Create the Ultimate Summer Staycation Bucket List

On June 23, 2019June 27, 2019 By betsyIn Family Fun3 Comments

This post may include affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I may earn compensation if you click through and make a purchase.

Summer is here (yay!), and that often means planning a fun family vacation with our boys to a new and exciting destination. Or does it? We always enjoy getting away as a family and visiting new locations, but we’ve also enjoyed plenty of fantastic summer staycations that our boys have loved.

What exactly is a staycation? The details can vary for each family, but basically, it’s a wonderful and inexpensive way to spend time as a family, enjoying all that your hometown has to offer. And in some cases, you never have to leave your house!

Top five benefits to creating a summer staycation bucket list

There are many benefits to creating a summer staycation bucket list. Here are our top five:

Staycations are less expensive. Traveling as a family is costly. After taking care of monthly expenses, funding kids’ sports and activities, paying medical bills, and putting food on the table, there’s not always money left for an expensive family vacation. Planning a summer staycation is budget-friendly and can be tailored to the needs of each family.
Staycations are more convenient. Summer travel can be complicated and challenging. Finding affordable flights that fit into your schedule is not always easy. Doing laundry and packing for the family is time-consuming and inevitably, at least one item will get left behind. Booking activities in advance requires hours of research and planning. Planning summer staycation activities are quick, easy, and doesn’t require a lot of packing or planning.
Staycations allow everyone to get a good night’s sleep. I don’t know about your family, but when we travel, we usually try to find the cheapest option and often share one hotel room. That doesn’t lend itself to any of us getting much sleep, let alone getting quality sleep. There’s nothing worse than overtired, cranky kids (and parents!) on vacation. Summer staycations allow everyone to get a good night’s sleep in his or her own bed most nights and ensures that everyone is rested and ready to have fun during the next day’s activities. And if for some reason someone doesn’t sleep well at night, there’s always an opportunity for a guilt-free nap the next day.
Staycations are much less stressful. Travel can be challenging. It’s no fun for anyone when having to deal with flight delays, long car rental lines, huge crowds, or unexpected weather conditions. Stress creates tension and frustration, which doesn’t lend itself to a relaxing time together as a family. Summer staycation activities allow for kicking back and enjoying time together without all of that undue stress.
Staycations provide lots of flexibility. When planning a big vacation, it’s often necessary to plot out each day’s itinerary. Each day’s agenda needs to be planned out to ensure that everything fits in. Various unforeseen circumstances can affect those plans. Inclement weather can result in a canceled outdoor activity. A family member’s illness may lead to a trip to a local emergency clinic, putting any family plans on hold. When planning staycation activities, you can pivot if something doesn’t go as planned. You are in your home, and you have access to more options than when you are in an unknown city where you might end up stuck inside a hotel room.

Boredom be gone!

A summer staycation bucket also list helps eliminate the “I’m bored” syndrome that kids often experience during school breaks. Even if we can’t leave the house on a particular day, we always have other options to choose from like board games, jigsaw puzzles, or movie marathons.

Summer staycations for every age

Our boys are teenagers now but we’ve been doing summer staycations since they were preschoolers. As they aged, our kids’ interests changed but there were still plenty of options for summer staycation bucket list activities. Of course, depending on the ages of your children, the choices you make for your summer staycation will vary.

Who says summer bucket lists have to be written on paper?

We found that the best way to create a summer staycation bucket list is to create an actual “bucket” list. When our boys were in preschool, a neighbor started a tradition with her girls that inspired us to do the same.

When coming up with the list of activities that we wanted to do during our staycation, instead of writing them down on paper, we wrote each activity on a clothespin and clipped it to the top of a bucket. Hence the name “bucket list”.

It’s an inexpensive and fun way for the whole family to get together and create a list of staycation activities you’d like to do each year.

Creating your own summer staycation bucket list

Supplies needed to create your summer staycation bucket list

One inexpensive, plastic bucket
Two dozen clothespins, the ones with flat edges so you can write on them. (less or more depending on the number of children in your family and the number of activities you are planning)
A few black fine point markers
An assortment of colored markers in lighter colors

Creating your summer staycation bucket list

Distribute the clothespins

Provide each child with his/her allotted number of clothespins and a permanent marker. It’s up to you to decide how many clothespins each child will receive. *Note – for younger children who haven’t yet learned to write/spell, you may want to complete the next step for them.

