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It’s the memories made and the love your family shared this summer that matters

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I am reading the I can’t believe summer break is over posts.

I’m reading how moms are not ready for bedtimes and routines, not ready for pick-ups and drop offs, making lunches and sticking to schedules.

Nothing in our family was really different over summer, going back to school is not going to change much for our family from one day to the next.

I don’t feel like my family had a summer break. At least not the kind of break I see from families who have one parent home over the summer.

My husband and I both work, our littlest goes to daycare, our biggest goes to summer care at her school.

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This summer my kids were put to bed long before dark — as I overheard neighborhood kids outside my windows well past sunset.

The husband and I still had our regular routine — laundry still had to be pressed for our morning return to the office and lunches still had to be packed.

Our 5:00 am alarms still urged us out of bed.

Drop-offs and pick-ups occurred in our normal divide and conquer method — you drive this one, I’ll drive that one.

We didn’t take a family vacation.

There are no beach pictures or smiling faces from Disney.

With vacation days used for field trips, school holidays, and doctors’ appointments throughout the school year, by the time summer arrived our leave banks were depleted.

We didn’t visit the zoo even though we talked about going over a dozen times.

We didn’t stay up late to catch lighting bugs or sit to watch the sunset.

We didn’t have the opportunity to sleep in or spend the day in our pajamas.

We just continued on as if school never ended and we will continue on the same after it resumes in a week.

We are a two income household.

Our summer break doesn’t look like most I see on social media, but we did squeeze in some fun.

Our summer break did include weekends at the pool.

Our summer break included Sunday trips to a neighboring small town for old fashioned ice cream.

We took long family drives through the hills and valleys of the beautiful south to take in the scenery of green and blue.

We visited our own town like tourists with walks through the wetlands and hours of playing in the Discovery Center.

We read books by the stacks to our kids at Barnes & Noble while sipping iced coffee and letting the kids indulge in sweet treats.

My oldest daughter and I watched more Food Network than we should and we tried our best impersonation of the world’s best baker. (Although I am more like the world’s worst baker.)

We had pizza picnics in the playroom and allowed Friday movie night to go on way past bedtime.

We tried to soak up this age and stage as much as we could.

Our summer didn’t allow us to toss out routines and schedules.

It didn’t allow us to sleep in or stay up late.

But there was no shortage of memories made, there was no shortage of love shown.

Whatever your summer break looked like it’s the memories made and the love your family shared that matters most.

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