The Summer Survival Guide

It's so you go to like 10 different parks or however many parks you have like kind of in your area for the whole day. So like you just go park hopping. It's like bar hopping, but for kids. I was like, do they serve margaritas? I mean, that would be great. Welcome back to Keep It Good. I'm your host Carly. And I'm your host, Emily. So we have hit summer. It's here. What are we doing? What are we doing with these kids? My kids cannot stand being bored, as they say.

Oh, it's time. It's time to shine as cruise director. Yes. We are here today to help you with some ideas on how to keep these kiddos busy, even if you are working. But once you get them from camp or daycare, you need a little help for the nighttime, just something for some good summer memories. Yeah. Make a little magic happen this summer, right? Yeah. So, Carr, you're home with the kiddos. Like all summer. Yep. This is my second time doing it. It was the best decision

I ever made. Like I'm very lucky as a nurse because I can kind of switch my schedule, pick up different hours. So yeah, last year we kept it very simple. We love hiking. So we'd wake up, we'd go for a hike, different hike all the time, and then we'd come back and do like the pool or arts and crafts. So every day you kind of did like a similar routine. You went for a hike or a walk of some sort every day? Yeah, that we're definitely going to keep in the routine. My son thrives on structure.

He does not do well with surprises or not knowing what to expect. So that's something that I kind of have to keep in mind and base our days upon. I made like a whole list of things that we can kind of do this summer to add in a few extra. Because it was great for like the first month last year, the hiking, swimming, art. But then it kind of got, they kind of got a little bored

of it. And I did too, you know, so this year we're going to incorporate that, but also add in a few of these fun things that I found and we'll see how it goes. But yeah, I mean, it's a struggle entertaining them all the time. Well, it's like, once they're done with one thing, they're like, so what, what is next? Like what, why? Like I just had a conversation with my older daughter and she was like, I never see my friends.

It's been three weeks. And I was like, you've been out of school for nine days and you saw someone two days ago. What do you mean you haven't seen? They're just so dramatic and just cannot be bored. I'm like, sorry, dude, you got to be bored for a little bit and we'll see people tomorrow.

And that's like the number one thing too is like we... have to let them be bored at times because that's when the imagination really takes over and they start to problem solve and like, you know, make up things, like draw things, create things. When you're constantly filling them with activities, it takes away from their own ability to kind of manage their self. And like, you know, like I said, problem solve, like, okay, I'm bored. I don't have somebody constantly setting up my

day and things, you know. And along with chores, too, we are very, you know, still got to do the chores in the summer. Like, things got to get done. Those towels got to get folded. Garbage needs to get brought up. So, yeah, we have a really fun summer, but there's also structure. There's also chores. There's also reading. Like, it's not just a free -for -all, you know, because then I think it's that much harder to reel them

in for school. So if you can kind of stay on the same... schedule, you know, with some flexibility here and there. I think you're setting yourself up for the fall, you know. Right. Well, we like structure as adults, too. You know, like we like to go to the gym at a certain time or, you know, do this at a certain time. So that makes sense. Yes. So what are we going to do, parents? What are we doing this summer? Here's a few ideas,

things that, you know. don't usually cost a lot of money or there is you know some activities that might require a little bit of a little bit of pocket change but so backyard let's start in the backyard okay let's do it you don't want to leave your house that day totally get it these are some things that i have set up in the past that worked out really well especially with boys but i'm sure it would work for girls as well yeah of course You got stuff lying around the

house. You don't need to go out and buy a whole kit. There is so many things that you can turn into an obstacle course and let them help you create it. So not only are you getting their imagination going, but you can get involved too and do the obstacle course. So then you're like fully, you know, it's just, it's funner I think for kids when adults jump in and do it as well. So that's a good one. It adds activity. Exercise. Yeah. I think every day of the summer, they need

to be moving. They need to be moving their body. Let's see, camping. You could do an outdoor camping. Don't even have to do it necessarily at night, because I wouldn't be caught dead camping in my backyard at night. Same. I'm terrified. There's bears in wildlife. But I'm more afraid of a spider. Yeah, I just I'm not a fan of it. But I mean, You can set up the tent in the shade in your yard, just like something different. And you'd be surprised what they come up with doing it.

