We’re counting the days until summer vacation over here at the Faulk house.

And we’re a little nervous about it.

Why, you ask?  Because it’s going to be an adjustment.  The hours that the girls have spent at school have allowed me to do everything I need to get done here at home (and then some!), and losing those hours alone is going to slow me down.  A lot.  What’s more than that, though, going from having an entire classroom of friends and a wide array of activities to do every day to having just one another and mostly just free time… well, that’s going to be an even bigger adjustment for the girls.

I’m going into this new season with a pro-active, can-do attitude.  I’m not going to leave myself open for chaos!  Mark my words!

Here are some plans we’re making. Feel free to suggest more (because these might not even get us through the first week!)…

– We’re planning trips to the playground.  LOTS of trips to the playground.  Different playgrounds, all around Pasadena, but most especially to the one where I know there are lots of kids who speak Spanish.  Because that?  Is one area where all that the girls learned this year at school can’t be refreshed and reviewed by yours truly.  Help me out, little Spanish-speaking friends!

– We’re planning lots of picnics with Papi.  He doesn’t know this, but he’s going to provide mid-day entertainment some days.  It’ll be a switch from the quiet lunches at home he’s had with me, but I’m sure he’ll embrace the madness of Faulkette picnics with enthusiasm!

– We’re planning an action-packed VBS!  I’m told we’re serving both breakfast and lunch to our VBS kids this summer, so I’m anticipating a full week spent up at the church for long, long hours.  We love VBS, though, so we’re looking forward to it!

– We’re planning on sending the girls far, far away for at least a couple of weeks.  Oh, yes, you read that right.  The SBC is having its annual meeting in Houston this year, so Wes and I are planning on being there for the entirety of it.  And because one set of grandparents will get to keep them while we’re in all of those meetings, the other set of grandparents will need to have them at another point in the summer.  We’ll miss them, of course, but two weeks of being completely alone together?  Yeah, we’ll be okay.

– We’re planning on celebrating the girls’ birthdays at Walt Disney World!  See?  This is the good thing about having birthdays two days apart.  You can do things like this. The girls have already been planning the itinerary and imagining just how amazing it will be to turn six and seven at “Mickey’s house!”

What are you planning this summer?  Tell me how you entertain your kids during the long, hot days of summer vacation… so I can steal your ideas to save my own sanity!