30 Day Challenge - Day 8 - Summer Fun

For Day 8, I chose Summer Fun, particularly for the kids.

We don't live in a super huge city.  The population here is about 18,000, so in my eyes it's still pretty big.  This is coming from someone who grew up in a town with a population of 280.  One of the drawbacks of living in a small town is there are not many opportunities for organized activities without driving to another larger town.

Both Scraps and Beau are able to play community ball because of our town's size.  Beau could play softball but chose instead to continue with baseball.  And this is Scrappy's first year playing t-ball.  I figured since I have to be there with the kids for practice, why not coach?  I somehow managed to get the position of head coach for both teams too. (Not like I have enough going on anyway, right??)  Scraps plays Mondays and Wednesdays 5:30-6:30 pm and Beau plays Tuesdays and Thursdays 6-7:30 pm.  For the kids to play ball cost a little more than we wanted to pay - $40 for him (t-shirt and coach shirt included) and $50 for her (t-shirt, hat, and coach shirt included).  We set aside some of our tax returns to cover those costs.

So what can we do the rest of the summer?

The city and the park and rec department put on many activities during the summer which are low cost and free.  Today we went to our city airport for the Touch-A-Truck event.  The kids had a lot of fun, and it only cost us the gas to drive across town.

police car

utility truck

military transport vehicle

fire truck

ambulance

plane

The play parks in town will be opening this week.  They have free activities during the week like craft days, tie-dye days, and water fun days.  Our local performing arts center has a "mystery movie" this Wednesday for $1 per person.  Last year the mystery movie was Beauty and the Beast.  I hope this year it's a newer movie! But the kids had fun either way.  This year it's going to be a little different with having the baby with.

There is also a Kids Art in the Park day (free), Summer Carnival at Farmer's Market ($2 per kid), beach luau (free), Movies in the Park (free), and Stories in the Park (free).  They send out a flier in the spring with all the dates of the activities so we can try to plan our schedule around it.  It gets a little crazy sometimes, but I wouldn't have it any other way!!