195: Making the Most of Summer: How to Create a Family Summer Bucket List

Camille: 0:00

Summer is just around the corner.

Camille: 0:01

It's the perfect time to start planning fun activities, whether it's camping out with cousins, celebrating the free Slurpee Day on 7-Eleven, which is everyone's favorite around here, or including plans like just playing video games or hitting the beach.

Camille: 0:15

I can tell you that depending on who it is that you ask in my family, their plans for summer and what they want to get out of it is different.

Camille: 0:31

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know this is Call Me CEO. Hey everyone, thank you for tuning in this is Call Me CEO podcast, and today we are talking about the summer bucket list for all you mamas out there who are looking to pack your summer with fun without the overwhelm. Let's go into it. Hey everyone, welcome to Call Me CEO.

Camille: 1:13

And this is a solo episode where I talk with you a little bit more about what's going on with my life behind the scenes, as well as tips and tricks to help you run systems and operations in a fun way in your family, so that you can be a CEO of your life, your family and your business. Now today's episode is about creating a summer bucket list as a family. This is one of my absolute favorite topics. I've been doing this for many years. My oldest is 16, and I don't think there's a summer that's gone by that I haven't created a family bucket list with him. I am one of those people that I feel like manifestation is real, even when it comes to your summertime planning. There is effort that needs to go into what you want to do, what you plan to do, so that when it's time, you don't look back and think, gosh, I really wanted to go to the beach more and swim with my family. Why didn't we do that more? Why isn't this happening? I think this applies to family vacations as well, like really identifying how you want to feel, what do you want to do, what do you want to look back and say, gosh, I'm really glad we did this. And, of course, leaving room for the unpredictable, the lazy time, the space in between to allow your kids to be creative and not be so structured. So I'm all about balance, and if you have heard me talk about the CEO group coaching, that's what it is all about is finding the balance that is right for you in the season of life that you're in, and that's a discussion my sister and I just had of life that you're in, and that's a discussion my sister and I just had last week, which meant that we decided to push the start of CEO to August. So if you were planning to join with us in June, I had some of you reaching out asking about more information about that. We decided to push it off a little bit to August, but we are doing pre-registration. So if you go to CEOco, you can sign up, as well as you can message me at call me CEO podcast or camillewalkercom Instagram.

Camille: 3:09

Anyway, today, summer is just around the corner. It's the perfect time to start planning fun activities, whether it's camping out with cousins, celebrating the free Slurpee day on 7-Eleven, which is everyone's favorite around here, or including plans like just playing video games or hitting the beach. I can tell you that, depending on who it is that you ask in my family, their plans for summer and what they want to get out of it is different. Also, keep in tune that next week I'm going to be talking about how to incorporate a summer to-do chore list. So stay tuned for that Now.

Camille: 3:45

Why planning the bucket list is essential is one thing. After I write and create a bucket list, I really want it to be something that is a part of all of our plan, that it's in a place where everyone can see it, that everyone contributes to it, and with summer flying by so quickly, it really can go. And you're thinking, gosh, what happened? Especially now in my family that we have two teenagers that have multiple summer camps, I feel like I'm going. It's going to be a very different summer than it has in the past, because I'm not going to have all my kids together with me at all the time, which can be a benefit and a little bit sad too. I think it's a really great way to focus in on your other children that are home at the time and incorporating that into your plan as well. Now, I also think that this helps to build anticipation and excitement. Creating a list together really gives something for everyone to look forward to and ensuring inclusivity. Now, regardless of what ages of your kids, I feel like it really gives them a sense of autonomy and being a part of it and really being listened to when everyone's preferences are considered and that it strengthens the bonds of the family and ensures that everyone is heard the bonds of the family and ensures that everyone is heard.

