Amy Scott's Thoughts

We usually don’t travel much during the summer. Being a homeschool family, we often save our travels for the school year. While others are at school and work, we adventure during the quieter seasons. This works very well for me. I’m not a huge fan of crowds and off-season prices are much more reasonable. However, this year we have quite a few summer travel plans. It’s not our usual summer flow, but we love to adventure together as a family, so we’re embracing the summer travel season! Here’s a look at our first summer travel adventure…

We met up with my family at the beach to celebrate America’s 250th birthday and my dad’s 70th birthday. The vibe of the weekend was chill and relaxing. We had lots of downtime. The boys enjoyed early morning beach walks with Jeremy and video game discussions with Auntie. Graham took to playing darts and Owen discovered Smash Bros. on Grandpa’s arcade console. I enjoyed afternoon walks in the sunshine, plenty of time to read, and a few family games. The highlight of the beach is always the massive amount of fireworks. The deck of the beach house has the perfect view of all the action. We get the show for free and without the crowds. It’s a set-up that works well for us! After celebrating America’s birthday, we celebrated my dad’s birthday with waffles and dinner out at one of our favorite places, Mo’s. I’m glad we were able to celebrate these milestone birthdays together!

After the beach, we had less than twenty-four hours at home before we packed up and hit the road again. This time we went away from the coast and into the mountains. To celebrate Jeremy and I’s 20th wedding anniversary, we planned a trip to explore Wenatchee, North Cascades National Park, and Leavenworth. There was a lot of drive time on this trip, but we were all sucked into listening to audiobooks while taking in new and interesting scenery. It made the time in the car fly by. Wenatchee was a bit hot, but we still had lots of fun birding, swimming in the hotel pool, and finding local favorites to eat. Our day at North Cascades was beautiful. We went many years ago, but it was too smoky to see the mountains. This time the mountains were out in all their glory! We enjoyed the views as we drove around as well a few hikes along the way. Our final day was spent in Leavenworth. The boys had never been so we were excited to introduce them to the Bavarian experience. We ate cookies at The Gingerbread Factory before 10am. We explored the shops and purchased ornaments at Kris Kringl. The scavenger hunt at The Nutcracker Museum was a huge hit, so was the giant pretzel we had at lunch. Our final adventure was min-golf before hitting the road for home. We packed a lot of fun into three days!

The kick-off to our summer travel plans was a good one. I’m looking forward to even more adventures right around the corner. Summer travels can be pretty great – especially when we’re together!