What are your plans for summer? Are you all ready? I’m so not.

I’m looking on Facebook and see moms who have their stuff together talking about how little Billy is ready for his baseball camp, and little Jenny is doing gymnastics camp. Both Billy and Jenny are doing tennis and karate in between soccer games and girl scouts, and church camp and volunteering… I’m like… ummm…. what planet are you from? Then I turn around and see my little munchkins looking at each other like:

Yeah, so…I have zero planned. Zip. It really had me feeling “behind” for a moment. Like, am I focusing too much on business efforts? Should I have my kids summer all planned out already? Should I send them to some kind of camp? Should I find some extra lessons?Then I had to remember that I cannot live my life via facebook comparisons, and I snapped the heck out of it. #realtalk. Then I decided to choose to feel free instead.

Speaking of Facebook, the “memories” feature showed me that today, last year I was cruising on the Norwegian Escape with my family and was featured on People.com. We were living it up. Today was pale in comparison, though I did get a new car for the week from Kia!

So, after I got out of my feels of bad mom with no summer prepped, I did one of my favorite activities to boost my mood and outlook: list making!

Here’s how I mapped out our summer:

First I daydreamed a vision of what I’d love my summer to look like, as unrealistic as it may be. This included a magical nanny who also cleans and travels with us, John somehow having 3 months of vacation time, relaxed travel to chill locations for extended stays, and no day-to-day work to do because it’s all automated and outsourced…. Ha!

Then I got real and mapped out a loose plan for our summer based on how I want the summer to feel and the emotions I wanted me, my kids and even John to have. And finally I had a little fun making a random summer bucket list.

• How I want this summer to feel
• Specific adventures I want to have
• Overall theme for the summer
• Specific moves I need to make for the ideas to become reality

Our overall theme for the summer:

Stress-Free Family Fun

I want this summer to feel:

Fun, joyous and adventure filled, connected as a family, very low stress, but still exciting! (luckily almost everything excites the kids and I so we’re good there!)

Adventures I want to have:

Beach trips as a family of four, beach trips just me and the kids, explore all over Florida as a family, enjoy unschooling as a way of life, Family bike rides (now that Kai can ride), Theme Park and Attraction excursions. I have visions of us strolling along a boardwalk in a random Florida beach town, and having picnics on the beach.

Goals to achieve:

Get Bikes for the whole family (Only Ro has one now and Kai has a trike), Get both kids enrolled in an enrichment class and back into swim classes, actively unschool, find a new yoga place with convenient class times, decide on that 3rd baby or nah.

To make it happen:

I have to be extra intentional with my time this month and set a few things in place to free up my time in the 3 months ahead. I’m hiring help with a few aspects of my business, and automating all I can. I know I’ll be doing some business travel in the coming months, but I am trying to be very kid-focused, and self-care focused in all my pursuits

Summer Bucket List

This has items for the kids and for us as a family unit…and a couple just for me.

1. beach as much as possible
2. explore many Florida counties as a family
3. start an herb garden with the kids
4. get an above ground pool for the kids
5. do “summer camp at home”
6. get kids back into swim class
7. Visit Disney
8. Visit Legoland
9. Use my big girl camera often
10. Make new meals
11. Intentional art projects for the kids
12. See Cars 3
13. Visit zoo
14. Visit kids museums
15. Visit aquarium
16. Explore more indoor play spaces
17. Early AM or Evening playground trips
18. Week-long family vacay (fingers crossed!)
19. Get a tattoo
20. BBQ lots
21. Family Bike Rides
22. Family Nature Walks
23. Visit a water park
24. Do a treasure hunt
25. Mini Golf
26. See if Ro will let me cut his hair
27. 5K run/walk
28. Do an outdoor food truck event
29. Visit Universal Studios
30. Take a boat ride
31. Visit Greenmarket as a family
32. Do a local scuba dive
33. Visit Bush Gardens
34. Do a digital detox for at least a weekend.
35. Be IN PHOTOS with my children
36. Beach yoga with the kids
37. Make a new mom-friend
38. Connect with current local mom friends
39. Go bowling
40. Take a weekend away without the kids!

So, with this list I wanted to have a lot of air conditioned options, and fun travel, but keeping it low stress by not having an agenda, itinerary or timeline for any of this. I don’t even have the desire to cross all of these off! I just wanted to have the ideas out of my head and into the universe. Now let’s see what actually manifests. I am looking forward to our summer.

What is on YOUR Summer Bucket List?