Let’s Get Ready with Cedar Valley Publishing

Having family fun should be a top priority. Quality family time builds significant memories that last a lifetime. They also create a safe, comfortable and secure family setting so when it’s time to tackle a family problem, you can solve and evolve together as one-entity: a family. As they say, a family that plays together sticks together. And, family is most needed during the bad times.

Listed below are my family’s Top 10 Favorite Family Fun Rituals. Hopefully, they will give you some creative ideas to adapt to your own family’s interests, skills and desires.

You’ll quickly learn that a house of girls (Mommy, and our 5 and 7 year old daughters) and 1 boy (Daddy) can have a ton of fun in the great outdoors, and watching sports.

1. We enjoy going on ATV (all terrain vehicles) trips.  Our girls have helmets and ride in a special wrap-around-seat behind Daddy for safety.  We choose trails with little activity and plenty of places to stop with clean bathrooms and food.  This year we went with another family who has a 7 year old girl, and it is so much fun to hear them giggling on the trails in the woods, and pointing out wildlife along the way. 
2. We love water parks.  We are blessed to live in Wisconsin close to the Wisconsin Dells, which has more water parks than any other place in the world (or so the advertisement says).  Water fun, amusement rides, and arcades make for a great escape.
3. We go to the Green Bay Packer football family night every year.  It’s our family tradition.  It is a team scrimmage. The purpose of this night is for families to have fun, with kids’ songs, people watching and a huge firework finale. 
4. We go to a Milwaukee Brewer Baseball game every year.  The girls enjoy singing and dancing between the innings, and they love to watch the antics of Bernie Brewer, the team mascot.  Great fun!
5. We take the girls out on the golf course with us every year.  We each rent a cart and take a child who is assigned the task of handing us our golf tee and a lucky golf ball. They do not leave our carts unless they are washing golf balls.  They enjoy watching out for the snack cart and keeping score.  We frequent the driving range with them and that’s their time to practice with child size clubs. If you haven’t tried this before, it’s so much fun!
6. We can’t wait for go-carting season. We rent the double size carts so each parent has a child, and then we switch kids and go again and again.  It’s a race with some healthy competition.  We all end up laughing so hard during the entire race, because we really get into the spirit of the match.  It’s a blast!
7. We love to go boating and fishing so we can spend many hours on different lakes with great scenery. 
8. We frequent many County Fairs during the summer. It’s a family tradition to attend the truck and tracker pulls.  It doesn’t hurt that Daddy is also a substitute driver and drives about 3- 4 times a year.  We enjoy pulling for Daddy and then riding on the carnival rides and playing a few games. 
9. We love to go biking.  We are lucky because we live close to a bike trail and this is the year that our oldest daughter left her training wheels behind.
10. We enjoy visiting with friends, neighbors and relatives.  We have developed rituals and look forward to the big Christmas Party with almost 100 relatives, the smaller one with 10 members, and then the Christmas Eve festivities with just our family.  We also love our neighborhood parties with fireworks and cool fall nights around the campfire.

Enjoy some good ‘ol family fun!

Copyright 2007, Stacey Kannenberg, Cedar Valley Publishing, Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! and Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!

I’d love to add new Family Fun Rituals to our list, so please share your events with us!