Summer time transition can be difficult. Children getting used to the new schedule, parent's getting used to feeding so many children so often. Activities and costs can really add up when it comes to cost as well. Come get some ideas for cheap summer family activities, easy, oven-less meals, and get a sneak peek into Jen and Hilary's interesting childhood summers.
*The Family Place does not recommend swimming in garbage cans*
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Jen: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast with Hilary and Jen.
Hilary: OK, so we are officially seven, in Cache Valley. Seven days into summer, right?
Jen: Yeah
Hilary: Depending on how you count your days
Jen: Unfortunately, yes, we're seven days into summer.
Hilary: OK, wait a second. There's an unfortunate in that sentence.
Jen: It's hot and I really hate to be hot. I grew up in Arizona. Do you know there's…
Hilary: See this should be beautiful
Jen: Yes. True. I looked at the weather in Arizona, and it's supposed to be like one hundred and fifteen tomorrow. So, at least we're not there,
Hilary: So, I follow this the gal on Instagram and they're in and there in Arizona right now. And she posted, She's like, “Do you always just glisten in Arizona? She's like, Because I feel like I'm constantly glistening. And it's not a good glitz.”
Jen: It's not fun.
Hilary: All right. So, seven days in the summer, and Jen knows that summer is my jam. I live for these next three months, and so much so that sometimes she does not even see me in the office enough right?
Jen: Yeah it is. We've got a pinpoint the days Hilary will be here to get anything done.
Hilary: But it was funny because I was talking with a bunch of friends and it was interesting to hear their opinions where some people were so excited for summer to begin and others that were dreading it dreading the “What am I going to do with my kids all day? How do I handle the mess? The food? The mom, I'm bored. What do I do?” And so, I think it's one of those things that's so intriguing because you really have like the polar opposites when it comes to opinions. Some people that adore these next three months and others that hate the next three months. So, I'll ask. So, it sounds like we know our opinions. We know where we stand.
Jen: I'm great with activities. If they deal with being inside or in a pool or going somewhere, that's a bit cooler than where I live, you know.
Hilary: And you bring up an interesting point because I was reading an article I was talking about like how to create. An affordable summer for your family when it talked about how sometimes vacations, summer vacations can be just a big stress and a source of anxiety for parents because we feel a lot of pressure to create a summer like we used to have as kids. That summer, where you could hop out on your bike, ride around the neighborhood, spend all day with your friends and then come back when it was late. And somehow our parents didn't know where we were, but they were fine with it, right?
Jen: Yeah, my parents were always like, “Go outside and play!”
Hilary: And you didn't return. And nobody, nobody thought twice about it. Right until it was time for dinner again. And so, I sometimes feel like we're still kind of stuck in this mindset that we need to do that with our kids. We need to have the summer that we had. Way back when. And sometimes I feel like that's unrealistic for us to set up that expectation because A) life isn't the same and society is not the same. Yeah, I mean, just basics. I think a lot of parents are at the point where safety wise, yeah, it's unrealistic to send our kids out and say, come back when it gets dark. We don't do that anymore. And B), I think a lot of the activities we did as kids were obviously a lot less inexpensive than they are now.
Jen: Well, there was no technology involved in it, either. And so, kids don't find them fun.
Hilary: That's true. That's true.
Jen: It's like, you want me to go out and kick a soccer ball with my friends or play dodgeball or hide and go seek or whatever we did. Now that's not going to work anymore.
Hilary: It's true. It's true. Those things that we were entertained with for long periods of time last about 10 minutes for our kids, right? And then they're coming back in asking, What's next?
Jen: Because I'm bored
Hilary: And even going to things like the community pool I feel like probably cost us a few bucks. And now you're talking $10, which still doesn't seem like a lot for some, but that adds up when you have multiple kids and they're hoping to go multiple times in a week. Yeah. So, my brother in law was he was complaining to his wife and myself one afternoon because it was driving me crazy that his kids didn't ride their bikes outside. And he even said, made the comment. You know, that's all we did as kids, as we rode our bikes and we rode our bikes everywhere we went. If we wanted to go get a soda, we wrote down and got a soda or we grabbed some candy from the candy shop. Or we rode to this friend's house or this friend's house, and it was driving him crazy that his kids were asking for rides to these different places. And yeah, yeah, it's just, gone are those days unfortunately.
