Summer Fun Coupons for the Kids

Hi Friends,
How was your weekend? We had my parents visiting and were thrilled to spend time with my Dallas, Texas aunt and uncle as well (my dad's brother) who happened to be in North Carolina attending a conference.

Dad and Uncle Bob:

Aunt Charlene and mom:

You guys know that my daughter and soon to be son attend our local neighborhood elementary school which happens to be on a year around schedule. Several of you have asked me questions about how a year around school works. For our school, this essentially means nine weeks of school then three weeks off. There are 4 different tracks for the students to be on which determines when you're off and when you're in school. For us, during the summer time July is my kids' time off. We have a family adventure planned in California for a week in July which we are super psyched about but otherwise we're home until school starts up again in late July. I pity the poor principal who really never seems to get any time off because there are always kids in school!

I decided to come up with Summer Fun Coupons for my kids to let them have some say over how we spend our days together in July. I didn't want to be responsible for planning each and every day. I've taken the month of July off of work to hang out with them and have some quality time together. I made a template of the Summer Fun Coupons on my laptop (nothing too fancy), printed them off, and gave each child 4 of them. I told them to write whatever they wanted us to do together this summer on the coupons. Of course, some days are going to be lazy days where we just do what we want, when we want. Heck! Most days are going to be like that! At least, with the coupons we'll have a little bit of plans.

Bryce, who is a rising second grader, age 7 wrote:
1. Local Roller skating Joint
2. Bowling
3. Go see movie Monsters' University
4. Picnic in the Park

Brayden, who is a rising kindergartener, age 5 wrote:
1. Dinosaur Museum
2. Bowling
3. Go to Craft Store and Buy a Craft
4. Kids' Museum

This weekend was our first official start of summer so we decided it was time to let the kids start cashing in their Summer Fun Coupons. Bryce was insistent that her picnic coupon must include her daddy so since he works at a job every day (imagine that) during the week we thought Sunday would be an awesome day for a picnic.

Here are the kids plus Steve and I enjoying the day at a local park playing and riding bikes after our picnic:







I gotta say minus the fighting in the car (kids, not us) during the ride to and from the park, we had a great time. Being out in nature along a lake with a breeze got us super excited for our time together in California.

Monday morning we headed to the Craft Store for Brayden's first Summer Fun Coupon:

It's been raining off and on all day so it's been a great day to stay inside. At the craft store, Bryce choose a scrapbook journal kit that she's working on right now recording her memories of first grade with pictures as well (thanks to her teacher who took a lot of school pictures and posted them on Shutterfly). At the craft store, Brayden choose modeling clay to shape and model creatures out of. It's been keeping him pretty busy.

I hope you have a wonderful week friends. We hope to have some more fun and get some productive things done as well doctor's appointments, meet Bryce's second grade teacher at 'Meet the Teacher' and 4th of July.

Take care. Thanks again for joining me today.
Megan