Summer Fun

School's out for summer!  We are officially on summer break here in our house and so far, we are off to a great start!  We spent our day yesterday in the city doing our 5k walk for the March of Dimes and it was a great day for it.  Starting out, we had cloudy conditions but by halfway through the walk, the sun was out and it was getting hot!  We enjoyed our walk through the city and for that reason, this is one of my most favorite 5k courses around.  We walked along the river, over two bridges and we even got to walk on the warning track of PNC Park!

After the walk, we enjoyed more of the festivities outside of PNC Park, with music, inflatable fun stuff for Lincoln, food, balloon swords and sunshine. 

We got ready to head in to PNC Park for our first ever, family trip to a Pittsburgh Pirates game!!  I am not a fan of baseball, I never was but I am always up for going to a fun, sporting event with family.  We had a great time and Lincoln loved his first baseball game.  The rest of us have been to games but just never all together!

We left the game in the 7th inning and we were down by 2......after we left, the Pirates came back and won the game!  Sort of sad we missed it but we left to go out to dinner just the five of us and we had fun there. 

We got home and since the kids had ice cream after their dinner and Chuck and I didn't, we left and got ice cream, just the two of us. 

It was a busy day and I am exhausted but I loved every second of it.  Chuck and I are trying to create memories with the kids and doing things that the kids will enjoy.  It's not always what other people would do but we are having a blast.  I'm hoping to keep going with some fun summer outings with the kids.  We are still trying to decide what to do when Chuck takes some vacation days later in the summer.  We were hoping to go away for a long weekend but we're honestly not sure if that is going to happen.  Small day trips seem to be more likely for us and that's okay, as long as we are together is all that matters. 

Some things on my mind for this summer:

Summer Reading Program at our local library, of course.  Lincoln needs practice and Jada has some required reading this summer so why not join in on the fun and earn prizes in the process?! 

Swim Lessons. Lincoln has never had swim lessons but he loves the water so one of the local pools is offering FREE swim lessons during the month of July!  You can't beat that, I am hoping to get him to join in the fun and learn that it's okay to put your head under the water!

Camping. We are definitely going on a camping trip at the end of this month but we are hoping to go a few more times than that.  We love camping, the outdoors and roasting marshmallows so hopefully we can do just that.

Hiking.  We went on a hiking trip weeks ago and we all agreed that we are keeping that on our list of family fun trips so we would like to go to different local locations and hike different parks.  It's free, fun and healthy! Win, win!!

Making memories isn't all about spending a ton of money for the most exciting vacations.  There are tons of things that can be done close to home that will allow for your family to walk away smiling and full of memories to last a lifetime.  I want my kids to take away that lesson and one day say "remember when we...........that was so fun!"