Bucket List for Last Leg of Summer in the Bay Area
This post is from Sandhya, one of Kin’s cofounders who wants to make her summer more event-full!
Can’t believe there is just a little more than a month left in summer! As a family, we had a long list of things to do — go hiking every week, go camping more, go to the beaches often, watch movies in the park, picnic brunches with friends, go for a walk after dinner. Well, so far, we have barely gotten around to most of the things on that list.
Going by summer ends on Labor Day long weekend calculation, we have 30+ days to go. Here are all the things we intend to do and some of the things we have done as a family.
If I were to choose an activity that I would do more and more of in summer, it would be movies in the park. There is something about watching movies after dark, under the stars. There is an excellent lineup of outdoor, family-friendly movies in the coming weeks. We certainly will be catching at least a couple of them. A better option would be to make it an outing with friends, playdate for the kids, and dinner picnic.
If I were to choose an activity that I should be doing more of, especially here in the Bay Area, it would be hiking. I am more of an urban hiker kind of a person you see (I miss you, NYC! I’ll come back and walk top to bottom in Manhattan someday). But when I do hike in the Bay Area, I can (sometimes) see why so many people are into it here. The gorgeous redwoods, pretty wildflowers, the serene hills, mountains, lakes, rivers, the sandy beaches, and the majestic ocean. But to be honest, we end up spending most of our times in small creeks whenever we go out hiking.
If I were to choose an activity that I would do mainly because the little one at home loves it so much, it would be camping. I am not a camping person, either. So we went glamping at Safari West. I got to see one of my favorite animals, giraffes to my heart’s content. They sat down, they ran, and they chased each other — things I had never seen before, even on TV! We went to the sleepover at the Monterey Aquarium too. We couldn’t sleep well that night but didn’t mind. The sight of Open Sea exhibit whenever we opened our eyes more than made up for all the lost sleep. A logical next step would be go on the organized family-friendly campouts and someday graduate to real roughing-out kind of camping. Actually, we have done a couple of those in the past. They weren’t that bad except when the kid woke up at 3 am crying and woke everybody else up.
If I were to choose an activity that all of us in the family love, it would be going to amusement parks. No wonder we get season passes to the neighborhood theme park of South Bay, California Great America. We stroll into it weekday nights a couple of times in summer for some fun rides, games and theme park food (Not!).
If I were to choose an activity to feel part of the community and be amazed at the freshest produce and a diverse array of delicious food of California, it would be visiting farmers’ markets. Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and Campbell are our usual ones. But before summer ends, we plan to visit some new ones.
If I were to choose a great time to go to San Francisco, it would be July 4th long weekend. We went, and the city seemed deserted during our weekend-long trip. We loved it. From visiting parks, museums to going on hikes, eating yummy food, we wondered why we don’t this more often. It is such a beautiful city if you keep aside the glaring issues it has.
If I were to choose an activity that I would treasure more than anything else, it would be to get all the way out, be off the grid, and travel to new places to make lasting memories as a family.
And where do you think I get ideas for all our family activities? Did anyone say, Kin? (except the last picture above, Kin is not international yet)
Hope you are all having a wonderful summer discovering and doing amazing things. Drop us a line to tell us your favorite family activity for summer in the Bay Area.
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