It could be a little book nook. It could be Barbie area. Yeah. Yeah. So many things. Just having that tent set up, like it's a whole different play zone, you know? One thing we love doing is scavenger hunts. I come up with a list of just the most randomest shit that they have to find. Yeah. and it takes them forever, and it's fun. And a lot of it too, you can incorporate it into your afternoon art activity too. If you're

into art like me, I like to get that. in at least three times a week, something creative, crafty. So the other day we did a scavenger hunt and we found all these wildflowers, herbs, little tiny ferns, and we turned it into a bookmark. And it was super easy. You just need cardstock, tape, and your wildflowers. And these things came out beautiful. I love them. They were cool. It was so much fun. But, I mean, you can do any type of scavenger hunt. Look for a toad, four

-leaf clover, find an old coin. We've done it on a walk, too, just like we're going for a walk, but let's make it a little more fun, you know, something a little different. Yeah, it's crazy. But you don't even have to leave your backyard, you know? You can do this anywhere, really. What else? You ever do, like, water balloon baseball or tag or anything with your kids? Yeah, my kids, in our backyard, I mean, they love to ride their

bike and scooter and stuff like that. We have a really good neighborhood for those kind of activities, too. There's a lot of kids. It's like a big circle. So it's, you know, not a lot of car traffic besides the neighbors. But yeah, backyard stuff. They like to do soccer, those Velcro balls, you know, those, like, you put the little mitt on, you catch the ball. Honestly, I think we bought them at the dollar store for maybe $1 .25. Like, a set. or Target for under

$5. It was very cheap. But yes, we have a little sprinkler that we set up sometimes, almost like a little splash pad or just the regular old sprinkler. But yeah, tag a little bit. The girls kind of get bored with that. If they're playing with other kids or like hide and seek outside with other kids, they'll be more into stuff like that. But yes, we love a good water balloon toss. I actually just. added some to my target order.

You know those ones like where you fill it in like 20 or 30 or whatever on that stupid plastic thing? You like fill them all up at the same time. You got to be invested for that activity though. You too. You got to know what's in store, you know. Another thing that we started doing with the boys is gardening. We have this little tiny, even if you don't have room for a garden, you can do it in pots, anything where they have

to tend to it every day. you're going to have to help me do that because we don't garden and I don't know how I can barely keep things alive indoors. So it's cool for them to see every day like, oh wow, this basil is getting bigger and bigger and see what happens when you water it. And it's just a really cool learning experience for the kids. So we always start it on Mother's Day. We plant squash, whatever we want to incorporate into our diet that summer. And then the kids

get to see it grow and how it works. It's it's just a cool activity to get your kids started in early, you know, right? But like I said you can do it in pots if you don't have an area to put in a garden just little pots and they can do like a sunflower or Mint or you know anything right? It could just be a flower even yeah wild flower anything to just watch the process of how it works from seedling to This beautiful, you know creation. Yeah drawing contests we like

to do. So I'll set up, you know, like when you go to like the art studio and they have like this one thing and like a vase of flowers, you know, and then everyone draws the same thing. Yes, right. It's like that for a kid. So you could set up like a Barbie or a Spider -Man, you know, like any type of, any type of thing. And it just keeps them all entertained because they're all focusing on the same thing. You know, we do a lot of art during the summer. And it's

fun. And then when you do it all the time, at the end, you can have like a little art show. Like, look at all the things that we did and just hang it up for them. I hung them all up on this like privacy screen that we have. It's like a fence. And they just got to like, you know, it's like playing art studio, you know? They just get to like see their collection all up on the wall. And it's like, whoa, we did this. It's so cool. But yeah, I mean, there's tons

of things you could do in your own house. There's so many DIY things that you can turn popsicle sticks and an elastic into one of those things

where you launch the balls. You just have to Google and like Pinterest, hello Pinterest, like, yeah, but it makes the whole activity the whole morning because they're right, you know, they're following the directions and they're cutting up the the paper towel holder and they're turning it into this and then you can paint them and do this and right you there's like activity after activity like once you build it then you can paint it then you can try it out well and these

are stem activities too which are so popular in the schools now too right to get this kind of engineering and this mathematical mind working but you're also being creative at the same time you know you're making it how how you want it and how you visualize it. So neat. Yeah. And you're not spending any money because, I mean, how many of us have empty toilet paper rolls that we can collect? Oh, yeah. Milk jugs. Collect stuff in a week, you know? Yeah. Paper towel

