Skip to main content

What a Summer Break is Meant to Do

Way back when I was young, I believed summer break was about sleeping in, swimming and reading lots and lots of books. Of course, when we lived in Arizona we were able to swim year round, and as an avid reader books were high on my list of priorities year round. So I guess sleeping in was the only real advantage summer held over the other four seasons!

These days, summer break is about homeschool planning, youth group mission trips, sorting and organizing as much of the house as I am able, taking a family vacation, and brand new this year ~ moving our firstborn to college. (Go ahead, feel sorry for me and remind me that I've done a good job and he's meant to leave home at this stage in his life...I need to hear that over and over again, it seems!). Since the inevitable move to Wheaton, Illinois is just around the corner (10 days away, to be exact) I think I'll focus on our family vacation for this blog post.

Some of you may recall that we took our vacation in late May and were blessed to enjoy 2 1/2 weeks of leisure time in sunny Florida. And you may also be thinking that May was a while ago - isn't it time for me to stop thinking about that long-since-over vacation?? And my answer would be, NO! I think the end goal of a family vacation is to make great memories - and memories are no good if we don't actually recall them. So remembering a great vacation is a huge part of what makes it so, well, memorable :)

While in Florida, we visited the Disney World parks with two of our greatest friends in the whole wide world (known as J & J on my blog). You see them in the photo that heads up this blog. (Yes, it says there should be 9 of us in the picture but my hubby was taking the picture - but he's still a part of the equation because he was on vacation with us!) J & J have done Disney 15 years in a row. They know those parks inside and out! Not to mention they totally "get" our family's quirky sense of humor and are also healthy enough to tell us to "buzz off" for a while when they needed some time for themselves. (Healthy friendships only happen when your friends are emotionally healthy - just thought I'd throw that in for no extra charge!)

Hands down the best day of the trip was "STAR WARS Weekend" at Disney's Hollywood Studios. We had an idea about what we needed to do in order to take full advantage of this unique event, but leave it to our fantastic friends J & J to spend their afternoon finding out all the specific details to ensure our family got the full effect, so to speak. After all, Disney is full of princesses 365 days of the year - and that's pretty cool for our 4 lovely daughters! (Okay, our youngest likes toy guns more than toy dolls, but humor me here!). Our 18-year-old son could have been a little overwhelmed by princess-o'rama. He's a good kid, so he wouldn't complain even if he were in a catatonic state due to an excess of pink ruffles and tiaras. But the fact that STAR WARS Weekend landed on our trip made it a super fun time for him, too.

So around 1:30 a.m. my son, our 16-year-old daughter and my husband left our resort to secure their place in line, which would ensure they received the necessary arm band to meet my son's favorite STAR WARS actor (he's really more of a stunt man than an actor, I guess). And when it was time for my husband to return to the resort and pick up the rest of us for our day at Hollywood Studios, none other than J & J were there to hang out with our two oldest as they rushed to get the correct FAST PASSES needed to meet Ray Park. And they probably rode a few rides while waiting on us, too.

My words and the few pictures I'll share won't suffice to how much fun we had that day. There were Storm Troopers referring to my husband as "rebel scum", Darth Vader "choked" my 13-year-old daughter (it sounds creepy, but it was actually pretty cool), I was asked why I had on a Jedi Training Academy shirt but wasn't in proper academy attire when out in public, and my two oldest teens had multiple incidents with Storm Troopers. Here is a picture of my son Gage being "arrested" by a Trooper:





Isn't that a great picture?

And here is my daughter Alexandra going head-to-head with a Storm Trooper:





Another great photo op moment:





The point of this is to remember how much fun we had on this vacation, and to encourage you to make memories with your family this summer. You still have plenty of time to choose the things that you will remember for years to come, whether it's a night at the drive-in or a trip to Orlando.

In fact, why not try to make a memory every single day? Sounds like a pretty good way to live to me!

