Welcome back. As you can only guess, we had one crazy summer. I didn’t even have time to write a single article, either because we were busy or I was tired from being busy. I hope to pick up where I left off, but please be patient because I am still learning how to do this.

I wrote an article earlier this summer, 3 Summer Rules for Our Summer Vacation, about the rules we would have for the summer. That was in early June. Today, I thought I would update you on how we did with those rules and the lessons we learned over the summer.

We did excellent following our summer rules for the first week or so. After that, life got in the way, and xthings just went downhill. I would say that halfway through June, we started only doing about half of the summer rules. We would get up, get dressed, and have breakfast. We would do a chore or two about every other day.

July is when we usually take our family’s summer vacation. This year was no exception. In about three weeks, we went on our family vacation to Alaska, had a family reunion trip to Bear Lake, my daughter went on a camping trip with a young women’s group, and I went on my girls’ weekend with my sisters and mom. I previously wrote about my family’s girls’ weekends in Discover the Magic of a Girls’ Weekend.

With all that going on, we hardly had enough time to get up and dressed, let alone do any chores. Sure, we would do basic stuff. I would have time to clean the kitchen and do the dishes. I would do laundry when I could, but most of the time, we didn’t have time to fold it or put it away. I would vacuum every once in a while, but not every day like before.

By the time we got to August, we were trying to recover from our busy July and survive until school started again. The children hardly did a single chore. At this point, the kids were doing whatever they wanted so I could get stuff done myself. It sounds horrible, but they were running around being kids, hanging with friends, and enjoying the last few weeks of summer. I was okay with it.

Of course, our chaos and recovery made the house go downhill pretty quickly. We got very behind on our laundry from our trips, and cleaning was almost nonexistent.

Luckily, the weekend before school started, we had nothing. I mean nothing. There were no soccer, dance, band, or family gatherings. I bet you can guess what I made my family do that weekend. We spent the weekend putting our house back in order. Did the kids love that their last weekend was spent cleaning? Absolutely not! It needed to be done, so I had them help me anyway!!! I am a mean mom, I know!

What are my takeaways from our three summer rules? There are a few; here they are.

1. It was a good idea, in theory!
2. Did I have good intentions? Yes!
3. We tried, but life got in the way. That is okay.
4. Did we still have a good summer? Yes, we did!
5. Did we fail in our summer rules? Yes, we failed horribly.

Yes, we failed horribly, but do you know what? I am okay with that. We tried something new, and it didn’t work. I have learned from this summer, and I will make adjustments for next summer. It was a good lesson for the children that it didn’t work out as planned, but it was still a great summer. Failure is not the end. All we can do is make adjustments and always try again.

Now that school is back in, it is an excellent time to get back on schedule. Keep following me for our back-to-school schedule and family rules!

How did you do this summer? Did you follow any summer rules that you could keep or not keep? I would love to hear how everyone’s summer went.