Write down one activity per clothespin

Each child will write one activity on each of their clothespins. It’s a good idea to discuss each idea as a group before writing them on clothespins to avoid duplication and to ensure that the activities they choose are do-able and affordable. (We learned this the hard way!)

Categorize your clothespins

Once you have written all on all of the clothespins, you will need to decide how you will categorize your clothespins. In the next step, you will be color coding each clothespin with the colored markers based on category. We chose to categorize our activities by the amount of time needed to complete each activity. Our three categories were 1) within an hour, 2) a half-day, and 3) a full-day or more. You could also separate your clothespins by cost (free, less than $10 or more than $10), or you could categorize them in whatever way works for you. It’s your bucket list, so it’s up to you!

Color code your categories

Once you determine your categories, you will use the colored markers to color code each category. In our case, for any activity that required an hour or less to complete, we colored the flat edge of the clothespin green. For activities that took up to one half-day of time, we colored those blue. For those that took a full day or more, we made those red.

Decorate your bucket

It’s up to your family how you decorate your bucket. Some years we added stickers. Other years we just wrote on the bucket with markers. We always included the current year on our bucket so when we look back at photos later, we will remember what we did each year.

Clip your clothespins to the bucket

Once all of your clothespins have activities written on them and are color-coded by category, your kids can clip the clothespins to the bucket. It is super colorful and festive when it’s complete.

Putting your summer staycation bucket to use

To make it fair for our boys, when it is time to choose a staycation activity, they alternate taking turns. Because we categorize our activities by amount of time needed, whenever we have an hour or so to fill, we would ask our boys to go to the bucket and choose a green clothespin. Sometimes we have to adjust our choice due to weather and/or budget but most of the time it works just fine.

When we know we will have a longer block of time, depending on whose turn it is, our boys will go to the bucket and pick either a blue or red clothespin corresponding to the time available. It’s a lot of fun to anticipate and guess which activity will be chosen!

After we complete an activity, we drop the clothespin into the bucket. Then at the end of the summer, we dump the clothespins out of the bucket and reminisce about all of the fun we’ve had. We also make a note of the clothespins we want to repeat the following summer.

So many choices, so little summer

At first, it might feel a bit overwhelming to create a summer staycation bucket list. There are so many great activities to do inside and outside the home. Each year we first sit down to create our summer staycation bucket list we are reminded that summer will fly by quickly (doesn’t it always?) So we do our best to prioritise those activities that we REALLY want to do that year. It’s not easy but it’s always worth it.

We typically give our boys 12 clothespins each and suggest that they choose four activities in each of the three categories. That way, they would both have opportunities to decide what we’d do no matter how much or how little time we had available.

We live in central Florida, which means that some days are too stinking hot or too rainy to be outside all day. Luckily, we have plenty of inside activities on our list.

Indoor pillow fights are fun when it's too hot to go outside.

Making the staycation bucket work for your family

Our boys are less than two years apart in age, so it isn’t too hard to find activities that are fun and relevant to both. When creating your summer staycation bucket list, you may want to try to come up with ideas that will be enjoyable for all those in your family. If you have kiddos that range in age from little ones (who still nap) through teens (who sleep till noon or later), you could come up with separate activities. For example, you could choose activities for the little kids that take place in the morning while the teens are still asleep and conversely select activities for the teens while the littles are napping in the afternoon. The beauty of a staycation bucket list is that you have the flexibility to design it in whatever way works best for your family.

Our Top 5 Summer Staycation Bucket List Ideas

We’ve been making summer bucket lists for many years so I thought I’d share some of our favorites as inspiration for your family as you create your bucket! Below, in no particular order, are our top 5 summer staycation bucket list ideas. Some were part of our bucket list activities when our boys were small, and some are included on our list this summer!

Let’s go camping!

We love camping. If I’m truthful, the other members of my family enjoy camping, and I mostly grin and bear it. I’m a city girl at heart, so for me, my idea of roughing it is staying in a cabin with electricity and running water. I love being outdoors with my family and disconnecting from technology, but I also have a great appreciation for the comforts of home.

So, when we decided to take our boys “camping” during one of our staycations, we decided that we didn’t need to go more than a few steps from our own back door. We purchased a big, roomy 6-person tent, even though we are a family of four, to ensure that there was plenty of room for hanging out, playing games and sleeping inside.