Camille: 5:08

Now for the family gathering. I this can be as formal as an or as informal as you want I did mine just last Sunday, when it was a little bit quieter. Everyone was home and I put together a list. And this is what's really funny is my youngest really wanted to write on my official paper calendar that I hang up on the wall, and I said you can, but only after you've written out it on a list, because I've made the mistake before of writing something down and then thinking it can fit in a certain place in the summer and having to scratch it off, and I'm weird. I like it to be pretty Okay, and so I and I had everyone sit down and some people, some people are in the kitchen, some people were in the living room, so it wasn't like this, like very formal meeting, but I just said, okay, it's time to make the summer bucket list and we have done this so much that they know they know what's happening. So sometimes, if you really feel like you want to go above and beyond, you can include some snacks or turn on some fun music or whatever. For us it was pretty simple I just had the market markers out, they saw what I was doing and I made a list and we went around one by one, in three rounds to come up with three activities that they wanted to do. This could be campouts, beach trips, movie marathons or even simple pleasures like a backyard picnic.

Camille: 6:30

One of the things that my son really wants to do this summer is to have a scout camp, and that's something that back in the day, my older son had done. He'd been a part of the Boy Scouts, but now our accessibility to Boy Scouts is limited and so we are having our own Boy Scout Walker Summer Camp, and what's really fun about this is that we're dividing up the responsibilities of what is included in that camp. So, for example, my youngest is going to teach us about insects and insect bites. He's really fascinated with that piece of nature insects. He knows a lot more about it than I do. He's going to be teaching us about that. My husband's going to be doing carving, which when you teach little kids carving first with a pocket knife, you start out with a bar of soap. This is something I've done, because I've done Boy Scouts more than twice. But you, he's going to be doing the carving and the fishing, my daughter is going to be doing a camp out snack, like a fireplace camp out snack, and my oldest son is going to be teaching us about knots, tying knots, and then my younger son is going to be doing bow and arrows, and so we have this whole list and everyone's in charge of at least one to two things. And we're doing this Walker scout camp and my kids are so excited it was their idea I would have not have even thought of that had I, you know, come up with it on my own, and maybe even if I had I don't know that they would have been as invested because it was their idea that they wanted to do this, because they felt they really missed out of not being a part of Boy Scouts, where we had done that for my older son.

Camille: 8:17

So that's an idea that we're doing for us, but also, like I said, simple pleasures. It could be as simple, as my daughter really loves to go do soda runs, so she says I want to go get some soda. That is like one of her bucket list things. And so you also want to incorporate traditions and new ideas. It could be new and exciting things to keep it fresh, like our Walker camp. We've never done that before, but something we also always do is we do cousin sleepovers on the 24th of July. That's a big celebration here in Utah and we also have very specific spots that need to be filled in with other camps, like I mentioned before.

Camille: 9:00

So once you have all of those wish list items, you need to plan and prioritize. Now this is a big part of it because there can be some overlap. So, getting together with our extended family, we even went through and plotted we had two weekends available where we could do cousin sleepovers and that's a big wishlist of my kids. So I got together with my two sister-in-laws and said, okay, what does your calendar look like? Because we need to get at least one camp out of us all together and that takes effort. That takes effort on my part to message them, that takes part for us to get together and for them to look at their calendars, but it is so worth it.

Camille: 9:39

So, getting together a big family calendar plotting out your activities and making sure to balance the big outings and the simple at-home fun the idea of this is not to overwhelm or to make it so that summer feels like a chore. In fact, my kids my older two, have started doing summer lessons during or I should say summer school during summer, and one of those classes that they've gotten out of the way is like health or gym, like physical fitness, and we incorporate their lessons into what they're doing and getting that credit for physical activity into our family calendar too. So that can be really cool to not only incorporate fun but also maybe even possibly getting some summer school done or summer reading. It can be a really good way to keep, to not have the, what they it's called like summer, summer scope loss or something like that, where kids in the summer they lose a lot of the. They kind of it's called a slide, summer slide I think that's what it is where they know a concept for math, english reading, science, whatever the thing is, and summer slide happens. That's why they say it's so important to keep reading up. We're going to talk about that in the chore list later, so put a pin in that.

