Make Summer 2020 Count !

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We are so excited to announce that this summer we are teaming up with a dear friend over at Raphah Mama to take hold of our summer plans and make them COUNT! This year 2020 we have been hit with a very unusual event: COVID-19! My friend Mary and I decided we are not going to let this summer pass by living in this COVID-19 fear based world but instead grab the bull by the horns and make this summer a summer of new habits like: spending time outdoors, finding ways to serve others and reading some great books!

This summer we are excited to set some obtainable goals, and check them off as our families accomplish them. However, it is never fun to do alone which is why we teamed up and why we are asking YOU to join us!!

Mary over at Raphah Mama started us off with a GREAT article that really allows us to process through how to grasp hold of this summer with both hands and get our feet ready for action. (Below is the beginning of her article shared with permission by Raphah Mama).

We are also excited to provide you with a FREE DOWNLOADABLE PDF to print off and keep track of your outside hours. (SEE BELOW)

Planning for A Happy Summer

(Even with COVID-19 Still Around)

By: Mary Rabe

 

At the start of COVID-19 and the resulting lock-down, I thought that surely things would be back to normal by the summer. Now that school is wrapping up, though, my home state has still only barely begun to enter early phases of opening, and many of our family’s favorite summer events have been cancelled. This has been a hard pill to swallow, for sure, and it’s been tempting to kind of just give up on the idea of still having a fun summer. I’ve come to realize, though, that just giving up and postponing any kind of “real life” until things settle down is just going to lead to discouragement and depression for my family. Rather than giving in to that, my good friend over at Raising Rices and I have decided to team up and try to see how we can plan for a fun, purposeful summer even with COVID-19 still going on. Over the next few weeks, we hope to share ideas, resources, and a bit of a layout to help us all in seeking the goal of still enjoying the special season of summer! For today, I want to share some ideas and inspiration for you to start planning out a purposeful summer.

1. Process
Before we get to the practical ideas, I think we all have some processing to do. This is a very unique summer, with both incredible potential and also very real loss/grief, and before we can really put any kind of purposeful plan in place, we need to acknowledge a few things.
  • This summer could hold some disappointment and grief. There are things that we were looking forward to that are no longer going to happen. Festivals, concerts, graduations, sporting events, vacations, summer camps… Just like at the beginning of quarantine when many things were cancelled and we all felt tremendous loss and grief, I believe that’s probably going to happen again for this summer. I, for one, don’t like feeling grief and sadness, but I’m recognizing that trying to ignore loss doesn’t do me any good. I think the best thing to do is to recognize that there is loss here, things that we wanted to do and are sad to not have, and go ahead and grieve them. Let your kids grieve, too; I’m sure they had things they were hoping for from summers past and may need to talk through not having them this year.
  • At the same time that we grieve what we don’t get to have this summer, we want to make sure that we keep the following in mind: God is in control, His plans are better, and He has unique blessings and opportunities for this specific summer. Don’t let the grief of what you don’t get to have blind you to the gifts and opportunities that God has for you and your family!
I really believe that both of these steps are important in order to be able to have a purposeful summer this year. We have to get through the phases of grief and come to a place of acceptance in order to have the motivation, energy, and clarity needed to move ahead. Something to consider might be to write down the things you and your kids/family are grieving and then pray over them, sharing with God the sadness you feel and then giving them over to Him and submitting to His plans and purpose for your summer. I promise you, this is a prayer He will be happy to answer.
“Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge.”
~Psalm 62:8
You are going to want to finish Raphah Mama’s article it is amazing for processing through how this summer can look!

 

As you have read (or will read) on Raphah Mama’s page we are setting an accountability goals of:

1. 100 Hours Outside Each Month 
  • We want to share the benefits of being outdoors (for kids and parents), the specific ways kids learn outdoors, and practical ideas and tips for adding more outdoor time to your day

2. 20 Books in Summer 2020 

  • A fun way to track reading this summer, ideas for getting a variety of genres for your kids to read, and ways to motivate reluctant readers

3. 12 Summer Service Activities

  • We want to teach our kids the importance of serving others and sharing God’s love with the world, so we want to come up with different ideas or how our kids/families can find ways to do that this summer.

 

WOAH seems like a lot?! That is what I thought at first until we broke it down. On this post we are excited to share one way to make the 100 hours a month obtainable: with out trackable PDF, our accountability hashtag and our Daily Check in 🙂

Copy of #100outsidehours

FREE DOWNLOADABLE FREE PDF HERE:  June #100outsidehours

If you follow @raisingrices on Instagram we have a daily check in for you to share and color in and post as a accountability piece as well as a way to bring others along with us in this journey! Use this image and make sure to tag us @raisingrices we can not wait starting in June to do this TOGETHER!!! Have fun coloring in the daily 3 hour check in. Raphah Mama and I have figured out if you do slightly more then 3 hours a day you will get you 100 hours in a month! So make it a goal to get a minimum of 3 hours a day which is a wonderful start! If you need encouragement as to why check out on blog here!

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Sample to Color in:

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WE BOTH are so excited make this summer a summer to REMEMBER and not due to COVID-19 but due to the fact that we established new rhythms and created lifelong memories! JOIN US!

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Published by RaisingRices

Raising Households that Serve the Lord! Our goal is that through family focused intentionality, legacy minded thinking, and being rooted in Christ, that we would lead our family to serve the LORD! Joshua 24:15

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