Since I missed to post my reflections for the last few months, I am playing the catchup, before I forgot all the fun stuff that happened in our lives lately 🙂
June was relatively mild month, no epic travels or adventures, which we compensated for in July, going for a ten 10 road trip to a couple of National parks..
My youngest kid graduated middle school, so now he has four more years of high school. So far he is determined and has chosen a more difficult path of pursuing IB (International Baccalaureate) diploma. We’ll see how that goes, he still has two years to change his mind 🙂
Speaking of IB program, there are multiple languages that a kid can choose to study for the next four years. My son has chosen German, and we told him that the next summer we’ll create a “student exchange”, when our nephew from Cologne, Germany will stay with us for a couple of weeks to learn English better, and in return my kid will go and stay with our relatives in Cologne to deepen his knowledge of German. That would be fun and I will get to travel with my kid to Europe! Win-Win!
Mid June I participated in my first choir concert. We prepared ten songs in different languages, had about 80+ guests and had a party afterwards. Not a bad performance after only seven months of singing in the choir, if I may say so! I certainly like my new hobby and will continue singing in the choir for as long as I am enjoying it!
At the end of June we went to another music festival. Normally it would be just me and maybe DH, but this time our friends with her kids decided to go, and since my kids are friends with hers, my kids expressed desire to go with us as well. Well, turns out the kids had a lot of blast during the weekend – they formed a teen band of 6-8 kids and hanged out together all the time, mostly at our campsite (to the mild annoyance of DH, who would normally enjoy reading and drinking at the campsite by himself). They liked it so much that when we offered the kids to spend a couple days and a night at our vacation house, everyone jumped at this opportunity.
We carried out the promise and organized the sleepover/camp-over at our vacation house in mid-July. It was four adult women (mostly moms) and six kids, aged 13 to 19. The two groups rarely overlapped (kids by themselves, moms by themselves), which worked out perfectly. Since the weather was good, the kids decided to sleep in tents outside, and had a blast staying up late. Ultimately, we all were so glad that the kids had such a nice time and really communicated with others, in this age of digital entertainment!
One of the things I am looking forward to each summer is picking fruit on our favorite farm (not far from our vacation house). The season starts with cherries, my most favorite fruit ever! They have different varieties of cherries, from Bing (red) to Rainier (sweet yellow cherries). So the end of June/early July is the season for picking cherries, and they go fast! So of course, binging on the cherries (while picking and afterwards) is the best part of summer!
At the end of July we departed for the ten day road trip to Glaciers and Banff National parks. That was a really good trip, but I will have a separate post (or a few) about that trip, so stay tuned!
Credit card hacking:
I would also like to provide an update on our Credit card hacking progress, as this is my relatively new hobby, which provides both financial benefits and entertainment for me.
In June I opened one new card:
– Chase Business Ink Unlimited (no annual fee, 75K Ultimate Rewards points after spending $7.5K in three months) – completing the spend requirements for Chase Business Ink Cash at the end of May allowed me to switch my spend towards the new card.
Besides opening the new credit card, I utilized the $300 Venture X annual travel credit towards the stay in Radium Hot springs during our Glaciers and Banff NP road trip we’ve done in July/August. Also, I applied for Global Entry for my kids (we received ours in January before the Turks and Caicos trip) – we used credits from Capital One Venture X card we opened for DH in March and from Southwest Business Premier card we opened for me last October. So now, our entire family of four has Global Entry for the next four years, fully paid by premier credit cards (provided as benefits), the total savings of $400 – isn’t that awesome?!!
Conclusion:
In summary, June and July were filled with local trips and activities, mostly focused on kids, and ended up with a nice road trip across the US and Canada. That’s what I would typically expect of our summers – music festivals, camping, hanging out with friends, travelling – what’s not to like?
How was your summer? Any epic trips, fun times?