active family travel,  Adoption and Family,  family,  parenting,  Travel

Summer Math and Travel With Tweens

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This summer I am trying my hardest to trick my brain into forgetting summer math. June plus July plus August equals my three favourite months. Summer is fleeting, especially in Canada. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it-kind-of-season. Time flies, but summer time well that’s like a Concord whipping by at breakneck speed. how many more weeks do we get to enjoy this beautiful weather? How much more time off school? How many more summers with my kids at home? Only 6 more years and one will be in college or university. That’s tween Mom math. Summer math. In my experience, the only way to put an end to that kind of crazy math is to go go go, seize the moment and shake hard. This is how I plan to do that this year.
Summer at the Schuck house equals parties. We have several celebrations and family birthdays squeezed into the hot summer months and so we always end up throwing some entertaining events – birthday parties, anniversaries, adoption celebrations. My oldest daughter turns 13!! My anniversary falls in the summer. My husband’s birthday is in June and mine is in July. So many chances to host parties at our pool this year too. I might have mentioned this before but it is worth mentioning again, Kinder Surprises are perfect treats to share at family parties or school parties because they are nut free. No allergy worries there. (The mini eggs have traces of hazelnuts though so save those for a safe time.) During the school year, Kinder Eggs help build friendships. In fact over the last two years, both of my daughters have shared Kinder Surprises to cheer up friends. Moody tweens are hard to negotiate at any age. Chocolate, and a surprise, sometimes help.
This summer we have a few awesome travel opportunities happening. It might be one of our best summers yet. In June Payton and I were guests in Puerto Vallarta so that kind of set the tone for tween travel and the summer of 2014. Together we snorkelled, sampled amazing food, hiked, explored, swam with dolphins and my brave tween even zip lined. I highly recommend Puerto Vallarta for tweens or families in general because of all the fun activities there are to do. In March, I bought my youngest daughter tickets to see Katy Perry in concert in mid-July. But the timing with their day camps and my Blogher conference ticket meant we had to get tickets to see her in Ottawa instead of Toronto. And since I have been wanting to take my bilingual girls to Montreal for a long time we are extending that trip at the start. Montreal is a great detonation for travel with tweens by the way. Especially bilingual tweens. So as soon as they finish their first session of Original Kids Theatre day camp we have a weekend to pack and swim in our pool and then we are tripping to Montreal by train. We will explore for a couple of days and then on to Ottawa for the concert. After that we are back and we pack the kids for sleep away camp. The end of July is Blogher in San Jose, California.
In between there we have more birthday parties and summer parties. We look forward to sharing those here on thrifty momma’s tips. Then, of course, like all good Canadians we will take some of August off and head to a cottage. This year Parkbridge Resorts is lending us a cottage on a beach up north for part of a week. We also expect to take a week near Sauble Beach with cousins and share some Kinder Surprises there too. And Ohio might also be calling for a weekend road trip too. Kinder Surprises are perfect for road trips. I like to throw some in the travel bags. They help break up the drive. (Just remember you can’t take them with you in the United States.)
Anyways, if my plan succeeds and I am too busy enjoying summer to think about math equations, then all will be right in my little corner of the world.
What are you doing this summer?
 
Disclosure: I’m part of the Kinder® Mom program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.”

Mom of two beautiful active girls, traveller, fitness junkie, social media consultant, and keeper of the sanity.

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