Kids, Backpacks, and Summer

Take yourself back to when you were a kid. Remember when being a kid meant having all kinds of time to explore and have adventures.

Think of those summer vacations from school.
After the last day of school you got to sleep in.
You didn't want to waste too much time, but you just had to do it your first day off.

There were so many things you had to do on your summer vacation.

The plans you made, while sitting that classroom, were about to become reality.

I couldn't wait to pack my backpack and get out there. My best friend and I would pack up some stuff to eat, maybe some peanut butter and jelly or bologna sandwiches, in our backpacks.
We'd head out to the empty lots in town to explore the unknown.
We'd go through the alleys in our town and inevitably we'd collect all the interesting things we deemed treasures. You know the stuff, when you're a kid, you just couldn't do without. We'd pack things in those backpacks that nobody else would have given a second thought.
Some of our finds were discarded Popsicle sticks; we planned to make something great with them.

Bottle caps were interesting, they were metal back then, they were special.

Great things to find were empty bottles. We could actually cash them in for money. Wow, we could get some candy, or maybe one of those giant pickles from the corner store, every corner had a store back then. Those pickles would last an entire day, if you savored them, as we did.

Bugs, butterflies, and even those special rocks along the way, would start to fill up those backpacks. We didn't mind.

With a backpack strapped to our shoulders, our hands were free to check out just about everything that caught our eyes.

So as you can imagine by the end a week. Summer vacation and our backpacks had given us so many treasures our packs would be bulging.

If you have a kid on summer vacation, give him or her, a backpack.
At the end of the day or even a week, ask them to show you what they have collected. Of course, if there if there is a nasty smell coming from the backpack, you may want to stand back, when you're checking out those (treasures).
Have your kids share their adventures with you.

Each item will most definitely will come with a story. An experience you could be sharing with your kids could be hiding inside that backpack.