holders and... Yeah. If you plan ahead, then you know the resources that you need and you are set without even spending money. We love to even paint rocks. Like, my kids will paint rocks. Let's go find rocks. There are those kits. You can buy, like, DIY, like, rock kit, you know, and you paint them and you're like, I just spent this money for a bag of rocks. I know. That you can find on a hike. Go find some. Yeah, I know. I love it. It's like we find some on a hike,

and then you can paint them. Activity number two. Yep. Yep. I know. And then another thing we do, too, is we make our own popsicles. And I started getting the boys involved. So then we start with the mango. They help me chop up the mango. And then it's literally just mango and yogurt. There's so many. recipes that are two ingredients, and you blend it, you put it in this Amazon little popsicle holder, and they're so good. We've never done a yogurt one. Oh, they're

delicious. And it follows the fine gold diet. So I mean, that's why I kind of got into that activity, because we have to be kind of careful with what we let them eat. But that's a great little snack for summer. Highly recommend. All right, so some of the local things that we've been looking into and trying is, I mean, we're very lucky we have our own pool. But if you don't, I remember growing up and going to the local pool. You get a season pass. And I mean, that's

where we grew up. So there's so many local pools in your area that you can just sign up and do. activities there, meet up with other families. Those were the best days of summer. Yeah, even if there's nothing in your town, surrounding towns typically have these activities for you to do too. Splash pads and, you know, communities all over have them for a family for the day. But love those. And then museums. We're going to be checking out a lot of museums this summer.

The first one that we're going to is this airplane one. I'm bringing my dad for Father's Day because he's very into planes. all these things. So, I mean, and with boys, I don't think girls would really be into it. But that's something we've never tried, we've never done. So we're doing that like the first week of July. But there's so many museums. There's the Norman Rockwell. If you're in our area, there's just so many. So whatever area you're in, and a lot of times

they do kid activities that are free. So just, you know, really take advantage of... your computer and start researching things in your town because there's so many things available that you would have never even thought to try with your kids. Like, I just looked into fire stations. They do tours for kids. So you can go into the fire station, look at all the equipment. If you call ahead, I'm sure they'll have somebody, you know, ready and prepared to kind of take your kiddos

onto the truck and, like, all the things. Like, how cool is that for a little kid? Oh, yeah. I would have loved to do that. So that's definitely on our bucket list. And speaking of bucket list, you got to make one with your kids. It's so cute to see what they come up with, what their goal is for the summer. Pick like five things that you really want to accomplish or go to or see

and you make it a goal. At least it gives you kind of like an aim to like, okay, so he really wants to go mini golfing in three different spots. Then you can plan ahead, and you can make that happen, and mom's a hero, you know? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Well, we just did a fun little experiment with the kiddos. Not experiment, but a field trip, we'll call it, with the kiddos for kind of their little bucket list. And that was fun.

So much fun. Yeah. We brought the kids to Bell and Raven, my favorite little spirituality store. And they have what's called a spell jar bar. and it's not like witchy like you know it's more of just making a wish setting intentions and you fill this little jar with herbs that bring out like either prosperity or protection or get away negativity like and then crystals and salt a little salts, yeah, a little charm. And all the kids wrote out their summer intention, their

wish. It was just so cute to see the four of them. I mean, they took it serious. They were... Yeah, they were very into it, which was awesome. They were very quiet. But yeah, that was a super, super fun, out of the box adventure day for them. Right. It was good intention for the rest of the summer, right? Let's see, what else? Farms. I love taking them to farms. Yep. It costs you

nothing. You get to experience animal life and a lot of them have guided tours or this one garden actually I just was looking up and it's huge and it's like a kid day. So like you walk around, they learn about all the different plants, all these different things and then afterwards they have this big barn and they do this whole arts and crafts center. And I think it was like $5

a kid, you know, it was so cool. But like if you look up different farms, the gardens in your area, like anything like that, they want to help you moms or dads, whoever's with these kids all day. Like they set up these free activities, which are so cool. So definitely, you know, look into your farms so you can have them pick their own vegetables, go strawberry, blueberry picking. We are lucky we have a lot of farms near us too for all these fun adventures and farmers markets

