We've had an amazingly warm autumn in Southern Britain this year. Most of October was warmer than our entire summer! So warm, in fact, that our poor, confused front hedge started trying to go into spring-mode and bloom! Every weekend for the past three months I've told the kids to hurry and run outside and enjoy the last day of good weather for the year. But it keeps on being nice and making a liar out of me!
It's been so warm that we still have blackberries in mid-November!Anyway, it was nice to have a little extension to summer.
Speaking of summer, I was cleaning out the file cabinet yesterday and came across our Summer To Do List. At the beginning of the summer I asked the kids to write down what they wanted to do. Dakota only wrote down ONE thing: "Bi-monthly Bikini judging contest (16-21 year old applicants only)". Naughty! And I'm not sure if I like that he capitalized "bikini" as if it were some super important thing. Scamp!
The rest of the list looked like this:
- Go see Cars 2 and The Smurfs
- Have a boot sale (we never accomplished this one)
- Teach T to ride a bike (only got as far as training wheels)
- Make an indoor blanket fort
- Have a sleepover
- Visit Eagle Heights
- Summer reading challenge (Tabs read over 40 books)
- Go to the Robin Hood Festival
- Go to the theatre in London (we did this once the term had already started)
- Camp at GG’s loch in Scotland
- Play Monopoly with Dakota
- Wash hard animal toys in the sink
- See Bollywood dancers at the Indian Restaurant in Swanley (still haven't done this)
- Paint a mask
- Learn to whistle (Tabs)
- Outline hands, feet and whole body on paper big rolls of paper
- Climb to the top of a castle
- Kid Cooking Days (Tabs learned to make Spag Bol, Chicken Korma and watermelon ice lollies. Dakota perfected Malaysian Spicy Lemon Chicken - yum!)
- Make paper dolls
- Go to Kew Gardens (this is on my list EVERY year but we still haven't gone)
- Pick berries
- Write stories
- Dance
- Put together "Holiday Memories Diary" for school
- Play with the neighbor's puppy
It was fun looking back and seeing what we crammed into our six week summer. Not counting the bikini contest, there were really only three things we didn't accomplish. I love lists! If I hadn't written it all down, I never would have remembered it all. And now I'm putting it on the blog so the kids have written proof that their lives aren't as boring as they think. Well... Tabby's life, at least. I'm not sure many 16 year old boys would be thrilled with the above itinerary (esp. washing toy animals in the sink). That'll teach him! I'm pretty sure when I ask Dakota to help with to our Christmas To Do List this year that "bikini contest" won't be the only thing he contributes - that is, if he wants to avoid making more paper dolls!
1 comments:
I love lists too! Even lost shopping lists...as you pointed out many many blogs ago just how amusing they can be.
There's no chance your kids could ever say they've experience a ho-hum summer--you're always one for adventure or at least a good factory tour anyway. Your summer To-Do list encompassed the perfect variety that was sure to make a splendid summer--though perhaps not the Monopoly with a teenager idea. This sort of activity would not set a very tranquil tone around my house! My family would be feuding for the rest of the summer over who won fair and square. And that would surely make things very uncomfortable when we finally got item #10:"camping at GG's Loch..."! We'd all be in separate tents!
By the way...who won the Monopoly game??
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