Summertime is Family Time: 12 Fun Summer Activities

If you know me personally or just know me from a webinar or my newsletter, you hear me harp a lot about how important estate planning is. I am vehemently passionate about that. However, today, let’s focus on the core of what makes estate planning so crucial: your family and loved ones.

Family is central to my life. As a parent, I actively engaged in activities as a scout leader, a cheerleading coach, and a sponsor of the robotics club. Now, as a grandparent, I participate in my grandkids’ home school experience weekly. These moments spent together are cherished times. And time is finite.

Estate planning is more than putting strategies in place to protect and pass on your wealth. Your intellectual, spiritual, and human assets are just as, if not more, essential. Time spent with family strengthens your bonds and passes on your values. There is never a better time to get together than summertime.

We’ve got twelve great activities to do this summer that the whole family can participate in!

Quality Time Outside

Nothing says summer like a whole day spent outside. Luckily here in Colorado 1/3 of our state’s land is public, offering plenty of opportunities for everyone to hike, fish, and appreciate gorgeous vistas. Home to 42 State Parks and 4 National Parks, there’s plenty to do outside whether you explore somewhere new or your own backyard.

3 Family Outdoor Activities:

• Nature Scavenger Hunt Walk: Create a list of fun things to be on the lookout for, like a yellow flower, a pine cone, a butterfly, etc. Check each item off as you see them.
• Family Picnic: Head out to a local green space or your backyard with a packed lunch for the whole family. Pack a lunch or order from your favorite local deli.
• Backyard Garden: Need more than a single-day activity? Start a garden in your yard to tend to all summer long. Grow herbs, vegetables, flowers, whatever you want. A successful gardener can enjoy many a garden-to-table meal as well!

Food Brings Us to Together

A good meal gets the family together. Cherished memories become food traditions that continue for generations. While some recipes can get a bit complicated, here are some food projects that the whole family can prepare and enjoy together.

3 Family Cooking Projects:

• Homemade Popsicles: Popsicle molds are completely accessible these days, and a quick google search yields hundreds of diverse recipes. More unique than homemade lemonade, popsicles are perfect for craftier kids.
• Hand-squeezed Lemonade: Fresh lemonade is the ultimate summer treat. It’s a classic that can’t be beat. Tired of lemonade? Try orange juice, limeade, or add a dash of your favorite liquor for a unique cocktail.
• S’mores: It’s not summer without s’mores. S’mores are known as a camping staple, but there’s no rule you can only eat s’mores while camping. Even if you aren’t equipped with a fire pit, marshmallows are easily toasted on a graham cracker with a few minutes in the oven.

Let the Creativity Flow Kids

Encourage creativity in your kids with these activities. Get the mind pumping with an art project, a hands-on build, and storytelling. These summertime moments cannot be underestimated.

3 Hands-On, Storytelling Activities:

• Bubble Paint: Don’t let those goodie bag favors go to waste. Squeeze food coloring into the bottles and blow bubbles onto a paper (outside, of course) for a unique piece of art the whole family can get in on.
• Living Room Fort Campout: Kids are obsessed with sleeping anywhere but their beds. Have them make the ultimate living room fort and camp out under the blankets and sheets.
• Drive-In Theater Movie Night: Drive-ins are making a comeback. They’re a novel way for kids to engage with a story. No drive-ins near you? Not a problem. Project a movie on a white sheet in your backyard, or have movie night in an amazing fort in the living room.

Water, water, is no fun unless it’s all over everyone

A swim in the pool, lake, river, or ocean is-honestly- what everyone looks forward to most about summer. If your house has running water, you don’t have to go too far to cool off this summer.

3 Family Water Activities:

• Water Gun or Balloon Fight: Fill up some water balloons or gather up all the neighborhood kids’ squirt guns and super soakers to have an all-out water war on the block. Tell them not to aim for the face, so the game stays all in good fun.
• Slip N’ Slide: No water squirt guns to be found? Hook your hose up to a slip n’ slide, and you have personal water slide in your yard.
• Trip to the Lake or Beach: Summer is not complete without a whole day spent on the water. Something about a body of water stirs joy within us, and isn’t joy what summer is all about?

Have a great summer, everyone!