School's Out for Summer

School is officially out. After weeks of extended hours and 1 (for Mia & Ava) and 2 (Karin & Kirsten) days tacked on to the end of the year. We are done. Our district had 9 snow days this year, so their were a lot of days made up. Karin & Kristen had to make up an extra day due to no heat one day.

I have mixed feelings about having this school year over. I am so thankful not to have 4 different start times, but this is the last year that I will have a child home during the day. Mia will be in school all day next year and I will have to figure out what to do with myself when I grow up.

We have out together our plans for the summer. I always start out the summer with great intentions to follow through with our wonderful plans, but it is hard to hold any structure together when we travel. So we have made plans to try to stay sane and have a fun and enjoyable summer. So some of the sanity savers we are attempting; Lunch - each of my kids will be responsible for planning lunch one day a week. I will help the younger kids, they will get one on one cooking time with me. Laundry - again each kid will be responsible for the laundry. Karin & Kirsten will collect, sort, run the wash & fold. Ava & Mia will collect, sort & fold with some assistance. They will also take a day to clean one of the bathrooms. My main hope is that we will be able to teach our kids some basic life skills by the time they go off to college

We have set up a loose schedule on what we will do each day of the week. Monday, library day, Tuesday movie/bowling, Wednesday play group at the park, Thursday field trip day, Friday pool day. We will be flexible in the days, I love to spontaneous if anything crops up so we will not be too stringent if some other opportunity presents itself.

We brainstorm at the beginning of summer of all the things we want to see and do this summer. We divide the items up into big, medium and small activities. We usually try to do 1 or 2 small activities each week, medium activities 1 or 2 a month, big 1 or 2 during the summer. Some of the activities are going to Milk & Honey, or the zoo to going to Cedar Point.

I love summer and the freedom it gives us to sleep in and do nothing, but I know that it drives me crazy and I feel like a failure if we get to the end of the summer and we haven't made any progress in our lives. I am looking forward to wonderful summer, with lots of fun, excitement and growth and lots more of this...