It’s that time again!  Our local weather keeps teasing us with hot days that make it clear that summer is just around the corner!  I’m depending on my Summer Bucket List more than ever this year, as my children have reached a whole new level of fighting that I am certain will send me to the loony-bin if I don’t have a clear plan of attack.  That clear plan of attack comes in the form of my Refreshing Summer Bucket List.

As always, the Summer Bucket List printable includes 50 items.  My personal bucket list has 20 additional items that are specific to our corner of the world where we call home.  Each year, I stick with most of our faves and sprinkle in some new ones to keep things refreshing.  I feel honored that my local friends have come to rely on my Summer Bucket List so much that they have submitted some of their own suggestions – homemade ice-cream sandwiches being one of them.  I may regret that addition, as it sounds like a lot of work, but here’s to keeping things fresh, literally.

I now present my Refreshing Summer Bucket List…

1. Visit a New Park
2. Get Free Slurpees on July 11 at 7-Eleven – I feel like most people are now aware that you can get free Slurpees at 7-Eleven on 7/11.  If not, this is the year to try it out.  Thankfully, they set it up so that the lines are minimal.
3. Find and Follow a YouTube Tutorial – Last year, we did a YouTube Tutorial on how to make rubber stamps.  We have recently fallen in love with Letterboxing, which is further down my list.  We decided it was time to make our own stamps.

   

4. Take a Full Moon Walk – June 20, July 19, or August 18
5. Do a Day of Service – Our day of service last year was our best yet.  We brought cookies to our local fire department, we brought cards to our local retirement center, and then we went to the hospital and handed out coloring sheets & crayons to kids in the ER waiting room, and taped baggies of money to the vending machines for unsuspecting strangers.  A highlight for the kids was that a better angle of the following picture was printed in the retirement center’s monthly newsletter and mailed to our family.

   

6. Celebrate a “National” Holiday – National Ice-Cream Day is on Sunday, July 17th, this year.  If you’d prefer National Watermelon Day, you can celebrate on Wednesday, August 3rd.  Don’t let me hold you back though, celebrate as many as you want by looking through Foodimentary’s National Food Holidays.
7. Do Letterboxing – If you’re not familiar with it, it’s like going on a treasure hunt.  I feel like the Letterboxing website may be able to describe it better than I can.  We found a park last year that had four hidden throughout it.  Not only was it fun to follow the clues to the Letterbox, but it was also nice to see the beautiful sites along the way!
8. Attend a County Fair
9. Participate in a Reading Program – Last year we did both the Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program and our local library’s program. Double the reading fun & double the prizes.
10. Have a Water Balloon Fight – the last few years, we have done a HUGE water balloon fight with loads of friends on the last day of school to kick off the summer.  Every family is asked to bring their own water balloons, and then it’s complete chaos for about 5 minutes.
11. Paint a Canvas – I had no idea how affordable a small canvas is at a local craft store.  My kids have a continual desire to create.  This summer, they can put their creativity on something more permanent than a piece of paper.
12. Make a Popsicle Stick Puzzle

    

