Summer Bucket List

Last spring before we even got out of school, the girls & I made a summer bucket list. I typed it up on my phone so we had it at all times & it was basically a collaborative list of everything we wanted to do this summer. There was a lot of baking/cooking, camps, VBS, vacations, etc. & some random things we have never done before. We went to the library several times this summer & I was really excited for the girls to register for the Mayor's Summer Reading Challenge:

Our library does this every year but this was our first year to sign up & the girls loved it. The goal was to read 600 minutes this summer, so every time we read, we logged in online & recorded our activity. Of course Sadie is competitive so she liked the challenge, but they also liked going to the library, picking new books & I loved their excitement in wanting to read all summer! We easily met our goal & then girls got to go to the library to pick up their surprise:

Of course I signed us up for free bowling & we went to a few $1 children's movies. We actually went to the movies a few times as a family also, including the weekend before school started:

They had a few birthday parties this summer which were fun to see friends:

Sadie won a free week of martial arts at a school event back in the spring so I promised her we would try that this summer. Thankfully they let Sophie go too so they thought it was fun trying something new:

And one of their favorite new activities from our list was rollerskating!

We invited Sadie's friend Hadley & they had so much fun! We were there for 3 or 4 hours but it was a slow warm up. Sophie & Hadley stayed on the carpet for a while until they felt comfortable on the wooden floor. Then they practiced on the small practice rink until they finally moved over to the big rink:

By the way, check out those skates - the wheels light up! I think I had even more fun than they did - I loved the nostalgia of the old school rink, bright lights & awesome music :)

We stopped for a quick lunch break:

before they headed back out to the dance floor. I was so proud of these girls for being brave & practicing skating because it could have been easy to give up after their first fall:

Who knew roller skating was harder than ice skating?! That's what they said :) But apparently they liked it enough to ask to go again so that's a win in my book. 

It was a fun summer & I am so glad we had a bucket list to help give us ideas whenever we got bored. I have a feeling we will be doing the same thing next year.....