A spoonful of sugar in bucketlisting form helps the Last Day of School Eve not sting so much

We watched Mary Poppins at school today, my guys told me while we after-school snacked.

So of course I took the opportunity to screech sing my rendition of “A Spoonful of Sugar” at the top of my lungs.

Why are those kids taking medicine?  Are they sick?  Why doesn’t it taste good? And how does a spoonful of sugar help?

So I had to tell them that sometimes something sweet helps something not so good taste a little better.  And that the medicine is a metaphor for yucky, horrible or sad things. (I might have gone a little too over their heads with that one though and this reminds me I totally need to watch Mary Poppins again) But today my sad thing is tonight, because I totally can’t believe that after tomorrow my dear little kindergarteners are not the teeny new school babies anymore, but 1st graders.  GRADE ONES! (you know, for my Canadian readers back at home.) And I don’t want to think about my sweet little boys being so old yet, so I had them bucket list ALL the fun things we’re planning on doing together before they get too big to hang out with me.

So here’s my spoonful of sugar for the last day of school before summer and my guys are insistent that we will definitely finish this list:

SEATTLE SUMMER BUCKET LIST 2015

• Raspberry Picking
• Blueberry picking
• Geo-caching
• making pickles
• camping (I say once but they say AT LEAST ONCE!)
• going to Portland
• Vancouver Island
• frog catching
• 50 parks (I think we will need a separate list to document this one)
• Point Defiance Zoo
• Valdes
• Whistler
• strawberry picking (because I did this once without them)
• making ice cream
• Woodland Park Zoo
• Hands on Children’s Museum
• Camel Safari (it’s local not too far away)
• buy and plant a gingko tree
• soccer
• golf
• swimming
• Idaho
• Rock Climbing
• Finishing the Cabin
• Reading Program at the Library
• Hiking
• Biking to Bainbridge Island

And I’m sure we’ll add some more as we think of more things, but this is what we have for the 80 or so days we get for summer this year so maybe this year we’ll finish more on our bucket list than we ever have before.  Are you in the Pacific Northwest this summer?  It is definitely busier around here in the summer, but this is definitely my favorite time of year and I have a hard time heading anywhere else.  If you have favorite summer activities near Seattle, I’d definitely love to hear!

Terumi

Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys.  She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live.  She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)