Jen: Yeah, we delivered newspapers when I was a kid, so we would have like the big milk carton crates, roped to the front of our bicycles so we could put all the newspapers in. And I remember going to the video store when VCRs were just coming out and I had to rent a VCR and then rent my movies too. My mom, if you want to do that, go ahead. Here's some yes money, but go ride your bike and go get it.
Hilary: Yep, and we did, and it was fantastic! And not that we can't duplicate some of those things to a degree. I mean, and I think you're going to rent a VCR anytime soon. Sorry about that. But I think we can still encourage our kids to be outside and ride bikes and spend time with friends and do all those things. But I feel like let's lower that expectation. That's maybe that. Maybe we've set too high for ourselves because yeah, our kids live in a different era than we do. So. Let's find a way to make a memorable summer for our kids with the world that they live in now.
Jen: Yeah, it's a hard mindset to change, but we need to change it. So hopefully we can give you some good ideas.
Hilary: So, let me ask you, because this is another thing I was chit chatting with those friends, are you team sleeping during the summer or wake up, get all the stuff done? Do the chores, do the reading? What were you like growing up?
Jen: Oh, I’m the wrong person I think, I am definitely team sleeping. My mom worked full time and so she would say, these are the things you need to get done before I get home. So, it would be sleeping and playing with my friends. My mom got home at 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon because she went in so early, so it was from three to four, hurrying and doing all my chores
Hilary: Before she showed up.
Jen: Before she got home, yeah
Hilary: This isn’t done.
Jen: Yep, yep, that's how that's how my summers worked. I guess that's probably when I got older. When I was younger, it was probably up and playing. My mom really didn't have like, you have to get this done first. It was just like. You can go out and play with your friends, but you got to get your chores done by some point today, yeah. And so, yeah,
Hilary: Oh, don't worry, I am 100 percent team sleep in during the summer. I feel like we have earned that. Both myself and my children, right? We have, we have woken up, we have got the best school. We've gone to work, we've done all the things and I like letting them snooze for a little bit longer. But I also have a good friend that. My kids are probably still asleep by the time her kids are up dressed, showered, chores done, lawn is mowed. All the things right and my kids are still asleep so I can see the benefit of getting up early. I'm just not that early person, never had been. But you know, you bring up a good point. Chores is one of those things that I have always struggled with. More so during the summer than any other time, because it seems like there's always people are coming and going and we have friends over and activities and events that we're getting. Getting out the door too. And I really like the idea of saying, here's your chore. It just needs to be done by the end of the day, right? Because sometimes it works for us to get it done in the morning, but other times it doesn't. And so, I like kind of leaving it open and have a little bit more flexibility to say like, here's your timeframe, you accomplish it when you when you feel it, be best. And if it's not, then we'll figure that out at that point.
Jen: Well, it was the same set of chores every day or every week. This is what you have to do. And so, it just became routine and I think routine. Even though it's summer. Yeah, it's still important to have somewhat of a routine because you don't want to get rid of all of that. And then the night before school, say, now this is what we've got to do. You know, kids can't adjust that quickly. So, having some sense of a routine during the summer, I think it's still good.
Hilary: It's true. I although I am Team Summer, I hit about August 1st, and that's about at the point where I start to get that itch for more of a routine because I'm like, “Oh my goodness, like, we have got to get back to where we were before”, and I feel like kids start to get that itch too. That's why a lot of kids, I feel like even though they won't admit it out loud to you, they're ready to go back to school because I think that they want a little bit more of that structure. And so, if we can attempt to maintain that to a degree like that, it doesn't have to look exactly like it did during the school year. And honestly, I've never been one of those moms that there are so many different charts you can print off and purchase that have it broken down hour by hour. I've never been an hour by hour type person. We are much more of a morning time, lunchtime, afternoon time, evening time, bigger chunks of time definitely work better because I don't know what's going to happen between eight and nine and nine and 10, and sometimes things take longer than you expect.
Jen: And one, activity might be better and the kids really love it. So, you don't want to stop that.
Hilary: Exactly. So, yeah, I am all for it. Like the blocking out schedule
Jen: Rather than that may be generally. Yeah, most definitely. I think it may be just as simple as having your breakfast routine, having your dinner routine and then a sleep routine. Yeah, like doesn't have to be a time, but when we go to bed, this is what we do. Give me those kinds of things in play so that there is some predictability because kids still want predictability.
