simple pleasures of summer

07 June 2010

Magic moments in the summertime don’t have to cost money. In fact, the less money the better they usually are.july 2008 007



One of my favorite stories that our friend in Montana told was when he and his family were on their way to Disneyland one summer. They planned and planned and told their kids what an amazing place it was. They stopped at a rest stop and everyone, mom and dad included, began rolling down the grassy hill. As he and his son reached the bottom, his little boy looked up at him and asked, “Dad, is this Disneyland?”
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A professor told me about a huge Disneyland trip they had taken. On the way home, he and his wife began asking their kids what their favorite part of the trip was. Disneyland was down about #8. Their number one? Swimming all together in the hotel pool. may 2010 032 1
My kids love it when we simply take lunch outside on a blanket and then look at cloud shapes. No extra money, just an extra 2 and a half minutes maybe to take it out and back in?
What are your favorite
simple pleasures of summer
that your kids love
that cost little to no money?
August 2006 023

21 comments

  1. Neighborhood water fights! See my blog:) I sure enjoy reading yours.

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  2. Yes~Heidi's pictures say it all!

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  3. Seeing as I don't have kids...I love cloud watching..great fun! I also love looking at the stars on a warm clear night : )

    Gemma X

    http://musings-of-a-gem.blogspot.com/

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  4. I agree, Melissa; you'd be surprised what kids remember when they are older about past family vacations. I even try to remember things I enjoyed as a kid, and it always has something to do with the fact that we got to spend time with my Dad or something that had nothing to do with the destination.

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  5. Visiting friends at their homes and having them come to our home during the summer is a great way to have fun! It's like new toys for the visiters and my daughter always plays with toys she has forgotten about with her friends over, and the kids' imagination is all they need! We go to our neighborhood pool or a local park. Plus, I get to sit and chat with a grown-up, which is always a bonus!

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  6. love that story! makes me get a little emotional too:) thanks for sharing! my teenage son and I have the best time waking up early on a Saturday morning and going to all the local yard sales! it is becoming "our" thing to do and we have so much fun together in the process:)

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  7. Kelly~ you just brought back a memory. I loved going to yard sales in the summer with my Grandma in her little red stick shift Datsun. We would always stop and get a little treat too... :)

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  8. You've inspired me to take lunch outside today. Let's just hope the rain cooperates. ;)

    Liz

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  9. Campouts in the backyard...with good snacks, of course!

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  10. Oh just coming in after a day at work and nursery and having a pool fight...well Lexi gets to splash me as much as she can...we have anight of fun instead of the day since down in the deep south the hunidity is a little hard to have fun in during the day. So nighttime fun is what we do.

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  11. Love summer, it's like time slows down!
    xoxo
    SC

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  12. When we were little (and it was too hot outside) my mom would make playdough or we would food color noddles and make necklaces or put glue on paper and dump any old spice on it or glitter and make beautiful works of art (at least that is how my mom made me feel) I love summer and I love that I have children now that I can do all those fun things with.

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  13. My kids just love the fact that we don't really have a set schedule, or bedtime in the summer. They love spending the afternoons playing with the neighborhood kids, and being able to go back outside after dinner and ride bikes, catch lightning bugs, take walks or whatever. My neighbors and I (we've got a ton of kids on my block) put together a summer calendar every year of different activities that we will do all together once a week. It might be a craft at someones house, some water play, an outing somewhere...lots of fun stuff that the kids look forward to every week. I love summer!

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  14. Recently my kids and I made a "summertime bucket list" (a list of things they wanted to do before summer ended). Most of the things on the list are things like, going on bike rides together, making s'mores, making fruit loop necklaces, picnics at the park. It helped me to realize it really are the simple things-- the things where we are spending time together-- that they love the most.

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  15. amen to anything with water! I have seen many of the bucket lists around blogland and I think we're going to make one as well, but I want to keep mine s.i.m.p.l.e, like Amanda's...
    This is our first year with lightning bugs/fireflies...so excited!

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  16. This makes me feel SO much better about not being able to afford DisneyWorld. I love love love it, but we can't afford it right now. All our friends seem to be taking their kids, and it does make me jealous. I'll try to focus more on the fun stuff we can do at home. :)

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  17. Making mudpies and eating snack outside on a blanket. Snacks first of course, mud later.

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  18. I like to just ask my daughter what she wants to do and we do exactly that right then. She's almost 4 so right now it's usually playing outside on the swingset, in the baby pools, or one of our favorites is to get into our jammies really early, watch whatever movie she wants, and have homemade microwave popcorn for dinner :) Easy, cheap, and it's mommy/daddy giving in to her every little desire right then :)

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  19. Ditto on the movies and popcorn. My daughter is also 4 and she loves it. Special time for her with us when baby brother is asleep. The other big hit is snow cones. I bought a Ice shaver on clearance one year and I just buy new syrup each year. My daughter and her friends think this is the best treat ever to get rainbow Snow cones and eat it out in the garden after running through the sprinkler.

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  20. My children are grown now, but we still like to stop at Dairy Queen for an Strawberry Kiwi Artic Rush on our way to the grocery

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  21. We love picking wildflowers and arranging them in an old jar, or going on nature walks and collecting things we can make a picture from!

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