With my youngest having had her last day of school yesterday, Summer is officially off to a start!

This year, like many Canadians, we’re on the stay-close-to-home plan this summer. Life with 4 kids is expensive and travel with 4 kids is expensive, so we haven’t scheduled any major trips.  Road trips are a possibility, depending on what’s going on with work and what the budgetary requirements of such a trip would entail. Camping will likely be a highlight as well 🙂

So, while I’m not going to call it a completely STAYCATION summer, I am calling it a stay-close-to-home summer, and it officially starts today 🙂

To be honest, I’m really excited about it. People from all over the world travel to be here, and how often do we not take the time to appreciate what is right here in our own backyard ( figuratively and literally, in our own backyard!).  Have you ever said you’d like to be a tourist in our own city?  I certainly have.

The idea is that I am going to consciously try to do at least a little something to savour summer for the next 61 days, beginning today.  Note that I am counting 61 days until Back-To-School, summer will actually last longer than that! 

I want to warn you in advance-it may not happen. Work and life often get in the way of ‘living’.

Here’s the thing, though: I think that as parents we often forget about the joys of the ‘little things’. There’s a trend towards family ‘experiences’ that are ‘big’ but we forget about the little experiences that we all enjoyed so much as kids. I guess this will be something like what I shared on my BT segment Planning Summer – Camp Joey Style, but sharing our experiences as they happen.

Please know that the ‘something special’ of the day will not always be an outing, it may be letting the kids have popsicles before dinner, #JustBecause, or having them wash the car. Honestly, it’s these ‘small’ experiences that are the stuff that memories are made of. Another warning: It may not always be about the kids, either, it may be eating a slice of watermelon with my hubby on the porch after the kids have gone to bed and just ‘being’ for 15 minutes.

So while I don’t necessarily think that you’re all so interested in the fact that I let the kids have popsicles before dinner, or that my hubby & I had watermelon on the porch, the idea has multiple purposes:

1. I selfishly want to commit to it…in writing…because I feel that I will actually come out of summer feeling more energized if I give myself the goal of some form of summer pleasure each day- for the family, for myself & my husband, or even just for me. Perhaps that feeling of summer just flew by won’t be as strong, because I will have consciously ‘lived’ for even a small moment for each of these 61 days. I guess it will be sort of like my ‘gratitude journal for summer’…but on the blog 🙂
2. For all of my readers who are staying close to home this summer, and who may also be feeling very budget-conscious: I am hoping this will inspire you as well – to make the most of it by highlighting all of the fabulous experiences that await us so close to home.  Some of the experiences will undoubtedly have a price-tag attached, and some will be the kind that are FREE.
3. I would love to hear from YOU.  What are you doing to savour even some of your 61 days of summer?  What small pleasures and traditions do you have that will be the stuff that memories are made of?

With that, I invite you to follow along on my little journey of summer awareness.  I will be using the hashtag #61DaysOfSummer and I invite you to do the same.

By the way…the pic of the fireworks up above was from the municipal fireworks display that we enjoyed last night…and it was free 🙂  So while yesterday wasn’t the official 1st day of summer vacation for our family, it was the 1st night…and that was our something special to savour summer 🙂

Wishing you a beautiful start to the long weekend, to summer and to appreciating a little something special every day for at least the next 61 days.

Tanya