A few weeks ago, as I was running home from an evening jog around the neighborhood, I was followed, part of the way, by an ice cream truck making its rounds. Not many people were out and no one flagged it down, so it went on about the route without stopping and selling any ice cream. And that made me a little sad.

Not just because I felt a little bad for the ice cream truck guy, driving around with no one to sell ice cream to (and not just because I was sad that I was running instead of enjoying ice cream), but because I’d be really sad if my future kids grow up in a world where they’ve never seen and ice cream truck. To me, that is something that is so…summer.

 

(Warning, all the photos in this post are OLD….as in Wyatt and I look like babies.)

Sadly, I think as we’ve gotten older and busier, we haven’t taken as much time to just relax and enjoy the summer, like we used to do when we were younger.

And, so, I resolved to stop and buy ice cream from that ice cream man sometime this summer. And, as I finished my run, I started composing a list of summertime activities that are easy to overlook and forget about. Later, I shared a few of these ideas with Wyatt and he helped me add a few more things to the list to round it out.

Now, these are items that are not really to-do list items, meaning they are pretty easy to accomplish (note: NOT items like “finish the kitchen”) and yes, they are on top of our already-in-progress resolutions and goals for the year.

So, in the spirit of sharing these goals with you in the hopes of us being accountable to cross these items off, here’s the completed list:

1. Buy ice cream from the ice cream truck.

2. Go fishing.

3. Float in a lazy river.

4. Go to a baseball game. Actually go to as many as possible.

5. Work on a fun-only (not to-do-list related) woodworking project.

6. Eat on a patio at a restaurant. (Or do this a lot!)

7. Go to an auction.

8. Go to a movie. (Maybe even a drive in movie?)

9. Make homemade lemonade and/or limeade.

10. Lay in a hammock. (Or swing in a swing if no hammocks are available.)

11. Soak up the sun in a pool, preferably while reading.

12. Play some lawn games in our yard.

13. Enjoy fresh berries, peaches, and if possible, combine those two items into a homemade pie.

14. Eat funnel cake/corn dogs/other street fair food.

15. Make homemade ice cream in our ice cream maker as many times as possible.

We have a few other goals we want to accomplish this summer, in addition to our resolutions, like I mentioned above, but we’re also really excited to try to enjoy as many of these fun, sometimes silly, activities as possible. If nothing else, it’s a way of keeping us focused on fun, in additional to functional.

Because if you’re like me, it’s really easy to start to look at summer as one giant weekend…which is when I start to cram it full of tons and tons of projects and not enough relaxing.

So, share some items you’d like to place on your summer bucket list. I’d love to inspire each other to relax more and really enjoy the summer. 

P.S. If you’re curious about how these items compare with our actual goals for the year, check out how we’re currently doing on our 2014 goals, here.