Our “campsite” consisted of our tent set up on our screened in patio, complete with lanterns and sleeping bags. We enjoyed the cool “breeze” from the ceiling fan, and we were camping just steps away from the “mess hall,” (aka kitchen) when we wanted a snack. We’ve also set up camp in our dining room once or twice, which is lovely during those summer nights of blistering heat.

After turning off all the lights in the house so it felt like we were out in the middle of nowhere, we ate hotdogs by the light of our lanterns. Later, we made s’mores over our portable fire pit in the driveway and told ghost stories before turning in at night.

We camped out a lot at home when my boys were young, and for them, it was just as good as trekking out into the woods amidst all of the bugs and wildlife and anything else that might be lurking outside our tent!

Outdoor Movie Marathon

One of our favorite ways to spend time together is family movie night. For us, there’s nothing better on a Friday night than planning an evening at home with our bowls of popcorn, an assortment of snacks and cool, refreshing drinks in front of the big screen. During one of our staycations, we decided that we’d extend our movie night into a weekend-long epic movie marathon in the backyard.

We set up our movie projector, hung a bedsheet between two trees and voila, our outdoor theater was ready to go! Each of us took a turn choosing the movies. We watched some of our favorite old classic movies and checked out some new releases, too.

It’s not difficult to set up your own outdoor theater. You can simply hang a bedsheet on your patio, tie it between two trees, or project the movie right onto the wall of your garage. There are several affordable movie projectors available, like this one, so choose the option that’s best for you based on your budget and has the features you need.

DIY “Chopped” cooking competition

Our family has always enjoyed watching cooking shows on television. During one staycation, we decided we would set up our own version of “Chopped.” It’s relatively simple to set up. You can use the ingredients that you already have in your fridge and pantry. First, determine what the main ingredient will be (for example, every dish has to use chocolate as an ingredient). Next, divide up into teams. We usually pair one child with one adult so that we can ensure kitchen safety as well as the ability to complete more challenging tasks. Then, set the timer and off you go! We usually allow 30 minutes per dish, so there is enough time to prep, cook, and serve. At the end of the allotted time, everyone gets to taste the dishes and then vote on which one is the best.

Because we enjoy cooking, we have stocked our kitchen with an assortment of cooking gadgets. You don’t need any fancy appliances or devices to hold your own cooking competition, but some of our boys’ favorites include our mini food processor, our electric skillet, and our smoothie-making blender.

Family water balloon battle

One of our favorite ways to cool off in the summer involves water balloons and lots of them! We usually start off playing a simple game of “catch”. All you need is a bag of balloons, a bucket and a water source like a hose or sink faucet. First, we fill the balloons with water. Next, we divide up into teams of two. Then it’s “game on!” Each team member stands across from his or her partner. The team then tosses the balloons back and forth to each other, taking one step back after each successful catch. The team that catches the most tosses without breaking the balloon wins!

And then of course, when our game has ended, we run to the bucket of balloons and grab more balloons, and an all-out water balloon war ensues. Why is it that I am always the one who ends up soaking wet?

Volunteering together as a family

Volunteering is a beautiful way to bond together as a family while giving your time to help those in need. While this may not seem like an obvious activity during a staycation, we feel that it’s essential to teach our boys gratitude and demonstrate the value of giving back to our local community. There are plenty of volunteer opportunities available for kids of all ages. When our boys were small, they were able to decorate lunch bags to be used to pack lunches for less fortunate children in our community during the summer. Then, when our boys got older, we signed up to pack food in those lunch bags. A simple online search will provide you with a list of volunteer opportunities in and near your city.

What’s on YOUR summer staycation bucket list?

We’d love to hear all about your summer staycation bucket list plans. Please share them with us below so we can add them to our ever-growing list.

Happy Summer Staycation!

Planting a Garden with Your Teen, Benefits and Helpful Tips

On June 1, 2019June 14, 2019 By betsyIn The Great Outdoors

This post may include affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I may earn compensation if you click through and make a purchase.

School’s out for summer, plant a garden with your teen

As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, it’s the perfect time to get outside as a family. However, my teens would rather spend time in front of the television, watching an episode of The Office for the umpteenth time or playing video games. This year I’ve come up with a plan and I’m ready to share it with you. Read on for helpful tips and learn about the benefits of planting a garden with your teen.