and things like that. Oh yeah, and farmers markets you can turn into a treasure hunt as well. You can hit up three different farmers markets and have a list of things that you want to find and it just turns it into a game for kids but it's a win -win because you're kind of grocery shopping at the same time. Right, right, right. You get the stuff you need and it's local and organic and all that. Yeah, it's so fun. Have you ever

done like a park, a park passport day? No. It's so you go to like 10 different parks or however many parks you have like kind of in your area for the whole day. So like you just go park hopping. It's like bar hopping, but for kids. I was like, do they serve margaritas or? I mean that would be great. That's like literally like a park like slides and swings. Yeah. Like that kind of park? Okay. Yeah. look in your town or surrounding towns and be like, what are six that we've never

been to? And just go around, check them all out, bring some snacks. Crown a winner, like this is the best one. Yeah, name the winner. Maybe stop for ice cream in between or whatever you want to do in between. But it's so fun to just check out all the different parks in your area. And I mean, going to the park was like my favorite thing when I was little. Oh, yeah. So fun. I loved a good seesaw. I just always was scared of that bridge that shook. Oh yeah, it kind of

rumbles. That part, like, nah. That's hilarious. Did not like that. What about bike paths? We're very lucky again in our area where there's bike paths and they call them rails to trails. I don't know what they're called to other states, but... That's so fun to either go for a walk or to bring the kids scooters or bikes. We love doing that too. And you could also bring chalk and decorate a little area or write like a fun message to people who are like maybe gonna run. Like you

can do it. Just something a little different.

Oh, that would be fun. Yeah, to do. And again, there's like a lot of these also have like little stands like look for this bird or over here these flowers mean this and it's kind of neat for them to learn and they can stop some have like exercise equipment on the sides that's kind of fun for them to like oh okay I'm gonna try these push -ups or I'm gonna you know do hopscotch here or something kind of again gets their body moving and again in the summer it's like you know try

to do these things early because it's just so hot That's that's the thing you got to get out at like 8 in the morning to go hiking or these these things because once 10 30 11 hits like you're not you're not gonna want to do any of that right But when it does get hot the next one on the list is libraries nice AC They also provide free programs and activities. Like weekly, there's a lot of stuff going on at these libraries. Tons. And it teaches the kids a lot about, you

know, just everything. I mean, it's so the library is so cool. I love libraries. I don't want the kids to like not read all summer and then show up the next grade and they're like, oh, right. You lose your skills. Yeah. So that's kind of why we started the summer off with that adventure. You know the scavenger hunt bookmark because

now we we have our bookmark ready. We went to the library We picked out our book and we're reading as a family because my husband was fine Yeah, my husband doesn't read I read every night, but it it makes it so that it's fun for them They're not just because I don't trust them to be like okay go up and read for 20 minutes they're not reading for 20 minutes, you know and how do you know what words they're getting stuck

on, like all this. So when you do it, like we just climb in my bed, one son reads half a chapter, because the book we got was like 12 pages for the chapter. So one son will read six pages, the other son will read the other six pages. And we only read a chapter a night, but we're all on board and we're all learning about the Hardy Boys right now and we're all into this story. And then, you know, and it's a series.

You just have to find something that the family is all into and that's hard for our level right now like where we're at Yeah to do a family book, but with older kids and they both can read that'd be yeah Well, you can kind of like maybe your oldest one could do majority of the reading but at least it's kind of like your little one could be looking at the words to Yeah, and like she probably will But my husband does that with my daughter. That's kind of their time because the

kids are with me more. So they kind of have that. They pick a book. They read together at night. And that's been a nice little treat for both of them, I think. And then hopefully once my little one starts reading, I would love to incorporate that. That'd be great. She makes up stories and we read a book and she just goes with whatever's on the page, you know? Well, that's also fun, too, is when the kids do this story time where

I'll start off the story. Once upon a time, there was this man who, you know, da -da -da -da -da. And then I point to one son, and then he has to add to it. And then, you know, it's really funny to see where the story goes. Yeah. We'll talk about imagination working. Oh, it's so much fun. It's fantastic. Yeah. That and, like, writing a play. Yes. Oh, my God. Love. We did that so much growing up. Absolutely. Yeah, backyard plays. I mean, you could set that up and that could

be like weekly or every two weeks. Right, get the neighborhood kids involved. Yeah, even grandma, grandpa. Like, you know, it could be just a really fun. Yeah, it's just so much fun writing, directing, setting up costumes. Like, you will be surprised at how into it they get, you know, because like in your mind, you're like, yeah, they would never. No, they run it. You know, they run the show.

