Visiting on the Front Porch: back to blogging

Well, it's been 6 months since I posted last. I did write gratitude posts through Thanksgiving, although my goal was 30 days. The last gratitude post was titled "Life" and although I was talking about my birthday, there was a deeper meaning to that.

On Thursday, November 28, 2012, a student at CM's school committed suicide. It was a difficult weekend as we helped her deal with it. Although she didn't know the student personally, he was in one of her classes so that made the whole situation more difficult.

Just when we thought we had talked out everything, 27 people were killed in a shootout at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday, December 14, 2012. So that started another difficult weekend.

I fully intended to blog about our Christmas activities. We had a great holiday season. Things didn't quite go the way I planned, partly because The Writer had to travel for work, then he was trying to finish up his month-end, quarter-end and year-end work before taking the last two weeks of December off. I wanted him to be involved with what we were doing which meant that a lot of activities had to be pushed to the weekends. Still, we had a great time and I learned a few things that will make Christmas 2013 go much more smoothly.

Winter passed by quietly. We had lots of snow, though the water managers say it wasn't enough.

We started the spring soccer season in April and have one more week of games for all three players. AD will have one more game after that. Spring has gone by quickly with soccer practices three days a week and games nearly every Saturday. We were glad to have a low-key Memorial Day!

We are in our last week of school. I am a year removed from finishing breastfeeding my last child and have more energy than I have had for awhile. I am excited for summer and we have lots of plans.

One thing I have learned is that although my kids have lots of things they want to do during the summer, I am the one who makes it happen. In part this is because I am the driver, but also if I don't tell my children they need to do their chores before we go do anything fun, or tell them, "Come on, let's go!", we don’t do much.

So I have been surfing the Internet and Pinterest for ideas of fun games and activities, as well as places to go here in our home state of Utah. I've also made a Summer 2013 Bucket List of things to do. Some are big activities, some are simple everyday ones, some are things we'll do several times a week, others we'll do just once. I'll share pictures and links to some of the games, activities, places and things to do we hope to do this summer.

GAMES

Marshmallow Shooters. OrPom Pom Popper.

Bean Bag Toss. Great for all ages. Great for family reunions.

Ladder Golf. Another great one for backyard play or family reunions.

Life Size Angry Birds. The mom who came up with this was planning a birthday party. I think the execution of this game was amazing!

Backyard Scrabble. Life size tiles! And a great way to practice spelling through the summer! In the comments, the author gave how many of each letter you need. They used a thin plywood but I think I will get 12x12-inch scrapbook paper and cut the pages down to 6x6 inches and then laminate.