Hilary: Yeah, that's a good idea. I like that idea of keeping everything flexible, but pinpointing those things that we want to maintain the structure. Yeah. And like you said, it's the meal time. It's the bedtime. If you choose for it to be the chore time, maybe it's the chore time. But I like that idea of saying this is what we want to have continue to be the same
Jen: Routines are supposed to de-stress.
Hilary: Yes.
Jen: Not encourage stress and craziness.
Hilary: And I think, yeah. I think that's important to remember because I think that there are, like I said, with social media, with Pinterest, with all of these different accounts, you can see all these different summer schedules that people are advertising on behalf of. And it can be a stress when you look at that and you're like, “Oh crap”
Jen: Am I supposed to be doing that?
Hilary: I am not doing that. And so, I like that idea. This shouldn't cause more anxiety. Yeah, it shouldn't be something that you have to feel grief over, like this is helping in helping to take away the anxiety, if you will. So, I know a lot of parents out there, if you're like me and you're looking at the gas price rise over and over and over again. You're kind of re-evaluating your summer calendar and maybe deciding against going certain places where you're going to have to travel far. And a lot more of us are maybe thinking how we should stay local, stay close. And so maybe let’s brainstorm a few ideas of what could be done on a budget because I feel like that's where a lot of parents are kind of gravitating to what can I do within my community that's still going to create some memories and still feel like that vacation give you that vacation vibe, but not going to break the bank? What did you enjoy doing as a kid that was fairly inexpensive?
Jen: We went camping every summer and we would camp for a week, week and a half. And I, those are probably some of the best memories I have is going camping. And so if you do live in an area where you know you can just go up a canyon that's half hour away, 45 minutes away. I feel like that's a great time. I mean, that's where my dad would teach us all about gun safety and going through the handbook and all of that stuff before we could even touch them and we would tease him. But it was a great learning experience, but also a great time to have with my dad teaching us how to fish. And that for many meals was what we ate was the fish that we caught in. So those are the memories that I have that I really, really loved.
Hilary: And you know, you're right, camping like compared to a hotel or a different like out of state vacation, you can do it for a pretty decent price.
Jen: If you're a girl like me who I'm like, I need my shower every day. You know, my dad bought a plastic little enclosure that had the shower. So, you know, if you wanted a shower every day, you had that. And you know, I always was never a person to go do my business out in the wilderness. So, he took care of that issue, too. I mean, there are ways to handle that like, “Oh, I can't do that”, but there's ways to to make it work well.
Hilary: And I feel like. I mean, you look at what our I mean, there's so much more that you can purchase in that, you know, the area of outdoor recreation, yeah, portable showers and portable toilets and all these sorts of things like they get it, they get that there's a lot of us out there that are like “Nay nay, no to the pooping on the ground.”
Jen: Ours was just a plastic lawn chair, he cut out a hole in the seat and then epoxy the toilet seat to it and then put sheets around us, so we would have privacy. I was cool with that. Yeah, yeah.
Hilary: So, you know, one of our favorite things to do growing up as kids is we would set up our tent, but we just set it up in the backyard like, and if we thought that that was the best thing ever, we take and we make some our beds out there and we bring out books and we bring out snacks and almost like, decorate it, as are our new bedroom, if you will. And I remember spending hours outside in that tent doing who knows what, probably just basic stuff that I would have been doing inside the house. But it was new and it was fun. We did that all the time,
Jen: Camping out on trampolines. I know what kids do have around her
Hilary: Yes, and I'm glad they still do it. Because that is one of those things that
Jen: Just don't forget the bug spray.
Hilary: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Unfortunately, that's another part of summer. Mosquitoes are team summer, too, so we have to enjoy them while we're at it.
Jen: They're loading up.
Hilary: You know, one thing that I've seen a lot of people do. And it does cost a little bit of money because you might have to purchase some supplies in doing this, but I've seen a lot of people doing outdoor movies with projectors that they have purchased. I know that we have a projector at our house, but we actually have just one wall. One of the sides of our house, the south side of our house that has just a very small window so that we can project it right below it. So, we just project it right to the side of our house and my kids love watching movies inside. We usually do that about once a week. And it's I mean, once you've purchased what you need to purchase, it's a free activity.
