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This past Saturday was the only Saturday the family didn’t have anything planned until October. So we took full advantage of it & planned a little Stay-cation. Bradley had to work on Sunday so we planned a fun Friday night & Saturday.
In August it’s our tradition to watch the old musical “State Fair”. The movie is set for the week of August 23, so we try to watch it close to then; making a night of it & having fair food for dinner. Considering this was the only couple of days we had available in August we watched it “early”.
We’ve done various fair foods over the years. One year we had Storebought Corndogs, soft pretzels, & nacho cheese. Another year we did a Fryday Friday. Making our own corndogs, onion rings, & hushpuppies. This year we altered it a little after we all ended up sick from the grease. We had grilled brats, with sautéed peppers & onions served over some quinoa. With it, we made some poutine. Store-bought french fries, topped with cheese curds, & slathered with instant brown gravy. Dad had a fire going out back & we ate dinner and chatted around the fire while trying to keep the barn cats from eating our food.
Once it got dark enough to lock the chicken coop for the night we cleaned up, headed in, & put in “State Fair“.
Stay-cation day 2: Saturday!
Saturday we took the dogs on a walk at the Rec Center before it got too busy & then we had homemade Cinnamon Swirl Bread & homemade French Toast Sticks for breakfast out on the porch!
The rest of Saturday we spent working on some little projects we never seem to have time for. Nothing too hard, just time consuming. Giving the rabbit cages a deep cleaning, rearranging some outdoor furniture, & cleaning up the outdoor wood pile. That way the back yard is all clean and tidy for the next bonfire! Saturday night, we harvested some of our sweetcorn for dinner & we grilled some steaks over the fire! And that put an end to our little stay-cation!
Now that we’re all adults Stay-cations look a little different than they used to. But over the years we’ve done a variety of different things. Here are some of our favorite stay-cation ideas.
- A day at the museum
We’ve been fortunate to live in close proximity to several museums. One of which is the National Museum of the United States Airforce. Sometimes we’d get up on a Saturday morning and simply go explore the museum. There are a lot of different museums that are either free admission or have selected days where admission is either free or cheaper. Take a look online and see what you can find. If museums aren’t your thing or you can’t find one within your price range, maybe try a new park, playground, or hiking trail. Take a picnic lunch and make a day of it!
2. Walking around downtown
This is one of my favorites. Old historical cities not far from home! You know, the ones where they’ve preserved the city square and they’re filled with old buildings and quaint little shops? Simply going and walking around, window shopping, & dreaming about what it all looked like 100 years ago! Though you don’t need a special event to go on a little adventure, do a little research & see if maybe they have a tree lighting, festival, or Christmas kick-off event that’d be fun.
3. Camping at home!
This is particularly fun for long weekends & can take on a variety of forms. We’ve done this a couple of ways. If you have a tent you can set it up in your backyard & only go in the house for the bathroom & getting food. We did that once or twice but found that we preferred to pretend that the house was our camper. Only going in to use the bathroom, get & clean up meals, & sleep at night. We spent the rest of the time chilling outside. Playing in the sandbox, the blowup pool, or some game or other we had come up with.
Stay-cations are a great way to take a little break from the everyday busyness & create some great memories with your family without breaking the bank.
Often getting you out and about in your hometown for the first time & being able to see a lot of neat things you never knew existed before. And the best part is they can be as simple or elaborate as you’d like. It’s all up to you. You get to make it what you want it to be!
Until next time,
Bailey Sue
This is very inspiring! I have already thought of some ideas for our own staycation next year!