories of how it was so packed, so we decided to hold off. Our kids had been patiently waiting all year, so when it was time to put our summer bucket list together, Wet N Wild was maybe the first thing they suggested. Huge thanks to our friends, Ernie & Veronica and my nephew, Jared and his friend Mikey for getting us in with a buddy pass and saving us quite a bit of money!!

We spent about 6 hours at the park and had a blast! It was not crowded and the lines were not crazy long. The kids got on most of the slides, played in the wave pool, and relaxed in the lazy river. It was perfect! I think they must have said, “thanks for bringing us here” about a hundred times! We’ll definitely be getting season tickets next year.

Did you and your family do a Summer Bucket List? What kinds of fun things are you doing this summer? I’d love to hear them!

Summer Bucket List | 51’s Baseball Game

I can’t believe it’s almost July! This summer is flying by! Mostly because Diego is still in school and so it doesn’t really feel like summer. Year-round school has it’s advantages, but boy is it tough in the summertime! Diego is off for a 2 week track break after this week and we’re planning some fun stuff, including the trip to Bryce Canyon for our half marathon and of course, some family time hiking and exploring the National Park. Can’t wait 🙂

Anyhow, we did actually mark one thing off our bucket list this weekend and we went to see a 51’s Baseball Game. Las Vegas doesn’t have a major league team, but we were ok with the minors. Diego and Jason had gone last year and they had a nice time, so we added it our Summer Bucket List this summer. It’d been years since I’d gone to a baseball game and this was the first game for Elysse. I’ll just be honest here and say, it was kinda boring! Sorry to all the baseball fans out there, but I just couldn’t get into the game. Maybe because I wasn’t too interested in the teams or maybe because I’m just not a big baseball fan, but it felt to go on forever! Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time. We went with another family, so there was plenty of playing and laughing! The kids ate popcorn and shaved ice. They got some noise makers and had at it! Don’t expect we’ll be getting season tickets, but the kids got to experience something different and that was awesome!