Jen: Another thing that I love to see with that I found it on Pinterest was to do a drive-in it and get boxes so they can decorate their box for their drive-in movie. And I think that's always a fun thing, and that's an activity that can take them some time during the day.
Hilary: Because you're having them create it all during the day and get everything prepared and ready to go. And then you actually have the movie you're watching. Movies, I think, is a great way. It's something that we have done to also get to know our neighbors. We have invited people over. So, I think it's a good opportunity to create some friendships and build some relationships too.
Jen: So, I had one family that would create her own money. And then she would go to the dollar store and get the candy. She'd pop some popcorn so they could come up to the counter and buy their candy and their popcorn and their drinks and things like that. But it was all from the dollar store and it just because they couldn't afford to take all of their kids to the movies. And what a great way to still give them at the movie theater kind of feel. And the kids loved it. The older kids loved it.
Hilary: Well, I know that our like local grocery store, you can buy a giant bag of popcorn already pop popcorn for you for five bucks. Right? You can feed the whole neighborhood if you wanted it to. So that is a great idea. Maybe so. I know that this is kind of a unique summer for many of you guys, but in Utah, we are currently in a drought. Which means that a lot of our water usage is decreasing, and they're asking us to limit how often we're using our water and doing different things like that, which might be a tricky thing for a lot of people who are used to letting their kids
Jen: Play in the sprinklers
Hilary: Sprinklers, yeah, and going to splash pads and things like that. And so. Any ideas on what we for those poor parents that are like, what do I do? It's hard. My kids are tired. They're I don't want them playing the video games, but I don't necessarily want to use that water up.
Jen: Well, I think there's a lot of those, not the big outdoor pools, but the smaller ones too, where you can put them up. I'm not talking like the kiddie pool, but a little bit bigger than that to where you can fill it up once you probably use it for the week.
Hilary: Then leave it up
Jen: And then you can water your grass with it. Yeah. So it's a. Or if you don't have grass, you can water your plants, things like that without water, so you can reuse it, and we always use my dad's canoe. I mean, we didn't have a pool in Arizona and that's what we did. We fill that out with water and we just sit in there. And then finally, my mom bought us one of those little
Hilary: Little pools for children. We need to do something different.
Jen: We didn't have a lot of money. We had to be creative.
Hilary: That's all right. I remember with our cute little neighborhood friends, we filled up her black garbage can, and I don't even want to think now at this point, if it was clean or not, I guarantee it wasn't clean. Oh dear. But we will fill up the black garbage can because it would get really warm. The water would get really for me to become like a little one man to man hot tub.
Jen: Oh man.
Hilary: Just think that through.
Jen: This when you need the sound effect of “Wooooah”.
Hilary: But isn't it amazing that just a little that you don't necessarily need the water to be running constantly all day. Kids just need a little bit of it, and they can find a way to keep themselves entertained.
Jen: That's right. That's right.
Hilary: Even if it is swimming in filth. Oh goodness
Jen: Parents, I don't think I suggest to the garbage can't find something clean. Please, please leave. Your kids will find plenty of dirty things to do.
Hilary: Well, you know, with my cute little toddlers, though, I saw this idea on Pinterest years ago and even my older kids still like it. But the night before. I've just got a few ice cube trays that I bought at the dollar store and I will freeze different little items inside of it. So little coins or Legos or different things like that. And then we take the ice cubes out and I let my kids use little eye drops or little things that they can use to kind of pick the little toy out. And they love it. They love doing things like that, you know, even letting the ice kind of melt on the sidewalk. And every once in a while, I'll color the ice, which is with food coloring, and you can use it almost as like a paint. But it's a really inexpensive way to kind of beat the heat because you're still playing with ice. And so, it's keeping you cool, but you're not running that water bill all night long
Jen: You also just make a pitcher of Kool-Aid. Yeah. And then do your ice cubes and then you have a popsicle and a tree or a little something in the middle.
Hilary: So, OK, help me out with this one, because one of my whole trickiest aspects of summer is. Cooking meals for my children. Oh, it was so funny, because a few days ago my son came up to me and he's a pre-teen, so he's starting to eat more and we're starting to notice it on our grocery bill that he comes up to me and he's like, Mom, I have no food in the kitchen. And I looked in the kitchen and legitimately we had no food in the kitchen. But I was like, “Where did all the food go?” And it was crazy because we just get used to our kids being in school. And for most of these kids, that means the school feeding them lunch and sometimes even breakfast, right? Then how about feeding out 30 miles a day? And right now, no one wants to be in a hot kitchen at the end of the night? Yeah. So yeah, like this could be some give me some advice. What are some good things, meal wise that maybe we can do to beat that heat?
