I read a quote last week that said:
‘We get 18 delicious summers with our children. This is one of your 18. If thats not perspective. I don’t know what is.’ – Jessica Scott
18. It hit me hard. Eighteen. And thats if we are lucky enough that our kids think we are cool enough to spend summer with us after they are 16. The summer holidays are my absolute favorite. The break in routine, lazy mornings and long evenings. Spending days at the beach with sand in our toes, pants & every other nook sand can get into. Picnic lunches in the park watching the clouds float by and rescuing little limbs from bee stings and nettles, frantically searching for doc leaves to soothe them. Learning to cartwheel and not stopping until you crack it, then falling to a heap on the grass. Puddle jumping in the warm summer rain and eating watermelon until you might burst.
I always worry that they’ll grow up and hate that I dragged them around early in the mornings. That I made them walk for miles and always had a camera pointed at them. Then, swiftly remember that walking all the way to the beach and then walking home because we spent our bus fare on chips. It was one of our favorites. We played games, sang songs and climbed walls. We got home at night and flopped into bed exhausted. It was the best kind of tired and we were excited to do it all again the next day.
Ironically, as I type this we are on a weather warning in Edinburgh. We’ve had high winds and are due a thunderstorm. We never really get a summer in Scotland but we enjoy what we get the best we can. One of our favourite parts of the summer holidays is planning them. The anticipation of the fun activities we all throw onto the table is what makes it. Everyone asking for their favorite thing to be put on the list. We’ve gone with a little chart on the wall this year, the kids can tick off what they’ve done and we can add a few things here and there too.
I’ve listed the top picks below and we’ve already started ticking things off, today was our FIRST official day of the holidays and it was spent in the garden, ‘painting’ the path with water. Blowing bubbles and chasing ladybugs.
TOP of the kids list:
Watch Harry Potter – Now i’m 34 and have never seen it. I’ve always (don’t hate me) thought it was for kids? But i’ve been told its a must see, and read and now I have a kid old enough… I have an excuse to watch it.
Scooting at the beach – Any excuse for the beach. We’ll spend around 80% of the holidays there.
Ice cream dates – Ice cream is life. We’ve found a few places that are dairy free, so we can take the twins along and not feel guilty.
Paddling in the sea – I feel like we can do this this year, safely. And it’s one of my most favorite things to do at the beach.
BBQ pizza make your own – I got my husband a Pizza oven for the BBQ for fathers day, so we HAVE to have a pizza party this summer!
Rock Painting – Super cute rocks are left all over our little town, so we are going to paint and leave some too.
Make paper boats – I’m a little origami genius, my dad taught me when I was little and boats are our favourite. They even float on the river.
Day at the River – The river is our second home after the beach. The River Esk runs right through here so we nip along, collect the wild garlic and take lunch with us.
Visit the Fairy Garden – The walled gardens down near Berwick have a fairy garden you can freely walk around. We took the kids when the Lucy was tiny and would love to go back.
Picnic dinner at the park – Which is a regular thing for us anyway. Better when it’s sunny though.
Fly kites – Edinburgh has the BEST kite flying hills.
Visit a castle – We take our Historic Scotland pass seriously. We are working our way around them all slowly, but hope to tick off ALL the castles on the entire list.
Camp in the back garden – I’m not a camper, it doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest, I love home comforts, so a little back garden camp is ideal.
Sand castles – Obviously.
Shell Collecting – Theres a beach on the way to the borders that has some really nice shells & stones. Collecting those for our fairies garden.
‘Camping’ by the river – We plan on a whole day by our favorite river, pitching a tent, napping, paddling & roasting marshmallows on the camp stove.
Eat donuts for breakfast – ANY excuse to have this on the list.
Learn to cartwheel – This is the absolute top of Ruby’s summer list!
Whats at the top of your list? We’ll be sharing as much as we can over on Instagram Stories if you would love to keep up with our summer over there! If theres something you think we would LOVE to do, pop it below! Theres still space on our board 🙂