Day 107 done :)

Jan L. Burt
www.HomeschoolingMothersBibleStudy.com

Comments

  1. You've done a good job and he's meant to leave home at this stage in his life!!!! :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

A Homeschool Mom's Devotional by award-winning podcaster Jan L. Burt

Colossians 4:17 tells the reader to "be sure to carry out the work the Lord gave you". How can this be applied to the enormously busy lifestyle of a homeschool mom? First of all, we must always remember that the Word of God has the answer for our every need and we can trust fully in God to use His Word to lead us, guide us, correct us, and bless us. Keeping that in mind, let's consider what this verse is saying. We are told to carry out, or complete, the work the Lord has given us. We are wives, mothers, homeschoolers. Those three BIG job descriptions come immediately to mind when I think of homeschooling mothers. Applying God's Word to our life means carrying out our work as wives, as mothers, and as homeschoolers. When I am exhausted from another long day (or long week, long month, long year, etc.) I still must honor the Lord by blessing my husband. Maybe that means having a hot meal on the table when he arrives home from work. Perhaps your husband

I Gotta Let You Know Two Very Important Things (Seriously, They Are Truly Important For You To Know...)

 First, a big --- fat --- hefty dose of encouragement for you, my wonderful homeschooling friend.  As you get ready to roll into the fall of 2020...stop for just one moment and hear what God's Word has to say to you right here, right now, on the brink of the last stretch of what has possibly been the most turn-your-whole-world-upside-down year ever.  Psalm 125:2 - As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people both now and forevermore.   You are surrounded.  Completely & totally, that's exactly how surrounded you are.  Going into the great unknown as, say, a working mom whose children are going to be doing school online at home (or a working mom homeschooling and working from home for just the next several months, but not planning on continuing to home educate after things "normalize" again).  This is God's promise just for you as you embark upon this season of life. I really, truly believe He wants you to know that He has you surrounded

My Preferred Bible Reading Plan

We all know that reading our Bibles is a key part of living a healthy life as a follower of Jesus. But busy homeschool moms may, at times, struggle to know what part of the Bible to read on any given day. Some people read the Bible through, Genesis to Revelation, and when they finish simply start over. Others have reading plans that follow along with the sermons their pastor is currently preaching. And yet others find themselves "stuck in the Psalms", since they're not quite sure what to read. I'm not going to tell you how many chapters a day you should read, or that you need to do exactly what I do. I'm just going to share what has worked for me, and hopefully encourage you to get into the Word using some type of plan ~ because every homeschool mom knows what happens to our plans when we fail to create a plan, right?! I use a prayer and Bible reading guide called "Prayer Point" , published by Samaritan's Purse. About every 8 weeks, I receive a

Do You Homeschool? Then You Need to Read This Article!

Whether you have been homeschooling for a month, a year, or a decade, you've inevitably faced the "questions". Questions about socialization, college, athletics, driver's ed, high-school biology, etc. etc. etc. and so on..... It seems as if homeschoolers are ripe for questions from day one; but the flip side seems to be that there really is no flip side. We are expected to patiently answer any and all questions, smiling politely and pretending we've never heard this line of questioning before. But when we try to ask a few questions about, say, public schools as a whole or the issue of private schools being used as a last-ditch landing spot for students expelled from public school, well...ahem...we're pretty much told to keep quiet. No one wants to hear our questions, and often times no one really wants to hear our answers to their questions. They just kind of want us to....go....away. I'm not planning on going away any time soon. And neither are my fiv

Everything by Mary DeMuth

The book Everything by Mary DeMuth became a "keeper" for me almost as soon as I began reading. Mary sugarcoats nothing in her attempt to make Jesus' gospel what it rightly is ~ and as you probably guessed from the title of her book, it rightly is about everything. Eighteen chapters, three sections, one-hundred and ninety-eight pages...if you take the time to delve into them you will grow exponentially in your walk with the Lord. In Everything Mary calls us out, calls us higher, and admonishes us with honesty and openness. Sharing from her heart and relying heavily on the truth that is God's Word, she sets things straight. There aren't just one or two things about this book that I have taken to heart; and there aren't just a couple of quotes I could share here. The book in it's entirety is a game-changer! Please buy this book, read this book, apply the truths in this book to your life, and let the Lord become your everything! HERE is a dire