I remember doing it when I was little with my friend and we would just like, they have little books too that are kind of like plays, you know, so like maybe you're not into writing. You can just go to the library and look up these little things and like, oh, it's Eric and Sarah, you know, and like you each play your part and it's just so fun. It's so cute. Or even a talent show. showcase your talents, make it fun for your kids,

whatever. Doesn't have to be spectacular, you know, if one kid's learning how to play the recorder. Recorder, uh -huh. Big, big in our house right now. Sounds great. Yeah, practice your song, and then that's your spot on the talent show on Friday night. Your hot cross buns. Yeah, so

that's just some fun little ideas there. Also, you might not be into it with girls, but Lowe's and Home Depot do these like free Project kits you can go they learn how to do a birdhouse make a car or I don't know they have all these random little things that if you see one that kind of Hits, you know the interest of your kid Those are my husband has brought some of them home We just haven't we haven't given it a go where they haven't seemed interested in what they were

doing But I think that that's so cute I want my kids to know how to build stuff. Yeah, definitely. You know, put things together, and I think that's great. It's such a good skill to have. Yeah, my son, the oldest one, no matter what we buy him for a toy, he takes it apart and makes something new from it. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. That's so funny. It's funny, but also like annoying at the same time. Like we spent money on that? Yeah, like we just bought that. It was a brand

new toy. I mean, it's awesome that you just made something entirely different, but... Can we just play with what it was intended for for just like a week? Right. What else? So also going on with the crafty Home Depot Lowe's Michaels, I just learned this also does a free virtual camp creatology. So you can either do it in person or online. I wonder if that's with that brand. There's a brand that they sell. Creatology. I wonder if

it's through them. Oh, OK. Yeah, I've never, I never really looked into it, but you know, when I was kind of researching like things to do this summer, I found that I was like, get out of here. Michael's, it's like one of my favorite stores. How did I not know this? I feel like basics you guys are going to think of too, like the zoos and beaches. In our state right now, all beaches are free for residents. I think that's pretty cool. You don't even have to pay an entrance

fee. Someone told me that's been going on since COVID. I don't know if that's true or not, but a lot of things are free. You know, like again, Google, stuff in your area, Pinterest, like there's just, there's so much and you probably have the things for arts and crafts like already in your home, you don't even need to buy it. So, you know, Sue obviously will not be here. We have an aquarium around us. Like, but those are just neat things and something simple and you only

need to go one time. Like it's not like something you need to continuously go to so you don't have to pay all that money every time. But, you know, once even every other summer or something. But. It's fun if they haven't been in a while or you don't have a farm near you to go see the animals or feed them or whatever. And like a lot of, so like you're probably like, well, I don't have money to freaking do all these activities all

the time. Right. So I don't know about your house, but like tattling here is a big, it's a big thing. Tattling all the time. We have a little bit of that. All day, every day. And it got to the point where I was like, enough, enough with the tattling. If he's not bleeding. Nothing's broken. I don't want to hear about it, you know, but that didn't seem to work so I made a toodles jar and it's

Kind of like a tattle but in a good way. So if you tell me a toodle You know, oh he he helped me clean up my bedroom, you know without being asked you catch him doing something good And you tell me about it. We write it down. We put it in the jar and we got a toodles When that jar is full that's when we've earned the big ticket items for summer is the zoo or the aquarium or mini golf. Anything that costs money and time

and travel, you know, that's what we... So it's giving them kind of something to work towards, but it's also helping them acknowledge good behavior. Because you should see their face when my oldest son will be like, I just caught him... being really kind to the cat. Or, you know, like, I just caught him helping me without, I didn't even ask him and he helped me clean up all the toys. You know, and then your other son's like, thank you. You know, like, I don't know, it's

just cute. It's adding a whole different dynamic this summer already with the old toodles. So if you have tattlers, turn them into little toodlers. I have whiners, so. Oh, you could still do it. We could probably still do it. Turn them into winners. Turn the whiners into winners. Gonna have to get a winner jar. And I made the jar really cute. It was an activity day and we covered a mason jar with construction paper with things that said like, I saw it. You're awesome. Good

