How to Create a Slow Summer

Welcome back my friends! After a couple of crazy weeks I think we are finally back and ready to roll around here! My family has been quickly adjusting to the new norm of summer vacation, and we’ve been easing into it because even though school is out, Emma and Noah still have softball and t-ball through the end of this month. It’s been great to still have a scheduled activity for them in the evenings.

After I last chatted on here Noah graduated Kindergarten, I spent an afternoon helping a dear friend do some wedding prep, and we celebrated Father’s Day. We spent last Sunday relaxing, playing some catch together, I BBQ’d dinner and afterwards we loaded up in the car and drove over to the 99W Drive-In to see Finding Dory. It was a good day.

Sunday made me realize that summer days aren’t always necessarily supposed to be filled up and scheduled. When you have kids in school you spend every waking minute with schedules for nearly 10 months out of the year, and for some reason we all seem to want to schedule the weeks of summer the same.

It’s understandable if you have to keep the kids busy because you work away from home full-time, but for parents who only work part-time or from home, it’s actually nice to have the flexibility and freedom from kids schedules.

This summer, I want to have a slow summer – well as slow as possible. I want to make the most out of every day, every hour. I want to really consciously enjoy this time of the year, because I know that it will be gone quickly.

How to Create a Slow Summer

How can you ensure a slow summer? I’m not 100% sure – but I’m willing to give it a shot, starting with:

Waking up and not rushing. Most of the year I am in a hurry first thing in the morning. I wake up, run around like crazy, and get on the kids telling them to move faster and get ready. I hate it. In the summers I can work my schedule around the kids, allowing them to wake at their leisure, and in a better mood.

Spend more afternoons on the deck. In Oregon, there’s really only a couple of months out of the year where you can relax on the porch or deck in your tank top and just soak up the sun. It seems when I actually go outside and do some writing on the deck while the kids play in the backyard, the afternoon feels so much more leisurely, calm and enjoyable.

Worry less about where to go, and focus more on what you have. Sure vacations are nice and I think that everyone should do family vacations together, but it seems that sometimes all people want to do in the summers is get away. I’ve worked hard to have this little house and piece of land that I live on, and I want to find new ways to love it. I think since we became a (temporary) one car family it’s allowed me to slow down. Instead of going here and running there, I group our outings and errands more.

How do you enjoy your summers? And how do you make the most of every day without it slipping away? I’d love to hear more slow summer ideas in the comments below! 🙂

~Melissa