{"id":5602,"date":"2016-06-03T23:41:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T04:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomchak.com\/blog\/?p=5602"},"modified":"2023-05-19T08:08:22","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T13:08:22","slug":"the-days-of-summer-vacation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomchak.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/03\/the-days-of-summer-vacation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Days of Summer Vacation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’m SO lucky. Never in my life did I think I would have the opportunity to have the summer at home with the kids instead of working full-time. Yet due to the unexpected turn of events of the last 12 months fate has delivered just that to me.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"IMG_0918\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The short answer is that, due to Brenda having the full-time job with benefits and me being the freelancer now, I have to work around her schedule – thus I’m taking care of the kids this summer. I’ll still be taking jobs that I can do at home in the evenings, but I will be more limited over the next 2 months than I would otherwise be. Gone are the on-site freelance jobs or traveling gigs for a short while.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"IMG_0978\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I’ve been making a mental list for weeks now of what I want to do with them over the summer and in typical style I’m probably being overly ambitions. However, here are just some of the things I’ve come up with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Learn to swim, at least well enough to not sink like stones in the water (they start next week).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Learn to tie their shoes (Andrew is the only one so far that can do it).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Rock Climbing (did that today)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Learn to ride bikes in the next 10 days or so. Andrew has that down and has been practicing and getting better every day.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Home Schooling – I want them to still be learning every day through one thing or another. It can be fun too, but I want them to get into the habit of always wanting<\/em> to learn.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Introduce them to martial arts. Maybe an introductory class of some kind.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Have them help create and be the stars of their own music video (we’ve already picked a song and I’ve started planning it out).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Weekly field trips to somewhere educational, but something that ties into other things we’ve been learning about.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Try some new hobbies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n
    \n
    \"IMG_1028\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

    Even as I write that out I’m feeling like I’m overreaching! But a plan that gets cut down is better than no plan I guess. I’m just excited and want to make the most of it because this could be my only summer to ever do this, who knows! A year ago I wouldn’t have imagined this was even possible.<\/p>\n\n\n

    \n
    \"IMG_1032\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

    We’ve been having fun this week but they’ve only had 2 days off so far. Fingers crossed I pace myself and don’t have a mental breakdown before we even get to July!<\/p>\n\n\n

    \n
    \"IMG_1039\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

    PS… If you’re wondering why there are no pictures of Maximus on the rock climbing wall, it’s because he made “bad choices” earlier today and part of his punishment lost some preferred activities. He was sitting with me pouting the whole time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’m SO lucky. Never in my life did I think I would have the opportunity to have the summer at home with the kids instead of working full-time. Yet due to the unexpected turn of events of the last 12 months fate has delivered just that to me. The short answer is that, due to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":5626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[13,21,407,170],"class_list":["post-5602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photo","category-text","tag-andrew","tag-max","tag-summer-vacation","tag-sydney"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tomchak.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_1021.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p47XZT-1sm","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5955,"url":"https:\/\/tomchak.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/03\/pure-michigan-summer-vacation-begins\/","url_meta":{"origin":5602,"position":0},"title":"Pure Michigan – Summer Vacation Begins","author":"Thomas Tomchak","date":"July 3, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"To kick off the first days of summer vacation we spent a week in Michigan visiting family and doing fun activities. 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