I’m linking up with Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop today. I always love her weekly writing prompts – they often remind me of the things I’ve been meaning to write about or give me new ideas I hadn’t thought of.

Here are her prompts for this week:

1. 10 Lessons your child could teach you for a change.
2. Did you garden this summer? Share the fruits of your labor.
3. Write a blog post inspired by the word: fall.
4. Book review!
5. If you had to be a school teacher, what age and/or subject would you choose to teach and why?
6. Highlight 10 favorite summer moments so far.

With the kids back in school it sort of feels like summer is already over. But the calendar seems to think this isn’t true. We’re making summer memories right now while I type this post and my kids do their homework. But here are some slightly more Typical Summer Memories we’ve made and photographed this year:

ONE | BB and I went to my hometown’s Fourth of July parade and it was everything I remembered from my childhood. Ah yes, the quaint memories of the volunteer fire department dressing up in terrible drag to throw tootsie rolls at children. How I look back on these memories fondly. I mean, there were tootsie rolls. What more does a child need in life? The pic above was one of my favorite floats this year. Most of the floats are pretty boring TBH – a lot are just political ads because, ugh, grown ups. But there was this whole Toy Story themed assortment including guys dressed up like Toy Soldiers who would freeze if you yelled “Andy’s coming!” #nostalgia

TWO | Summer reading! We spent a ton of time reading this summer – plowing through the library’s summer reading program as well as the summer reading challenge I made for the kids.

THREE | Hiding inside with MM playing Go Fish during the big company picnic. Somehow this picnic is always on the hottest day of the summer – this year they even scheduled it in June and it was still a million and eleven degrees outside. All the root beer floats in the world couldn’t keep me outside – and luckily my twelve year old was in full agreement. They had a room filled with board games and card games and old arcade games for just this situation – it’s like they know that a company full of geeks probably includes people averse to outdoor activities.

FOUR | We did do some outdoor stuff though – the kids took a month of swim lessons and I sat in the shade listening to podcasts and playing on my phone. On Fridays we got ice cream and the kids got to go on water slides. Dorky photo sessions may have happened.

FIVE | Reading comics together at the coffee shop. I’ve been wasting the days away at coffee shops since my kids were toddlers. Back then I chose my coffee shops based on the kids play area – our town has some great choices for moms! But these days I want to know if they’ll have any newspapers kicking around so my kids can read the comics – and the play area is pretty much unimportant. Who are these giant beasts formerly known as little kids?

SIX | That time my daughter was the flower girl at a friend’s wedding. I’m pretty sure BB was born for this gig – dressing up in a glamorous dress and dancing down an aisle while tossing flower petals in the air? Sometimes she’s doing that anyway and there’s no wedding. I’m only half joking. Seriously, it was a beautiful wedding and we had such a good time sharing their big day with them.

SEVEN | Is summer complete without road trips? Not in our family. We drove halfway across the country to spend a week with our family. There was swimming and ice cream and sea food and the previously mentioned parade. Lots of hot dogs and family get-togethers and playing cards with lifelong friends that I never get to see. Everyone was older and it was fantastic and bitter sweet and there were a lot of miles logged in the car. We listened to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on audible and ate ginger snaps and complained about the traffic. So, you know, good times.

EIGHT | At the tail end of our summer vacation we finally went camping. I think this was the least camping we’ve ever done in a summer but we made up for it by roasting all of the marshmallows, cooking pigs in a blanket over an open fire, going on the nerdiest nature hike ever and we may have gone into town a few times to visit some local wineries because Door County.

TEN | Another great camping memory – we found a cute set of those old fashioned peg games like you see at Cracker Barrel. Some of them were pretty scraping the barrel in quality – but a lot of them were really fun. The kids and I enjoyed playing Finish Line which is definitely more of a game of chance than skill.

What have been some of your favorite memories this summer?