Summer Planning

Sarah will be out from mid-June until mid-July and I have started planning our summer activities. Because DH is a teacher, summers for us are very flexible. Summer is also Sarah's longest stretch of time with us (4 weeks) and I like to take advantage of it! I should add that I tend to plan every trip Sarah makes out -- activities, meals, fun new recipes, family time. We do not have nearly enough time with her (due to the distance) and I like to make it count!

I already signed both girls up for swimming lessons -- at the same time and pool! Woo hoo! Ella needs a parent with her so we'll all make the trek to the pool each day. They will go every day for a week.

As a way to promote exercise, I am going to purchase all of us a pedometer to keep track of our steps each day. I may start a chart or little competition to see who has the most steps at the end of the month. DH mentioned that Sarah has a quarter mile walk to her bus stop from her house in PA. I was curious how far I walked to school growing up so I mapped it on Yahoo -- a half-mile, which means I walked a mile every day to and from school. And yes, we even walked it in the Michigan winter!

I have been meaning to start letter boxing with Sarah for a few years now. We may give it a go this summer. The problem is that it is HOT here in the summer and sometimes being outdoors just is not an option. But this would be a great way to use our pedometers!

And it would not be summer without the family road trip. We're on a tight budget, though, and with the price of gas, I've been looking for close day trips (and "close" out West means around 2 hours one-way). One unusual place is Oatman, Arizona, an old mining town. Or there is Calico, California, which does not have the burros and looks a little more "touristy" to me.

In order to get out of the desert we're hoping to head to Cedar City, Utah for a few nights. We have two free nights at a hotel there. Mesquite, Nevada is along the way and last summer they offered two free nights at their hotels for teachers. We'd like to combine the two for four day trip. We could hit Zion National Park on our way to Cedar City.

Of course, there is TONS to do in Vegas that we have not done yet! So if gas gets too expensive, we'll just be hometown tourists.