Summer 2023 is *officially* a wrap for our family. The girls started school last week, the air has just a hint of the crisp flavor of fall, and I’ve even been spotting a few trees taking on their new autumn colors.

As I reflect on what went right (and wrong) about this summer, from my perspective, I feel it accurate to proclaim: this has been my favorite summer yet.

From beaches to barbecues, to plane rides and National Parks, we made an effort to live our best lives as a family this summer. It was exhausting and exhilarating, but honestly, there wasn’t much I would change about how it all went down (though bringing an exhausting number of activities for lil thang to do in the car on our car trip to Idaho definitely comes to mind – she had a ROUGH travel day. Twice.)

Today, I’m sharing the strategies that helped us plan and execute the best. summer. ever. in hopes that 1. It might give you other mamas who are home with kids some or all of the time some ideas as well, and 2. I’ll remember this myself for next summer! Let’s do this!!!

5 Tips for Having the Best. Summer. ever.!

1. First, figure out what you’re hoping to get out of the summer! 

If you’ve been around for a minute, you know I love a good goal-setting sesh. Summer, in my opinion, requires one. Think about what you hope to get out of the non-school days: is it time as a family to kind-of lay-low, sleep in, and explore what your community has to offer at times that are convenient? Or is it spending time away from home when possible, seeing more of the country (or world), visiting family and friends? Is it a commitment to summer sports? A combination?

In my experience, having a general idea of what sounds like a good experience for the whole family has helped to inform all the decisions I make. And the ages of the kids matters, too.

2. Be clear about your needs and preferences.

I’m going to fully admit this here, though I feel pangs of mom-guilt just saying this, but last year…I made a big mistake.

For whatever reason, actually, no, I know the reason (and it was financial because of the way lil’ thangs preschool was set up), I decided that I would pack all of the fun adventures I wanted to do with the girls into one month. I called it “mommy month” and I planned all of these fun things for us to do to “bond” together as the gals of the family while Tim worked. This meant traveling (often solo) with them, sometimes back to back, for nearly 30 days.

I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise you to hear that by day, like, 9 ½…I was done. DONE. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and found myself saying (loudly) things like, “THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!” as once again, I’m trying to get the girls to stop UNPACKING what I had just packed with only 12 minutes left before we’re supposed to be out of the AirBnb.

My point is that I ignored something I already knew about myself, which is that I am a better mom when I build in breaks. I thought I could “power through” but I only became more frustrated with myself and my girls. Not their fault. It would have just been a better choice to take the adventures over a couple of months, and space out the trips with time spent as home (and perhaps some long summer day camps, too).

And this year, I did just that. 😉

3. Figure out your budget

Knowing how much disposable income you have for summer will help inform your planning, and there are SO. MANY. THINGS. that you can do inexpensively (or even free). If you have more room in the budget, then you can plan some bigger getaways, with of course, the free and cheap things mixed in, too!

But here I’ve divided some of our favorite activities by budget type!

Great for any budget:

• Splash pads
• Parks (think outside of your immediate geographical area as well!)
• Local lakes to explore
• The library
• Kids play zones at restaurants
• Play zones at the mall
• Ikea.

If you have some room in the budget, try some of these ideas!

• National Parks (duh! We’re on a mission to visit them all – check out more about that HERE or check out our most recent National Park recap of Lassen Volcanic National Park HERE).
• Trampoline parks
• Children’s museums or even most adult museums have kid-friendly sections!
• The YMCA can offer a fun family summer adventure, often with a swimming pool and kids play area or even camps.
• Roller skating or Ice skating
• Pools
• Zoos
• Also, some camps really are budget-friendly, and there are a few in our area that even offer scholarships (like the musical theater camp our girls did for a week). It’s worth looking into!

Not as budget-friendly (but still fun!):

• Plan a bigger adventure somewhere you’ve been wanting to go  (Disney, somewhere tropical, road trip with a cool destination, a trip to visit family far away, etc
• Camps – is there a day camp your kids would be into? See what your community has to offer and what aligns with your kids’ interests! You may need to look in multiple places (including nearby communities) in order to really get a good feel for what the extent of the opportunities in your area are. I had 3 parks and rec guides to look through before we made our final decisions! I’ve also heard about family camps that some friends of ours have enjoyed!
• Water parks
• Amusement parks
• Concerts

4. Make the schedule!

This is where things can get a little bit like playing Tetris.

For me, it was REALLY important after my last summer, that I alternated stretches of quality family trips/time with the girls’ summer camps that they wanted to do. This way, if I felt overwhelmed, I would know I would have a little section of time that I would be kid-free the next week. I know this isn’t an option for everyone. It may be one of those things though where you mix up time where you’re mostly alone with the kids with time that you’re with friends or family, or taking trips. But you know your needs best! So just keep it all in mind as you schedule.

Oh, and make sure you keep *some* space open so you can have some flexibility when something comes up that you’d really love to do. I kept a week open in August for this and it ended up working out great for us to do a few things we had wanted to do but hadn’t yet worked out.

(*some of these links may be affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase by clicking them, I may earn some coffee money, at no added cost to you! Thank you so much for supporting my work here, friend!)

5. Book things well in advance

This is another mistake of mine that you can learn from. Two years ago, I didn’t make the schedule until late May and I missed a lot of the opportunities to sign the girls up for camps they were really interested in doing.

Also, don’t underestimate the time this will take if you’re scheduling for the whole summer. Talk to your friends, see what they’re doing, and maybe try to coordinate the best you can! It’s always fun for the girls to see friends they haven’t seen in a bit at a camp or activity.

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A Quick peek Into Our “Best. Summer. Ever”!

I started working on our schedule, I kid you not, in March. I was determined to have a better summer than last summer, and with lil thang now 5 and able to do many of the same camps as the big girls, I didn’t want to miss a deadline.

So I got everything on the schedule, alternating the weeks where we did trips with weeks of camps. Some of the camps were only 4 days in duration, so I would schedule our long weekend adventures for those weekends and made sure to tell Tim so he could block off his clinic schedule on those Fridays.

For our trips, we spent time in Florida and Alabama with family, visited two National Parks as a family (a first for the girls!), a trip to Disney World with our oldest on her birthday, a girls-only trip to Idaho.

For camps, the girls did tennis, musical theater, cooking, soccer, a Christian day camp (3 different weeks), and then they also did a day camp at the new school they are attending this fall, in hopes they would get acclimated and maybe even make some friends before school started.

Here are some of the photo highlights for those interested! And check out the REEL I made about it (and hit “follow” while you’re at it so we can be friends!) 🖤

Florida + Alabama

Mount Rainier National Park

Disney World

Olympic National Park

Idaho

Other Summer Fun

And that, my friends, is how we did our best (and busiest) summer so far! Definitely one for the books! I wish you all the summer fun in your future! Let me know what summer fun you’re already looking forward to!

Happy summer adventuring!

Love and Blessings,

ann marie 🖤