job. Yeah, it's important to have those wins too. acknowledgement where it's due, for sure. Yeah, so it's like, oh, you keep doing these good behaviors. And I laid down the ground rule, like I'm not getting all these toodles and you're doing them just to get a toodle. It's really like an authentic toodle, you know. So, yeah, hopefully we fill that big mason jar soon and we can do something cool like quasi or six flags or like a really fun day, you know. Yeah, a bigger

day. Yeah. Yeah. Time capsule. Have you ever done that? No, but I want to. We just talked about that. Yeah, I would love to do that with the kids. So fun. I think they'd both at their ages kind of, you know, get it more too. Yeah. Yeah. But that I think would be fun. That's a fun one to do. Even for adults, I love the idea of a time capsule and then it's just so cool. Yeah, no, that's a really fun idea. Bucket list for sure. Well, and what about rainy days? We

kind of have a little list for that too. We can go through quickly. Yeah, so definitely you could do a time capsule on a rainy day. Right. Buck inside. Indoor. Just think outside the box, and then put it in the box. Right. And baking? Baking. Baking or doing a little bit of cooking, even some prep for dinner. My kids love to chop. We have these Montessori knives, and they like to help me chop vegetables and different things like that. They still are kind of sharp, but

it's nylon. It's not actual metal. But they've been using them since they were really little. So they like to do that and obviously making like, you know, sweets, brownies and cookies. And, you know, we look up a different recipe or something or you guys make those muffins. Like, you know, it's kind of fun for them. Arts and crafts for sure, because that's indoor stuff. But sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, there's a lot of things. Most of these things that we mentioned before,

too, can definitely be done on a rainy day. There's definitely things you can do indoors. Oh, yeah. Just to keep them busy. If you have an old t -shirt, you can do a t -shirt activity where you're repurposing it, making it into something new. You can look how to make an American flag with your handprint or anything. It's just a fun little thing that keeps the tablets away. That's the most important thing this summer is to just pick up the tablet as least as possible.

And it's OK to be bored, too. I want to reiterate that. I let's bring back the 90s summer, you know, like we didn't have all this shit to do growing up and we made it work and we went on adventures in the backyard and like did all these things. But sometimes I want to get involved and have fun, too. I feel like whoever's home with the kids, why not have fun yourself and make it a memorable summer? These are the things

that they're going to remember. Right. Even I have a couple things here too we talked about for like with a mom friend right whether it's a neighbor or just a girlfriend you know someone you trust it's like trade kiddos for a couple hours right hey Monday I have a doctor's appointment anyway you can watch my kids for a couple hours and then I'll take your kids on Thursday afternoon and we'll go to you know the rails to trails for a bike ride why don't you go get your nails

done or finish up that laundry you needed. Trade things off if you are somebody who is home and isn't working during the day too. Share the responsibility. It takes a village. We hear it all the time. I love my village. I'm very blessed. And we have to take care of each other. So it's okay to send the message like, it's not good here. Please send help. Send help and a bottle of champagne. Or even a box of wine. Or whatever. Whatever you need. But I think that that's important,

too. Like, it's OK to ask for some assistance, too, if you are home all the time. Yeah. Or even just team up and do things together. Exactly. Have a partner in crime, like, hey, we're doing this. We'd love for you to come and join. You get a little mom time to chat about stuff. The

kids have great time together. It only even you know an hour and a half two hours doesn't need to be a full day Oh, I know like last year when we went hiking I had so many of our friends be like we want to go on adventures with you Yeah, definitely because then it you can go to the same hike, but with two different kids with you It's a whole new hike, and it's totally different They loved it And then you have a buddy and you're you're venting and getting all the things out

while the kids just explore in the woods Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, I love it your village and yeah also those parents who are working you know, when you get home from work, I know you're tired, but after you're picking up the kids from camp or daycare, you know, it doesn't have to be every night, but you can make some of these memories

still for the summer. Like, you know, maybe on Wednesdays, you guys do an outdoor movie night or, you know, it's s'mores on Sunday s'mores or, you know, you can make up different things

or like a game of basketball. Altogether, you know, however many of you there are yeah, like we have this one thing coming up, which is so much fun I can't wait so one time one time we went to a birthday party and it was kids versus adults baseball and It was so fun as adults to just let loose and like the kids see you in a different light And you're like, oh my god, I can't believe my mom can run like that, you know, just it's funny It's just fun for the whole family.

