Virginia is in fact for lovers.

For a number of reasons, this summer I decided to start exploring DC and Northern Virginia with my kids. Like for real. Like we've been most of the usual local touristy places over the course of 7 years, but we've barely scratched the surface. One problem is that getting three kids into the car in the first place can take all a person's strength. Another problem is that it's overwhelming--where to start? Just about anything you can think of that you might want to do, you can do, and odds are that it's free if you don't count gas money. But I can't just start the day thinking, "We Could Do ANYTHING Today!" It's too much for me. So in a fit of organization/OCD/etc. one night before summer started, I turned into Super Nerd-Mom and divided the stuff I want to do into three categories: Water, DC, and Trails. I assigned Water to Mondays, DC to Tuesdays, and Trails to Thursdays.

Saturday is Family Day and so instead of spending the whole day doing boring errands or home improvement projects, we've deliberately gone and done something together as a family, which we have also done over the years but never consistently because, ain't nobody got time for that. But really, already, organized sports and other stuff like that has been creeping into our free time and I feel like this is the summer to really just enjoy our real free time together.

There was one Saturday where we didn't get out and do something, and that was the day I yelled at everyone. So there's that.

I've been documenting my little project on Instagram with the tag #summerdaysseries but thought I could go into a little more detail on my blog since blogs have been hugely helpful for me in finding great local stuff to do.

The last day of school was a Tuesday with a noon release time, and although I had planned not to start until the following week, after a day and a half of attempting happy summer laziness which just turned into fighting, I decided to start sooner. So our first outing that week was Thursday: Trail Day. We went to Burke Lake, which is about 10 miles away and has several miles of trails surrounding it. Our friends Alisha, Genevieve, and Emory joined us. I hadn't really thought about documenting much, so this is unfortunately the only picture I took.

Terrorizing the ducks after our little hike. Lars was around there somewhere.

If you're unfamiliar with Burke Lake, it has about a 5ish-mile trail loop, most of which is shaded, and there are some scattered "ExerTrail" type features which is fun. (stuff like a row of tires to hop through, or some bars to do chin-ups, etc.) There's also a train for kids to ride which runs in the warm months. There are several playgrounds and a carousel and a golf course and rowboats to rent and campgrounds. It's great. We've been many times over the years and yet my kids have never gone on the train--we'll fix that before the summer is over.

On this day it was just nice to walk and talk with my friend and let the kids explore and look for wildlife. Ida had a little notepad where she wrote down everything she saw. (she didn't get that idea from me, by the way; maybe it was from Dora.) It was a fun little start to the summer.

The key to all of our outings so far, I've noticed now that we're a month into summer, is deciding the night before where to go, then leaving the house as early as possible and keeping the outing itself to an hour or less. Once or twice I've let it go way over an hour, and I regretted it. If we leave home early, leave the outing while the kids are still happy, have food to eat in the car on the way home so Lars doesn't fall asleep, and get home in time for Lars to get a good nap and the kids and me to have quiet time for a couple of hours, the day goes so happily for all of us.

On the one hand I think I should have started doing this with more regularity when I only had one or two kids, but on the other hand I don't regret those lazy days where we'd stay in our PJs all day, or just go aimlessly wander Target or something, with no fighting because no one knew how to fight yet. I can't do that kind of stuff anymore with this crowd. Lars would be fine with it but whenever we do it, the big kids fight and I get exasperated and bored.

Side note, I was reading about the slogan "Virginia is for Lovers" (which I adore, by the way). Apparently it was originally slated to be industry-specific, e.g., "Virginia is for History Lovers," "Virginia is for Beach Lovers," and "Virginia is for Mountain Lovers." I'm glad they kept it simple.