So what have we done off our list? Well, other than me finishing my classes, camps for Monster, t-ball, karate, art, VBS, and having a bad back for more than 2 weeks, here's some of what we actually accomplished. A couple weeks ago, we went blueberry picking. It was so much fun. Monster is old enough to pretty much be off on his own picking. Sunshine still eats more than get in the bucket. We were there for an hour, which pushed their limits, but they still loved it! They were also super proud of themselves. Every time they had blueberries, they commented on how they were the ones that picked them. Love seeing the pride in their accomplishments! We got to swim in our pool as much as the weather would let us. It's not looking like we will get too many more days, but all in all, not too bad. We did take advantage of almost every nice day to be out there! We walked up to get ice cream. The kids loved that. They have had more ice cream this summer than in they have eaten their whole lives! That's what's summer's about though, right? Monster did get to do work for Papa. Papa actually let him use a hand saw and everything to help take down the roping on the deck. Monster was pretty proud of that! We have also checked off, sleep in, go hiking, VBS, Camp Invention, read, play outside (though I'm sure the kids would have liked to do this all day, every day!), ride bikes, and practice writing letters.
What didn't we get to? Well, visiting family/friends in Chicago and Georgia didn't happen. Georgia was more lack of planning on my part. I should have gotten on it earlier. We also missed out on strawberry picking because peak strawberry time was during Young Naturalist Camp and when I was finishing up my classes. Next year, I won't be working on classes, so we'll get to that one! We have yet to go to a water park, but we may still be able to do that. The weather this summer has been either extremely hot, raining, or cool. There have been very few perfect summer days. Those days, we spent in our own pool. But, like I said, we may still get to that. Maybe not before school starts, but before summer is officially over. We also have not walked to the Farmer's Market. This is something we would have normally already done several times, but with Monster having karate a block from the market, it's hard to justify walking up there and then having to drive him up to karate since his Gi is too hot to wear to walk up there. We have taken Puppy for walks, but my vision for this was to be walking him every day. Poor Puppy has gotten to go on about one walk a week. He'll actually be going on so many more once school starts in two more weeks. He walks with us to pick Monster up. One thing I really wanted to do this summer that I didn't was bake. I really don't know why I haven't done more of it. I made some great blueberry muffins and a couple of batches of cookies, but nothing like the scope of what I wanted to do. Monster did not learn to roller skate this summer. While outside, he wanted to do other things, so I let him. Learning to roller skate should be fun, not something he's forced into. We did not get to go back to COSI this summer, but we hope to get there again over Spring Break. We didn't make it to an Aeros Game, yet. But, like, the water park, that will get done before the official end of summer. We did not make it to the Richland Carrousel Park, which has become a summer tradition. I have two weeks left before school, so I'm hoping we can still get to do that!
One thing on the bucket list that I never had any intention of doing was the fair. I can't stand the fair. Growing up Cuyahoga county has carnival after carnival, after carnival all summer. That's more my speed. The county fair, not so much. Too hot. Too many people. Too much gross stuff to touch. It doesn't help that I had the most awful fair experience when Monster was little. I really thought that I could fudge this one a little by getting the kids to a carnival, but, this county really doesn't have many. We live less than a mile from the fairgrounds and we managed to make it through fair week without the kids even knowing it was going on. Bad Mommy calls that a win. There is a small festival going on next week that maybe we'll try to hit up. Or, if I can talk Husband into it, we'll take the kids to the Feast. Anyone from Cleveland (and I'm not talking about the far suburbs) has been to the Feast. It's something every Clevelander needs to experience, and I since I'm trying to raise Clevelanders, they should experience it.
Even though we didn't check off about half of our list, we did so many other things that weren't even on the list. Monster got his yellow belt in karate. The kids got to visit with their grandparents. The kids got to see where Nana grew up. We spent a lot of quality time together. The kind of time where we really, truly enjoy each other. So, even though we may have not done everything on the bucket list, we really have had a great summer so far!