Hello Summer!

It's finally here, summer 2018! We are have been looking forward to some fun family time for months. Life in the Higham house has been crazy busy with sports, school, careers, work, and ministry. As a family, we have been running pretty hard, but now we're coming into a season where we can slow down and have a little time to enjoy life as a family.

As we begin to get into the summer flow, there are a few things we're hoping for as a family. So as we do with each summer, we have formulated our summer bucket list. We asked the kids what activities they would like to do as a family and then individually with mom and dad. We'll post that content in an upcoming blog post.

No, this post is about the things we want to see and do as parents.  The school year is a time for running, but summer is a time to slow down, experience something different and create opportunities that we hop become life-long memories . As we think about what we hope to accomplish this summer, here are three goals for the family. 

Rest.

This might prove to be our most challenging goal. Even with a scaled back calendar, life with five kids is still busy. Nevertheless, one of our big goals is to make time to rest. Last summer, we did a lot of running around as we took kids back and forth to summer camps, ran a 3 week day camp program, led a mission trip, and kept up with church and ministry responsibilities. There was actually a stretch where we went from camp, to day camp, to mission trip to day camp, then to vacation all back to back. While it was good, it was exhausting.

This summer we've already said "NO" to a number of activities simply so we can say "YES" to our family. Sure the kids will still get the chance to go to summer camp, that's something that is super important to us as we raise our kids. But, by saying "NO" to some of the extras, we've already eliminated the additional work, travel and expense that we took on last summer. That equates to more time at home. More time hanging out with the kids in the back yard. More time for new adventures. And, more time for rest.

Yes, we've already experienced a couple of evening where we were able to just sit and watch a movie or a couple TV shows. As the summer goes on, we will take more advantage of our time and rest with our kids.

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Adventure.

As the kids have grown older, we have found it easier and more fun to go on mini-adventures. We were recently in Ohio for a wedding where we took advantage of the location to go and explore. We discovered some great hiking trails and water falls. The trip turned into a great weekend adventure.

We have been looking around our area to schedule visits to local parks, lakes, hiking and bike trails, and tourist spots. There are a ton of great locations within a short drive. Our goal is to take the time to visit a number of these locations and experience some fun adventures. Then, we plan to come back and share our adventures here on the blog, and on our YouTube channel, Life in the Higham House.

Memories.

For both Amy and Jay, there are hundreds of summer memories. Camping. Beach trips. Summer camp. Family vacation. Time with family. These memories are cherished treasures full of stories. As parents, we want to do our best in creating opportunities that lead to treasured memories.

This summer, everything we plan on doing is scheduled with the hope that in ten, fifteen, even twenty years from now, our kids will be able to sit down at the kitchen table and share in the laughter and storytelling of these days. 

What are your goals for the summer? Is there something that you hope you can bring to your family? Take a few moments to comment and share below! We'd love to hear from you!

- the higham family

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