Now that warm weather has hit most of the country, it's time to get off of the couches and outdoors.  With gas prices the way the are though, many people won't be wandering too far from their couches.  A marketing genius has coined the term "staycation" to describe the growing trend of families spending vacations in their own backyards.  But even if you're not going any further than the backyard, you still need entertainment!

My favorite outdoor activity as a kid was the temporary swimming pool.  The swimming part was fun, but the best part for me was when we first took it out of the box and prepped it for the summer season.  We would lay the lining out on the lawn, down a huge hill in the backyard and then hose it down and soap it up.  You can see where this is going.  We had the biggest slip-n-slide EVER!  Well, it seemed pretty big to a 5 year old.  The swimming part was okay too. 

Bike riding was my second favorite summer activity.  The saying "It's like riding a bike" is true....you never forget, but it sure does get a lot tougher when you're older and haven't done it in years.  We have a lot of great bikes to get you from A to B: cruisers, road bikes, kids' bikes, tandems, mountain bikes, bikes you don't even have to pedal...the list goes on and on.  Don't forget your helmet!

The final favorite was the swingset.  Mine was old and metal with one leg that would lift up a few inches every time I swung a little too high.  The accompanying sandbox was handmade and better served as a home for hundreds of tiny frogs than a place to build my future (sand) castle.  Oh, how things have changed.  Driving around town today, I can see the tops of wooden swingset structures, whose roofs tower over the roof of the house that it is nestled behind.  Swingsets that take loving dads many weekends, multiple drillbits and a lot of aspirin to construct.