Its Summer Time & The Livin's Easy

Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. But I must admit, I LOVE the lazy crazy days of summer.

The days get longer. The nights are brighter. The birds start singing earlier. The frogs croak louder. The flowers smell sweeter. 

I love sitting outside as it starts to get dark, watching the lightening bugs come out one by one. I love splashing in a mountain stream until my teeth start to chatter & my lips turn blue. I love laying by a swimming pool with the heat of the sun on my back. 

But mostly, what I love about summer is the fact that we don't HAVE to be anywhere at a certain time. Yes, there are activities that we participate in that have start times, but we don't HAVE to do them. I love that! I love the freedom of summer.

Freedom to stay up late, freedom to wake up late. Freedom to be lazy, freedom to stay busy. Freedom to be creative, freedom to do pretty much anything we want.

Unfortunately, sometimes all that freedom can lead to a different kind of dom. Boredom. How many times do we hear "I'm bored, I don't have anything to do"?

So in an attempt to curb some of that boredom, I have created our summer bucket list. Many of the things on this year's list are activities that we usually participate in every year. But some of them are brand new ideas.

I have also created our summer reading list. Most of these books I found on "most wanted" lists for children. Unfortunately, many of them, I have never read or, at least, don't remember reading anyway. Instead of a simple list to check off, I decided to make it a little more fun. I created 2 different BINGO charts with the same books on them. This gives my kids a little extra incentive to bug me to read more to them. ;)

I don't have a clue how to upload a printable document or convert excel to an image.    :(  I actually scanned that ^^^ one and saved as a picture. But I did figure out how to covert excel to a PDF & upload it.  :)