This summer is going to be a little different from the past, because of COVID-19. It’s unfortunate since this is probably the first summer I’m feeling more confident with taking the kids places by myself and now we’re not even allowed to.

The one summer camp I was going to take all three kids to is cancelled. It’s such a bummer. I was hoping it would still happen to give my kids some kind of education and play with other kids, since they didn’t really have that at the end of the school year.

My kids also love water. I thought the splash pads would be where we would live this summer, but they’re closed for now.

Even just going to the store to give someone a change of scenery is something we can’t do right now, since most places require a mask wearing. We want to start practicing with Daniel so he can go out, but also because if they require it in school in a few months.

We were even planning a short little getaway for our family. We hadn’t really worked out the details, but we thought we could maybe slide a little roadtrip into our summer, no more than 5 hours away. But we’re not sure how other states’ guidelines are right now, so we’re putting that on hold, too.

We’re going to be hanging out with family. The next couple of months we have a lot of family coming into town. Of course we’re going to be extra careful and it’s possible our entire family may not go to visit.

While there are so many things we won’t be able to do this summer, here are 5 things we can do:

1. Continue our walks — We still go on walks every day and now we can go on the playground at our own risk. When there’s too many people, we play in the grass or go somewhere else.

1. Water tables and sprinklers — We’ll get our water fix in our own backyard. They love playing with the water table and little splash pad my sister gave us.
2. Mountain hikes — We went on a little short hike in the mountains for Father’s Day and we definitely want to do that again. The mountains aren’t too far away from us, plus it’s a change of scenery.
3. Family time — We are spending a lot of time with grandparents and other immediate family members. We’ve gone to a few birthday parties that were either drive-by or had no more than 10 people.
4. Continue therapy — We’re still doing virtual meetings with our therapists. Starting in July, they will start coming back into the home once a month and going up from there.

We are being safe with everything we do. We don’t stay at the park for too long. We wash our hands a lot and use hand sanitizer. We keep our distance from others, while also being friendly. We’re hanging out with a lot of family. We’re spending a lot of time outside. It’s a different kind of summer this year. Although we can’t do most of things we had planned, it really makes me excited for next year!