Summer Bucket List Things

Now that Memorial Day has passed, it’s officially summer. That’s how it works, right?!

It’s time to spend as much time outside as possible and soak up every single minute of the nice weather and the long days (with the proper SPF, of course) before winter strikes again.

In order to take full advantage (because summer always moves by way too fast) my friends and I created a “summer bucket list” to capture all the things we want to do. I thought it would be fun to share the list. Here’s what we have so far:

• Go to a movie in the park. We’ve done this the last couple of summers and it is always a lot of fun. Just keep your fingers crossed that the mosquitos aren’t out in full force! Check out the Minneapolis schedule here.
• Visit a Pizza Farm. I’ve wanted to go to a pizza farm ever since I first learned about them two years ago. This will be the year!! If you’re not familiar with a pizza farm, it’s basically a farm where they make their own pizza with fresh produce from their gardens. Bring wine, beer, sides, silverware, and blankets to make a picnic out of it! Amazing, right? My friends and I are going to go check out Red Barn in a couple of weeks.
• Do lawn bowling at Brits. Because lawn bowling is so much more fun on a roof.
• Have dinner at Spoon & Stable. Spoon & Stable is a new restaurant that opened up in Minneapolis. I’ve heard such awesome things about it. I mean, it received a James Beard nomination for best new restaurant for crying out loud. Making reservations is tricky. I guess we don’t have to go this summer, but might as well add it to the list.
• Bike and go wine tasting in Stillwater. Stillwater is a cute little town with a bunch of wineries, breweries, and boutique shops. It’s only a 20ish minute drive from Minneapolis, so it’ll be a fun day trip with the girls. Minnesota obviously isn’t known for its wine, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go taste it.
• Go to a Twins game. I’m not a huge baseball fan or anything, but I like going to the games with friends, grabbing a beer and hot dog, and hanging out at the stadium. It just feels like such an all-American summer activity.
• Do yoga in the park. My friend Meggan (AKA: The Yoga Garage) hosts a yoga class by Lake of the Isles every Wednesday night at 7:00. The season opener is June 10. I’m excited to finally go to a class!
• Have a picnic. Because it’s summer and picnics are necessary.
• Bike to Sea Salt. We did this once last summer and it was such a blast, so we definitely wanted to do it again this year.
• Go paddle boarding followed by food and drinks at Tin Fish or Bread & Pickle. There are always so many people paddle boarding around Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet, but we’ve never gone before! A friend and I attempted to do this once or twice last summer but each time it was too windy. It will happen this year! Plus, I still have not eaten at Tin Fish, which is just ridiculous.

A couple extras on my personal summer bucket list:

• Do an Endless Summer Trail Race. Ever since doing my first trail race in April, I’ve been wanting to do another one. I’ve heard great things about this series (along with its post-race pizza, beer, and soda!) and am finally planning to register for one this summer. Hopefully the 7 mile on July 14!
• Grill. I think I’ve used the grills at my condo building twice in the last 3.5 years. They just scare me a little bit and it’s such an event to haul everything down and back up. BUT, I’m going to try to force myself to do it more. Or at least once.
• Go to ‘The Jabin’ as much as possible. I love my family’s cabin (and my family) so I want to spend as much time as I can up there.

As you can see, most of these involve doing fun things outside (primarily eating or doing something active) that can’t really be done in the winter. This list will help keep me (and my friends) accountable to do all the summer things!

I am SO EXCITED to have such a fun and awesome summer!!

PS- Do you have a summer bucket list? What’s on it? Am I missing anything on mine?