Summertime = Fun Time

We just finished up our first week of summer vacation - and we still have quite a few more weeks to go. Thank goodness - because I'm soooo glad to have a break from the normal routine. (I'm probably more excited about it than the boys.)

One of the first activities we did this week was to create a Summer List. This is something new for us. I read about it on this really cool blog and thought it sounded like a really cool idea. I always feel like summer flies by and we never really do anything or get anything accomplished. This year we're going to change that.

This kind of goes back to a New Year's theme that I came up with for myself. I didn't want to have resolutions - that's just setting yourself up for failure - but I did want to have some general goals for the year. One of those main goals was to live life more purposefully. Now I don't mean that I planned to seek out my life's overall purpose this year (I pretty much know what God's purpose is for my life right now and that's being a wife and mom to my husband and kids). I mean making decisions or choices with a specific purpose or goal in mind. So often I do things just because - because I really don't know why, because I feel like I need to fill every minute, or because I'm procastinating. That has led to a lot of wasted time or unfinished (or unstarted) projects. Then I get mad or frustrated that I've really wanted to do something but haven't. All this to say that I didn't want us to make it to the end of summer without having really done anything.

We had a little family meeting and brainstormed about the various things each or all of us wanted to do this summer. Now we have them on this big piece of poster board so that we see it every day. Then when we're looking for something to do we consult the list and make a plan. It may seem really structured but it's not. It's actually a lot of fun figuring out when and where we're going to do everything.

We got off to a good start this week - we ran a 5K, went to the pool, fished and had a few workouts at the gym. Next week will be a little slow because both boys we'll be gone and it will just be me, Tim and Princess Mia. (We won't know what to do with just one child - I think I'm going to be a little sad.) But when they return we will see what other fun, purposeful memories we can make.

Happy summer!