Letting Your Inner Kid Out This Summer

Written by Tawny May

You may have nine kids or maybe you got married nine days ago. Either way, you have really fun summer memories from when you were a kid that can enhance your married life. When was the last time you let the kid within you run wild? I mean, when was the last time you were a total goof and did something fun from your childhood with your spouse?

Here’s a summer challenge that will be good for you and your marriage: Talk about some of your funniest, bestest, most memorable childhood times, and recreate them together!

Here are some ideas to jog your memory:

• Make a fort: Whether it’s indoor or outdoor, it doesn’t matter! Just remember--the more blankets the merrier, scary stories with a flashlight is a must, the more rooms or nooks the better, and sleepovers in a fort are bomb!
• CP’s (more commonly known at “Cereal Parties”): Eat cereal any time day or night, anywhere! In your bed, on the kitchen floor, on your patio, you name it. Be irresponsible and eat some sugar cereal in unlikely places together.

READ: 100 SUMMER DATE IDEAS YOU WILL LOVE

• Sleep around the house! Remember when you were little, you’d fall asleep all over the place...in your normal clothes? (Sometimes your parents would move you, but other times you’d wake up so proud of the fact that you went to bed without having to shower or brush your teeth.) You and your honey don’t always have to sleep in your bedroom. Have a sleepover! Sleep outside, sleep on the living room floor, the guest room bed, the downstairs couch, the fort...
• Barefoot walks: Go. Just go. Now. ​

• River races: Sail that popsicle ship downstream! Decorate a ship out of popsicle sticks or 2-liter bottles and sail them downstream in a race! Winner gets to buy the lemonade from the neighbor’s lemonade stand. 
• Why did we stop watching Saturday morning cartoons?
• Hide and seek: Not even trying to be weird about this, but my husband and I played hide and seek with a group of our friends before we started dating. We played indoors with all the lights off and had so much fun for so long for oh, so little money. Hide and seek is such a classic!

READ: 5 WAYS TO ASK YOUR SPOUSE OUT

• Make a movie: You did it as a total joke but for sure got way into it, remember? Imagine if you and your honey did that for a silly date night. Let your creativity run wild!
• Be a kid at dinner: Eat without silverware, pin your arms behind your back, or make a game of throwing those artichoke leaves across the room and into the trash during dinner...for the heck of it!
• I must mention night games. Get a group of friends, neighbors, or family members together to play games outside when the sun goes down. That’s one of those things we never should have stopped doing as we grew up!

These ideas are family friendly and great to include kids in, or awesome for just you and your sweetheart. Summer is such a happy time! Let go of some of your adult tightness and be a total goof together with your lover for a minute, an hour, or a night. You’ll be amazed what it’ll do for your friendship, relationship, and marriage!

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