Camille: 10:54

But assigning roles can let each family member be responsible for planning or organizing at least one activity, so this gives everyone a sense of ownership and responsibility. So, like we talked about with the scout camp, we divided that up so that everyone has something that they're looking for, forward to, something that they're planning and that can even include what does a special treat, what is a special treat you want it to be? Or, you know, creating a dose of? Tonight is Jensen's night. Even though he's seven, he can plan our movie night or whatever the thing is, outdoor movie. Now, another thing to keep in mind is flexibility being prepared to move things around as needed. Life happens, people get sick. Flexibility ensures that the fun doesn't become a chore, and this is this, is motherhood, this is life, this is all of those things we know. This Flexibility is the key to keeping it fun.

Camille: 11:52

Now, incorporating a chore list. This is a little sneak peek for next week. Next week, we're going to dive into creating a summer chore list that balances fun and responsibility, and I will say I typically will give my kids the first week of summer to be completely lazy. There's no schedule, there's no menu. People are coming and sleeping and going about their day however they choose. However, after that first week, that is when I start to incorporate a chore list, and chores can be incorporated without being overwhelming, and I think it actually helps if you can turn turn those chores into a game or competition. You don't have to. Honestly, for us it's mainly about getting those basic things done every day so that they have a sense of accomplishment and they are spending time outside or reading a book or doing things that really help to improve their state of mind and their day before moving on to screens or friends or whatever it is. Now my final tips and encouragement for the summer bucket list is to keep it visible. Have it hanging somewhere where everyone can see. For us, we have a mudroom that attaches the garage into our kitchen living space area, and it's really fun to have it there because we can look at the list and even check off the items as we have them coming up. Also, to celebrate each activity, make sure to celebrate and completing each activity maybe with a special treat or a photo, making a summer scrapbook to show the completion of the things that you did.

Camille: 13:36

I love, love, love, love chat books. I interviewed the creator of chat books here and my code is still active. I'm going to put it in the link in the description below. But what I love about chat books is that you can very easily, in your app on your phone, select all of your favorite images for the month and you will automatically have a monthly photo book sent to you. And it is the easiest, the best way to scrapbook and my kids absolutely love looking through those photo books. Now my last point here is to encourage you to cherish these moments and these memories. I think that it's not so much. I heard this in a conference. I went to this last week and I absolutely loved the sentiment.

Camille: 14:28

It's not always about creating the memories because I know that I live in, that I like live and breathe and creating those memories. How do we create those memories? But at the very core of the importance of creating those memories is to build those relationships and gosh more than ever, especially with having teenagers now, I look at all of those memories and moments that I have in my heart that my kids do not remember, that I spent so much time and effort putting into they don't remember it. I do, and I have the pictures and I can show them and I love that. But what it did do is it built a foundation of trust between me and my children and their understanding of my love for them and the way that they felt so that as they get older and as the bigger kids have the bigger problems, they know that you are a safe place to go and that they feel connected to you and they have these wonderful summer memories amongst others that build that foundation. So, just to recap on this, the importance of planning, the importance of gathering and bringing it all together really helps your kids to be a part of the action.

Camille: 15:48

Now I want to invite you all to create a summer bucket list and share your ideas with me on social media with the hashtag family summer bucket list, and you can tag me at call me CEO podcast and or at camillewalkerco. I see both, so you can tag me either one and, as a bonus, I actually have a free summer bucket list chart for you to use in the link in the description below. It is from my website, mymommystylecom, and if you have younger children that you need printables for activities, for fun recipes to try in the summer, I have over 13 years of activities, recipes and educational things for you to use from my website. One thing to keep an eye out for there as well is a summer reading bucket list. That is a really fun and list. That is a really fun and popular one that we've had on the website for years, so make sure that you check that out and stay tuned for next week's episode on the summer chore chart. I hope you have a great week.

Camille: 16:57

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