Put Together an Exciting Summer Bucket List for Your Whole Family

Hurray for an exciting “summer bucket list” AND for actually thinking about summer before it even gets here!

I confess I am not always able to do that.

Or maybe you just found this and you are in the middle of summer looking for ideas. That is okay too. Sometimes life is too busy or uncertain to get to plan far ahead. Trust me, I have been an Army wife for twenty years, so I relate hard to uncertain futures.

I am going to give you plenty of ideas here to make your own summer bucket list. Plus, I made a pretty print-out if you want a fun place to write yours out.

The main advice I have: Plan to do something with your kids this summer.

Do whatever you can find the money to do that you think they will enjoy. They are gone in no time.

Vacation gives you family time like nothing else. For a few days you are all locked together into the same car and hotel room or relative’s guest room. It forces you to all spend extra time together. And what happens when you spend time together, you make memories!

Also you grow closer and learn more about each other.

So much important growing happens on vacation. Plus, we only have a few years with our kids. Sad thought, but it is true.

Vacation with your kids does not have to cost much money either.

When I was a kid, our family could not afford expensive vacations. What I looked forward to in the summer was spending a week at my grandma’s house. We called her Maw-Maw, and I lived for that! Our family spent a lot of time together over the years on those two-hour road trips to all the different grandparents’ houses. We had three sets of grandparents.

Sometimes my grandma would take us on exciting trips to the beach with our cousin too, once we were old enough to be well behaved. Ha!

Here is a list of ideas to consider when building your Summer Bucket List:

• Put something on there for each member of the family as well as yourself.
• Pick an activity or two or three for the whole family and one for just you and your spouse (even if it’s just a date night).
• Then pick something for each individual kid. You can make that activity just about you and them, or they could bring along their siblings or even one of their friends. Whatever you want!
• Also put something on there that YOU are excited about. Having something to look forward to is a big uplifter in life. Sometimes anticipation of the thing brings more joy than the actual thing.
• Don’t forget your own parents. If you still have them, be thankful. As I write this, I know that many of my readers do not have this privilege anymore. Make plans to spend time with your parents this summer.
• Summer should be fun. Add an activity with some of your friends!
• Add something restful.
• Something you have never done before
• Your activities do not have to cost money. Visiting many parks and close by lakes or beaches are free or almost free. Board games, video games together, and playing outside are free too.

I actually dislike the phrase “bucket list.” Personally, I would call it ‘summer plans’ because I feel like “plans” are more likely to actually happen than a list of far-fetched wishes.

Want to see an example? Here is my Summer Bucket List:

-Beach Trip to a new beach we have never been before with Alan and all of our boys!

I am a little nervous about this because we usually ALWAYS go to Florida. However, we were invited by my friend Stacie to join a group of our friends who all go down to North Carolina for a week each summer.

And this is definitely happening. It is booked!

-Visit My Parents

We do this every summer without fail. This is a big deal for us because it is a twelve hour road trip, and that is not counting stops. It is worth it though.

Food for thought: My dad pointed out to us very early on that our kids will likely replicate what we do. If we never go home to visit our parents, they will never go home to see YOU. If we do not go home for Christmas, they won’t either when they are grown and flown.

-Visit Alan’s parents

Every summer and Christmas we visit both sides of the family. We get to see great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins too!

-Take an Anniversary Trip with Alan

We meant to do this last year and did not get to, so it is happening this year! Not sure where yet, but somewhere!

-Lazy Day at the Pool

-Take my teenagers to visit the local community college campus.

-Take my teenagers to visit a Christian college campus.

-And visit a state university.

-Go somewhere fun with my friend Amy, somewhere local since I have so many trips already planned.

-Take the boys to Dave and Buster’s.

-Jump at a trampoline park with the kids and Alan.

-Go to Water World. Bring my niece with us.

-Get the cousins to go to Big Time Fun with us again.

-Play Chess with the family.

-Play Catan with the family.

-Bake a big giant cake and make it pretty.

-Take Daniel camping, or at least make sure Alan takes Daniel camping.

-While at the beach, go out on a boat! (Alan and I love boats.)

-READ at least one book this summer. (Setting the bar low here.)

-Publish at least 20 blog posts. (Because I am still trying to fix my blog from taking last summer off.)

-Let each boy pick one reasonable fun thing to do, and do my best to make it happen.

So let’s do it! Let’s print our lists! Click here or below for the pretty summer bucket list printout.

Now you can see I still have many blank spaces on mine, so feel free to share your ideas in the comments.

I hope you all have fun dreaming up summer ideas. It will be here before we know it, and I always look forward to seeing everyone.

Happy planning!