Our teens’ screen time obsession is growing like a weed

According to a report from the Pew Research Center, 95% of teens say they have a smartphone or have access to one. Also noted in this report, 45% of teens say they are online on a near-constant basis. Further, roughly nine out of ten boys have access to a game console at home.

These statistics just reinforce the fact that when given the opportunity, our teens will in fact choose to be online, unless, of course, we provide them with a fun and engaging alternative.

Replanting the couch potatoes outside

A couple of months ago, I proposed to my teens that we plant a fruit and vegetable garden. We had attempted growing vegetables haphazardly in recent years but never really put in the time or effort required to successfully yield a harvest. This year, we decided we’d roll up our sleeves, dig deep (literally and figuratively) and make it happen.

Finding the right time for planting a garden with your teen

It’s important to note here that we live in central Florida. That means our planting season is earlier than most. So, depending on where you live, your timeline may shift slightly. This handy growing calendar will help you determine your growing zone, which will inform you what to plant and when to plant it in your location. For example, we are located in zone 9, and if we choose to grow lettuce this year, we will need to wait until late September to plant.

Give your teen a say in decisions about your garden

The best way to get the whole family excited about planting a garden with your teen is to ensure that everyone gets a say. Let’s face it, teens aren’t exactly the biggest fans of most vegetables. So I knew it would be beneficial to give mine the option to choose vegetables or fruits that they might actually eat.

green beans grown in our garden — Green beans are a family favorite.

In addition to determining which produce your family will enjoy, if you are just starting out, you probably want to begin with fruits and vegetables that are fairly easy to grow. This year, based on timing and what our boys preferred, we decided to grow tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, strawberries, baby watermelons, basil, and corn.

baby watermelons are starting to grow — Our baby watermelons are finally starting to grow!

Develop a blueprint when planting a garden with your teen

You will need to evaluate the space and decide the best location for planting a garden with your teen. This is a great opportunity to get your teens involved in the process. If your kids are kinda nerdy like me, they can try one of the many free online garden planners. And if your teens are Minecraft fans like my son, they can design a garden in Minecraft. Yes, I said it. Minecraft.

Designing a garden in Minecraft on the computer

I’m a visual person, so I appreciate seeing things plotted out on old fashioned graph paper. It’s really up to you and your family which route you choose. I do recommend paying close attention to how much space each of your plants will need and how far they will spread. We learned the hard way with cucumbers this year that they spread like crazy and take up a LOT of room. They are taking over our garden!

Our cucumber plants are spreading throughout the garden — Our cucumber plants are taking over the garden.

If they can build it, teens will come

Another great activity to include when planting a garden with your teen is to build a raised bed in your backyard. My husband and sons built a simple raised bed for the cost of a few pressure treated 2x8s in a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon. The satisfaction that they found in designing and building the bed with their own hands made a huge difference in their connection to our garden project. There are plenty of free plans and instructions online for building a raised bed, so do your research and determine what fits your space and your budget.

Build your own inexpensive and easy raised garden bed

Florida soil is mostly sand, which makes it challenging to grown anything successfully in the ground, hence the reason for building the raised bed. We measured the area of our garden, dug out the sand/dirt and filled it with organic soil, mixing in plenty of black cow compost.

Getting started with container gardening

If you don’t have a space for a garden in your yard, you have plenty of other options. You could plant in containers on a patio or deck. You just need to make sure that your plants get the right amount of sun. We grow our basil in a pot on our patio because I like to keep it nearby so I can easily snip some when I need it for a recipe.

This year, we made the decision to grow our strawberries in an Earth Box. If you aren’t familiar with this amazing invention, the Earth Box is a complete system that makes gardening effortless and is a perfect solution for those who have limited space and/or who may just be getting started. We found that our strawberries grew better, faster and yielded more fruit than in previous years when we grew them in the ground.

The best tools for teen gardeners

When planting a garden with your teen, you don’t need much more than some seeds or seedlings, some dirt, a shovel, and a water source. But if your teens are anything like mine, they love trying out new gadgets and tools. There are a plethora of options to choose from but buying a gardening tool set offers an affordable solution complete with just about everything you need.

