In our eight years of marriage, Mike and I have gone on only two vacations that didn’t involve visiting family, attending weddings/reunions, or some type of work commitment (I wish we could go along on Mike’s work trips, particularly last summer when he “had” to go to Hawai’i for a week). The vacations? A three-day visit to a small Scottish town to celebrate our three-year-anniversary (we were living in Scotland at the time) and our less-than-48-hour honeymoon way back in 2001.
Fortunately, we always have a wonderful time visiting family, and we’re pretty good at staycations. We love finding local ways to have a good time, especially when these things are free. We spent several years as (by Western standards sometimes nearly literally) starving students and now live as a family of nearly-five with many student loans and a house that (lately) has been exceptionally fond of falling apart, so free is good. Here are a few staycation activities we’ve enjoyed so far this summer:
- A free family outing to the Boston Museum of Science last Friday, courtesy of the Highland Street Foundation’s Free Fun Fridays.
- A day out at Davis’ Farmland – not free, but we got discounted tickets through a friend and the kids had a fantastic time.
- Several trips to the Discovery Museums in Acton. We bought a membership last year and have gotten more than our money’s worth over the past twelve months. I do wish I had started bringing my kids to the science museum earlier – I assumed they were too young but took them there last week and it turns out they PREFER the science museum over the children’s museum (much to their super-geeky father’s delight, and well-timed since he had been expressing concern over their lack of geekiness relative to himself).
- A potluck BBQ for Mike’s coworkers and their families in our backyard (they don’t fit in our house)
- Our town’s 4th of July parade
- Celebrating my birthday with family
- Celebrating our 8-year anniversary (dinner out without children – quite the treat in our home!)
- Play dates and get-togethers with friends
- Playing outdoors
And some activities we’re looking forward to:
- More play dates – including a trip to the zoo with friends this Friday (free, thanks to the friends’ zoo membership!)
- Visits from family members throughout the summer (thanks in large part to the pending arrival of Baby #3)
- Mike’s birthday
- Playing outdoors
- Visiting local farms and our town’s new Farmer’s Market
- Birthday parties for a couple of Emma’s friends
Last, (hopefully) quite small, but most definitely not least, the arrival of Baby #3 – ideally within the next 30 days! I even washed the baby clothes and packed a hospital bag last night…
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
What a lot of fun activities! How exciting that you have the baby clothes washed and hospital bag packed now :)
I enjoyed your post. I had vacationed in fantastic places (think French Alps and Greece) and spent most of those vacations in a really bad mood and seriously pissed with my boyfriend. In fact I kept wishing I was elsewhere. And I had fantastic time staying home for a mini-staycation with my family and going hiking with them. It's not the venue that matters, it's your company and your spirit of fun and adventure (or lack of it)
You've gotta love a good staycation! Good luck with the new baby. What an exciting time for your family.
How exciting! It's nice to have fun near home. And a new little one will be the best part of all. Soon!
I love free museum events…I need to go to them more often.
How neat that the kids enjoy the science museum so much! I started taking Emily to the one near us when she was very young, and I felt like she got a lot out of it too. Best wishes for the new baby… how exciting!!
This summer certainly is exciting for your family. I'm anxious to hear about the baby. Doesn't it feel good to have everything washed and ready to go!!
I agree there is always lots of fun things to do at home.
Bummer that you couldn't go along to Hawaii. Your staycations sound great though and it seems like you have lots of activities to keep you busy.
I can't wait to see the baby! Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy.
Wow-from the places you've mentioned, I'm thinking you and I don't live that far away from one another :)
Sounds like you're having fun at home! We love the Science Museum!
Hope you last month is semi easy. Packing the hospital bag with the baby clothes was so much fun!!
So many great ideas. I really enjoyed your post and good luck with the new baby coming! So exciting.
Sounds like a busy summer full of lots of memories! Congrats on baby #3! Your little ones are adorable!
I hope your enjoy your staycation! And Best wishes on the arival of baby nubmer 3!
You have such great ideas! What FUN!! Happy Birthday To You & Mike since I missed yours and his is coming up!! So excited to hear all about baby #3 when he or she gets here!! :D
Hurray! Last weekend we finally got around to figuring out how to put Baby#2's car seat into the car, and now we have a borrowed co-sleeper that we will set up at some point. That's the sum total of my preparations so far… five more weeks. We just switched from planning a second home birth to the hospital because of our stupid insurance, so I suppose I should pack one of those bag things soon. Sigh.
Blessings and much luck with the delivery and arrival of number 3 so very soon!! We are awaiting number 4 in 9 weeks!!
Can't wait to your new little one!
Local farmers markets, library story times, walks in parks, picnics, all good free things! I think family vacations get too stressful and you want to make sure you have fun fun fun. Too much pressure!
Can't wait to hear about the arrival of #3 :)
@Bargain Becky – The Science Museum was crowded, but not as insane as I was afraid it would be. We were even able to park in the museum's parking garage (after driving around for a while). I called before we went there and they said it was actually slightly less busy than it had been during the week, possibly because it wasn't raining for once so people were out enjoying the nice weather.
Plimouth Plantation was one of the other ones I was really interested in, but given the date I'm hoping we'll be enjoying a newborn instead…
Great post!! Can't believe you'll have another one here in a month! Wowzers!
How did the Science Museum go? Were there tons of lines? I'm not sure how many people really know about the free friday fun around here. I want to hit up the Plimoth Plantation one.
I just went to Franklin Park Zoo yesterday on a whim. It's amazing – everytime I go to that place, I find something else we didn't see the time before!