13. Have a Family/Friends Game Night
14. Host a Minute to Win It Night – My best suggestion is to hit up Pinterest to decide which games you want to do for this one.  We did a few different ones that involved plastic cups so that we could get the most out of the supplies we had available.  We also did two activities that used a tissue box.  One activity was to see who could empty a tissue box faster by removing the tissues one-by-one.  Once we had an empty tissue box, we used it for the Junk in the Trunk game.  We’ve hosted two of these now, and they keep getting funnier the more effort we put into the games.
15. Go Camping
16. Go on a Bike Ride
17. Make Popsicles
18. Go Bowling
19. Make Homemade Ice-cream Sandwiches
20. Wash the Car
21. Stargaze – a friend of mine has organized a stargazing gathering for the past two summers.  Each family brings blankets, chairs, and snacks to share.  We meet up at an elementary school and stargaze in the open field.  It’s important to know the schedule of the sprinklers in said field.  We learned this the hard way.
22. Help in the Yard
23. Have a Lemonade Stand
24. Play Glow Stick Ring Toss – We played glow stick ring toss while we waited for the fireworks to start last Fourth of July.  As I noted last year, I found this cool activity posted by one of Design Dazzle‘s contributors, Jamie from C.R.A.F.T., titled Summer Camp: Glow In The Dark Ring Toss
25. Do Sidewalk Chalk Drawings
26. Write and Illustrate a Story
27. Host a Talent Show – Hands down my favorite Summer Bucket List item.  I have done this for the past three years.  Every family that participates has to have at least one child and one adult perform in the talent show.  We use my friend’s sound system, and families bring their chairs, some treats to share, and their talent.  We hold it in our backyard and it is such a fun night!  You can learn more about this activity by checking out my post The Power of a Bucket List, which also includes my first Summer Bucket List.
28. Complete a Jigsaw Puzzle
29. Get a Manicure and Pedicure
30. Read a Book, Then Watch the Movie – As mentioned in my Free Printable Ultimate Summer Bucket List post,  Andrea’s Notebook is perfect to make your search easier for the right book-movie.  We’ve done Nim’s Island and Babe: The Gallant Pig in the past.  Both were easy reads.
31. Do Karaoke
32. Play a Board Game
33. Sleep Wherever You Want Night – A friend of mine does this in her home sometimes.  The kids get to pick where they sleep that night.  Sometimes her kids have chosen to sleep in the closet or in an empty bathtub (ouch).  My kids are ALWAYS begging to sleep with me.  This is their chance.
34. Trace Our Bodies & Make Flat “Selfies” – This is a spin on Flat Stanley.  You need not take your Flat “Selfie” with you on your adventures, but my friend assures me that her kids spent practically an entire day decorating their Flat “Selfies.”
35. Eat a Snow Cone
36. Have a BBQ with Friends
37. Watch Fireworks on July 4^th
38. Attend a Farmer’s Market or Festival
39. Play with Mega-Bubbles – This one is a blast!  In past years, I used a Homemade Giant Bubble Recipe I found on the website Happy Hooligans.  An important thing to note is that the mixture needs to sit for at least an hour before use.  Take that time into consideration.  Also, the more bubbles you make, the more successful the bubble production.  The San Francisco Globe website has a formula for mega bubbles that seems like it might work better, so I’m considering trying that one this year.

    

40. Read a Book in the Shade of a Tree
41. Make a Backyard Obstacle Course
42. Go on a Scavenger Hunt – My favorite scavenger hunt to do is an Alphabet Scavenger Hunt, which you can download through my link for free.  The Alphabet Scavenger Hunt is one where you have each letter of the alphabet with a blank line following it.  This makes it a little more flexible, plus it helps the younger ones work on the letters of the alphabet.  We’ve done this scavenger hunt on road trips to help the drive go smoother.
43. Write & Mail a Letter to Someone
44. Play on a Slip-n-Slide
45. Play Life-size Hungry, Hungry Hippos – THE MOMENT I saw video of this activity, I KNEW it had to be on my Summer Bucket List.  I wish I had my own pictures to share, but this summer will be a first for me.  You’ll have to check out this link to the Oddly Entertaining Life-Sized Version of ‘Hungry, Hungry Hippos’ Game.
46. Have a “Late-Over” Night – I’m a “No Sleepover Type Mom.”  This is the alternative that I give my kids.  All the fun of a sleepover, but the other kids head home around 10 PM.
47. Have a Tea Party – I have a friend who has four daughters.  It’s an absolute blast to co-host this one with her every summer.
48. Play at a Water Splash Pad
49. Go to $1 Movie at Regal Cinemas – The 2016 Summer Movie Express includes nine weeks of kids movies offered for $1/person.
50. Kids Cook Dinner Night

As promised, you can print out my Refreshing Summer Bucket List for free by clicking on the link.  We place our Summer Bucket List on the fridge.  It becomes an exciting thing for us all to watch as the items get completed.  And it’s a great reference, when we are all bickering, to just say, “What’s on the list that we can do?”  My summers have never been better since I began making, and continually completing, my Summer Bucket Lists.  This is your year to experience your best summer yet!