The benefits of planting a garden with your teen

As referenced earlier, teens and their screens continue to sabotage the time our kids spend outdoors. Planting a garden with your teen is a fantastic way to get outside into the fresh air, but the benefits of gardening go even further.

Gardening is good for the mind: Teens will use their brains for math, science and problem-solving in the garden. They will use these skills when planning and building a garden bed, when calculating fertilizer and water ratios and when measuring the space needed for optimal growth. They will begin to understand the life-cycle of a plant and what it takes to sustain growth in a living thing.

Gardening is good for the soul: I remember when my boys were young. They took advantage of every opportunity to get their hands in the dirt. Planting a garden with your teen provides them with the chance to return to the simple pleasures of childhood, being outdoors, and enjoying the beauty of nature. Today’s teens are feeling overwhelmed and stressed in their daily lives. As reported in a study by Science Direct, spending time in the garden has been shown to help to improve mental health and well-being.

Gardening is good for connection: Being outside in the peace and quiet provides us with uninterrupted time to connect with our kids without the usual technology-related distractions. We’ve had some pretty awesome conversations while tending to our plants. Gardening also gives our kids the ability to connect with nature and the environment.

Gardening is good for the body: Gardening is practically all manual labor. Whether building a garden bed, unloading bags of soil, digging a bed or planting seeds, gardening challenges our teens to be physical. It gets their blood moving and makes their bodies stronger. Planting a garden with your teen also encourages them to try new healthy foods. They will learn more about the importance of fueling their bodies with healthy fruits and vegetables rather than donuts and soda pop.

Gardening is good for building confidence and self-esteem: I can tell you from experience that nothing tastes better than that first bite into a ripe strawberry or a juicy tomato that you grew in your own garden. Knowing that they grew their food from a simple seed instills a sense of purpose and confidence in our teens. Additionally, being the caretaker of a garden gives teens a sense of accomplishment and helps them learn responsibility.

Our first ripe strawberry of the season — The first ripe strawberry of the season.

Hydroponic gardening is our next big adventure

Next year, our goal is to try our hand at hydroponic gardening. The word hydroponics comes from two Greek words: “hydro” meaning water and “ponics” meaning labor. Gardening without soil isn’t a new concept but it’s new to us. From what we’ve learned in our research, there are lots of benefits of hydroponic gardening including faster growth rate, greater yield, and a number of benefits to the environment. We are a DIY kind of family and my younger son is obsessed with the mechanics of how things work, so we’re planning to design and build our own hydroponics garden very soon! If your family enjoys DIY, this may be another great way to start planting a garden with your teen.

Vertical hydroponic gardens are great for small spaces — A vertical hydroponic garden is great for small spaces.

Planting a garden with your teen this summer

At the risk of getting sentimental, there are only a few short summers left before our teens head off to college. We try to take advantage of any activity that will enable us to spend more time with our boys.

Measuring the height of the cornstalk next to the teenager — Like teen boys, the cornstalk just keeps growing!

Planting a garden with your teen provides the chance to connect with your teen for very little investment of time or money. Start with one small container and work your way up from there. Planting a garden with your teen will build a bond and create memories that you’ll cherish for years to come.

Please comment below and let me know if you are thinking about planting a garden with your teen. We certainly aren’t experts but we’d be happy to share what we have learned along the way. And we’d love to see your photos and hear all about the yummy and healthy foods you and your teen are growing in your garden!

Travel Planning with Teens

On May 20, 2019July 1, 2019 By betsyIn Travel8 Comments

It all started one day in January during a conversation between my husband and a friend at work. FOTH (friend of the hubs) and his family had just spent the previous summer in Maine. He raved about the fun they’d had and talked about the many outdoor activities they experienced. So the hubs came home from work that night and suggested that we target Maine as our summer vacation destination. Anywhere north of Florida seemed like a good idea to me. We’ve never been to Maine, but thanks to a plethora of apps, websites, and recommendations from friends, we felt equipped to begin travel planning with our teens.

Disneyworld doesn’t feel so “magical” in the stifling heat of summer

We live in central Florida with two teenage boys, just a short drive from Walt Disney World. We moved to Florida from Wisconsin about nine years ago, and while we don’t miss the frigid cold or blizzard-like conditions of winter, we certainly do miss the temperate summer days and cool summer nights. So every year, to gain some respite from the blistering heat, we plan a summer trip to a cooler climate. Hence our enthusiasm to visit Maine.