So we've set up a family kickball and that's coming up in a couple weeks, and I'm excited to do that. Can't wait. Because it's just good quality family fun. Yeah, that's so fun. Like you said, something to look forward to. Yeah. Do you ever take the girls to flea markets and things like that? No. Nope. More or less because that's just not my jam personally, so I've only done it a couple times. I'm very into flea markets, but you can make it into a treasure hunt, too.

You know, like a scavenger hunt. and you'd be surprised at the things that you find. You don't necessarily need to buy them, but you could just write a list of a blue diamond, a doll's hand, gold coin, a skate, or an old bike wheel. And literally, it's like I spy those books, because it's just shit everywhere. So if it's a rainy day, find a flea market and go on the most epic

scavenger hunt. and just cross everything off of your list and then maybe treat yourself to one cool vintage book or something if you're into it. No, that's cool. Maybe I have to check it out again. I haven't been to one since probably 10 years. Well, okay. It's on the bucket list. That'll be on our bucket list. At the flea market. There's just so many things. There's so many things. There's so many. We could be here for an hour. Seriously, I'm surprised we've been

going this long. One more thing that I think is super cute before we go. As we were talking about like cleaning our houses right and getting rid of stuff and Like donating it letting your kids see like yes, I can let this toy go You know, maybe there's another child who would like to play with it go through their closets and clothes and you know, there's the Goodwills and South Asian armies, but there's also domestic abuse homes and different shelters and things

like that. I would look for some more of those over some of the big companies to donate to. Yeah, like the rescue relief funds. Yeah, but because then you're donating things, the kids are seeing that they're starting to understand this is a great rainy day activity. They're starting to understand like, okay, wow, you know, this can help someone. You're kind of giving a little teaching lesson there, too. But it started to

get me to think about nursing homes. And so we were talking about that to like senior centers and nursing homes. A lot of people who maybe don't have a lot of family, a lot of family left or people in the area maybe didn't have children,

so there's no grandkids. And we found out that if you contact different nursing homes, you can get like lists of people who live there and have birthdays coming up and the kiddos can write birthday cards to people or draw them pictures and you could drop them off and that would just make somebody's day and I love that gives me goosebumps makes me happy and a lot of these places you can just go and visit too so that could be a kind of a fun activity too to just

kind of or you know spend the time go visit that great aunt you'd really really make their day and it would make you feel good too yeah My aunt was in a nursing home and it was like right around Valentine's Day and we were going to see her and the boys made Valentine's for everyone on the unit. And I mean, it was just a soul -filling day to see these people get a Valentine and their eyes lit up, you know, they see these beautiful little boys come in and they're just like, oh,

sweetheart, you know, and it's so cute. It's good for the kids. It's just good. It's a good... thing to do. So even if you go once, I mean, it's a really great. Just like a community project, right? A little different. That's so cute. Two years ago, I looked into getting the boys into the soup kitchen, you know, to kind of help and give back. And I think anywhere that you can help out in your community is huge. It sets the tone for the family, for the kids to kind of

aspire to and give back. You look on the news and like, fires all over the place. House fires. Guess what? That family lost everything. So instead of dropping it off at Goodwill, you know, maybe look into the towns that just had a house fire and see where you can drop off the toys or the old bathing suits that don't fit, like anything, a lot of puzzles, games, whatever. That's a great way to end it and to give back to the community 100%. I love that. I love that idea. I mean,

we literally could go on and on. I have like local community gardens, like all these things that you can, my list is ridiculous, but I'm looking at the time and our kids are not going to sit quiet for very much longer. So I feel like we need to wrap it up. Let's do it. Give us our quote, girl. Yeah. So this quote that I found kind of just is perfect for a summer vibe as a family. I hope I say this name right.

It's either OG or OG. It goes, the greatest legacy we can leave our children is happy memories. I'm putting it out there that every family listening, every mom, father, you just make the most epic family memories this summer because that's what it's all about. It's not about where you go. It's about you as a unit and just making the best of what you got. You can literally have nothing and still make it really, really cool. Core memories. Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, happy

start to summer. Yay. Wishing you all a really good week. And as always, keep it good.