Jen: It's hard right now because food prices, just like gas prices, have gone up and it's crazy expensive. But I think getting simple things, yeah, that was one thing for my mom because it all growing up. We didn't have air conditioning in Arizona. And so, it was like, you use the oven as little as possible during the summer. And so, it was salads. Yeah, and it was things that you could do in the microwave. Simple things like that. But I think there's a lot of stuff out there now that you can. I mean, if you have an air fryer, oh gosh.
Hilary: Best invention ever.
Jen: So I think doing little things like that, are you? I just remember kind of grazing throughout the day and having healthy choices as we do throughout the day. So I think that is one way to do it. Yeah. So that you're not having to create this big fancy meal for dinner. I always love the watermelon afterwards. Go out on the front grass as a family and have watermelon almost every night. Yeah, so the dinner wise. That's a tough one for me, yeah, because of the fact that, I don't like to cook.
Hilary: Well, I think it's hard for most of us, and we get, like you said, we get off of our routine. And so, I think for me, it's like 5:30 rolls around and I look at the clock and say to myself, crap, like, I probably should feed my children something. And at this point, I don't necessarily want to spend an hour cooking in the kitchen. But you know, I think you're right. I think that when kids are home, they do. They tend to graze more. They can tend to snack a little bit more, which I know for some parents is hard because the constant snacking becomes a battle. But it does ease up some of the stress of dinnertime so that we could end up maybe having smoothies or granola and fruit or or sandwiches or salads like it opens up the door to have something a little bit more simple.
Jen: We also barbecued a lot. So, we would grill hamburgers and hot dogs at home. You can get really creative with that. We liked the little we call them hobo dinners.
Hilary: Oh yes, yes.
Jen: So where you put your meat, your potatoes, everything, and then you put them in the coals. So we did that a lot. I think there's a lot that you can do with them.
Hilary: And I've seen so many. I mean, we grew up with the traditional hamburger patty potatoes and carrots, but I've seen people use chicken. I've seen people use, you know, pork chops like you can throw anything at to kind of, you know, spice it up to a degree. I know that there's a gal that I follow on Instagram and she always shows, I'm sure always puts out like a vegetable tray or a fruit tray for her kids on the counter. She'll always have it like pre cut up, because with kids, I swear once you wash it and cut it up, it becomes 100 times more appealing. I mean, if they have to do it on their own, so she'll always have some type of snack tray out with fruits and vegetables, maybe some pretzels,
Jen: Cheese and crackers.
Hilary: Yeah, that you know that if they are going to choose to snack, it's going to be healthy options. But she just kind of always has it sitting out on her counter so that they can come and go. And I think, you know, like it requires a little bit of work on our behalf in the morning, but once it's out, it's out there. And that way you know that your kids aren't just snacking on chips and cookies all day long, and those things are expensive too.
Jen: My little six-year-old niece can devour family size bag nacho Doritos in a day. That little girl does have that thing going on. She's the tiniest little thing, but she's always got Doritos.
Hilary: I like this. I think we've given each other some really good ideas, and hopefully we've given you guys some good ideas too. And hopefully it will help to kind of ease the anxiety the way you feel.
Jen: Yeah. Come summer there. Absolutely. And we'll put some recipes in the show notes that if you want to try them out, we can do that as well or you can do that as well and some activities. So, check out those show notes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.
Thank you for listening to the Parents' Place podcast, if you would like to reach us, you can at parents@thefamilyplaceutah.org or you can reach Jen on Facebook. Jen Daly - The Family Place. Please check out our show notes for any additional information. Our website is thefamilyplaceutah.org if you're interested in any of our upcoming virtual classes. We'd love to see you there.
Subject Resources: Summer Activity Ideas: - https://www.verywellfamily.com/summer-fun-ideas-kids-and-parents-3542627 - https://www.creativehealthyfamily.com/family-friendly-activities-for-summer/ Oven-less Meal Ideas: - https://www.thriftyfrugalmom.com/no-oven-dinner-ideas-recipes-for-summer/ - https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/21-summer-recipes-that-dont-require-you-to-heat-up-your-kitchen Contact:
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