Let the vacation planning begin

First things first, we needed to decide the length of our trip, the dates we would travel and specifically where and how we would spend our time. And then, of course, there’s that small matter of… <insert dramatic organ music here>…the budget. Once we ~~fought about~~ decided on our budget, we were off and running. Or in this case, we were off and Googling.

Plane, Train or Automobile

Maine is literally as far north as you can get from Florida when traveling the US Eastern seaboard. We often enjoy road trips as a family, and we have driven north on many other vacations, but Maine just seems a little, actually a LOT, too far to drive. Hopping a train would be fun, but it would also consume too much of our time, so our obvious first choice was to book our flights.

Off we went…and when I say “we”, I actually mean “me”… to the computer. When travel planning with teens, the reality is that most of the actual planning is done without the teens. They are interested in the “fun stuff” but our mode of travel wasn’t of much interest to them. We had locked in our travel dates and decided we would fly into and out of Portland, so I immediately started looking for flights.

Summer fares from Florida to anywhere else in the US aren’t cheap. We finally landed (pun intended) on flights with Jet Blue. They don’t offer the cheapest flight in town but are definitely one of our preferred airlines. Sadly they don’t fly direct to most locations when flying from Orlando. Case in point, there is no such thing as a non-stop flight from Orlando to Portland, Maine when flying Jet Blue. We can’t wait (she says with sarcasm) for that stopover at JFK airport!

Let’s get to the fun stuff already

Once our flights were booked, it was time to dig into the details. This is when the actual travel planning with teens began. Our boys became so much more engaged once we began plotting out our daily excursions and activities.

Thankfully, we had more than a few helpful suggestions from others, including FOTH. Taking all of those recommendations into consideration, we sat down with our boys to talk about the trip. It is always important to us that our entire family is invested in the decisions we make related to our vacations. We all agreed that we definitely wanted to visit Acadia National Park and it was unanimous that we should spend the bulk of our time being active and outdoors to make the most of the cooler weather. (Reminder, this isn’t much of an option during the summer in Florida.)

Taking the teens out of their comfort zone

I’m fairly certain that most people who have teenage boys struggle with the dreaded “but screen time is my lifeline!” mentality. It’s an ongoing battle to pry their game-playing-snapchat-posting smartphones from their hands. We get it, but as their parents, we are painfully aware that we only have a few short summers with our boys before they head off to college. And for us, that means trying to spend as much “quality time” with them as possible.

Travel planning with teens isn’t always easy, especially when looking for opportunities to engage, but we were up for the challenge! I think the word “captive” might be a bit too strong, but we knew we needed options that would allow us to disconnect from technology and reconnect as a family.

Cottage on Attean Lake — The view from our cottage

On the recommendation of FOTH, we booked three nights at Attean Lake Lodge in Jackman, Maine. Warning: one visit to the website and you’ll likely be booking your stay, as well. It’s the type of vacation destination most people only dream about where you can go off the grid and truly unwind. Breaking the news to our boys that our cottage by the lake would not have electricity or Wi-Fi didn’t end up being as devastating to them as we feared. In fact, they both agreed that it sounded like fun. PS – the main lodge, just a short walk down the path, has all the comforts of home, including electricity and Wi-Fi. So, technically, they will still have a lifeline to the rest of the world.

Coasting our way through Maine

After our three glorious days and nights at Attean, we will head over to the scenic coast and spend three nights at the Bar Harbor Motel. Our plan is to rent bicycles and ride the carriage roads through Acadia National Park. Stay tuned for a post-trip update where I promise to include plenty of spectacular coastline photos!

So much to see and do in the Pine Tree State

In addition to admiring the beauty of the pine trees, there is so much to do in Maine. Just check out the interactive tour book offered by Maine Tourism or browse The Maine Thing online newsletter from Visit Maine and you will see what I mean. After Bar Harbor, we will work our way down the coast toward Portland for the last few days of our trip where we will experience a mix of just about everything. We will spend time fishing, hiking and biking, seeing the sights, whale watching, sampling the local fare (can you say “lobstah”?) and most of all kicking back and relaxing. We have so many exciting things to enjoy on our trip but I can say without a doubt that the thing I’m most looking forward to is enjoying the natural scenic beauty of Maine while spending time with my three favorite people on the planet. And, and of course, getting out of the Florida heat!