Planning your Summer

Christmas is over – time to start planning your summer!!!

I’m totally serious.

Think of it this way:

1. If you plan your summer now, you’ll have the pick of most camps and get-away locations

2. Look outside your window – don’t you want to think about warm summer days right now???

The reality is, many camps will open for registration in January and February, so you might as well start thinking about summer a little bit. This time every year, I spend a couple days putting together a rough outline of our summer. This way, I have a general idea of our plans and can start scheduling some of our activities. I hate when I wait too long to book things and then miss out on something because I hesitated.  Here’s what that calendar looks like (this is from a past year, scroll down for link to this year’s version):

Another thing to think about is planning some summer getaways. Perhaps you want to reserve a great camp site. Or your house at Seabrook. Some of the really coveted spots, like the Roche Harbor Cottages, are probably already completely booked for next summer. They need to be reserved a year in advance. But for many locations you’ll still have the pick of the litter, which is of course always the position you want to be in! And if your summer plans include farther away destinations those trips are just 4-5 months away, so it’s not totally crazy to be thinking about booking flights.

When we travel, I prefer to stay in some sort of 2-3 bedroom house or condo so we have plenty of room for everyone and a kitchen to help avoid eating out the entire time. We have a 70-pound golden retriever, so if we’re headed somewhere in the car we like to bring her along. And I really like to stay in a place with a grassy yard, or on a grassy park so my young kids (and the dog) can play together right outside our house. If you’ve ever tried to find a vacation home, you’ll know that this list is very specific and there might be 1 or 2 houses in a given destination that meet all these criteria. So, getting things booked early is really something that I have to do, otherwise the house that fits our needs just won’t be available.

(A brother thumb war in Seabrook, 2018)

Here’s a one-page Summer Calendar Printable that you can print out from home.
We start by penciling in work obligations or any weddings/other big events that need to be planned around.

Then over the next couple of weeks I’ll reference the calendars for some of my favorite summer camps. We’ve liked/heard good things about:

• CYO Summer Camps

• Evergreen Mountain Bike Camps

• Sambica

• Wilderness Awareness School

• i9 Sports Camps

Another thing I always think about for summer is swim lessons. Our local pool does 2-week sessions where the kids have class every day. Some programs run their classes weekly, with 1 or 2 lessons per week. I like to ramp up the kid’s swimming lessons late spring and early summer so they’re back “in shape” a bit for the season. I’ll keep the first few weeks of summer open for those classes.

Then I’ll see where there are gaps in the work/camp/swim schedules to fit in a couple getaways. Some summers we go to Seabrook for 4-5 days to have some much needed low-key family time. We also try and go to the San Juan Islands with my extended family – normally staying at Roche Harbor. If you’re looking for some other ideas here’s a short (and I’m sure incomplete) list of some great things to do in the PNW with kids:

• Seabrook

• San Juan Islands: Roche Harbor (cottages need to be booked a year in advance), Lakedale Resort

• Lake Chelan: Wapato Point, The Lookout, Campbell’s, or a VRBO

• Sun Mountain Lodge: The Patterson Lake Cottages need to be booked a year in advance (at least)

• Suncadia

• Sun River Oregon

All this planning gives me a basic outline that we can use in the coming months to make sure our summer is full of amazing adventures!