What kind of weekend family are you?

[sassenach]

For this poll "weekend" means anytime your family has time off together, even if it's not the traditional Sat/Sun.

[creekland]

We took Tuesday as our "Family Day" when the kids were home and we were homeschooling.  If the weather was good, we'd head out geocaching.  If not, we stayed in and played family games.

 

On Sundays we'd go to church and then everyone could do whatever they wanted - puttering around, reading, getting together with friends, whatever.  The only chores we did were critter chores.  Even dishes waited until Monday morning most of the time.

[Southern Ivy]

DH is usually gone and fishing, so I stay home. But, I would go and do more stuff if he was home. 

I voted 50/50, though. When he's home, we either do things around the house or go out and do things. 

Edited September 5, 2016 by Southern Ivy

[Annie G]

We usually spend one day working on the house (1880 house renovation will never be 'done') and one day playing. Usually the day playing is a day trip or something. Sometimes it's just going to a movie, but we almost always do something fun.  Dh has a stressful job and I work hard to make sure he has some fun. 

[Amira]

Depends on where we live. In the US we stay home. Overseas, we get out.

[Ananda]

In our family . . . weekends are for work.  We clean the house.  We do home projects.  We run weird errands (anything apart from Target, grocery store & library).  We do try to have the occasional adventure.  We try to mix in enough rest through the week, including the weekend.  But we use the weekends to keep our heads above water on work.

[6packofun]

Other.  Weekends are for doing fun stuff, which we can rarely do.  The ability to go out every single weekend and do something as a family that isn't always free is a real blessing that most people seem to take for granted.  We've had more people's jaws drop at the notion that we aren't going to do anything special this weekend (or any other weekend most of the time) because there are only so many fun free things to do that are worth spending gas on.  LOL  It's just unthinkable to not go to an air show, ball game, museum, road trip, craft fair, and on and on.  People think we're boring, I'm sure, but no, just financially strapped.  :P

[displace]

We try to do a lot of adventures, burn out, then have to stay home to "catch up" on routine life. Weekends aren't for rest but I called it rest to do housework I need to take care of, house repair, bills, chores, etc. We neglect chores during the week so we catch up on the weekend. I voted 50/50. One day we also do afterschooling. I also do errands usually, and bulk cooking. I guess I rest more during the week 5 min here and there!

Edited September 5, 2016 by displace

[happypamama]

It depends on the week.  Too many weekends of adventures, and we're all worn out and frustrated.  We like our time spent relaxing around the house in our casual clothes, etc.  But it's really fun to get out and go hiking or to a museum or historic site or something too.  Just not too much of it.

 

This summer, we haven't been out a lot because DH has been spending most weekends working on the bathroom remodel, which has been a HUGE job.  Totally worth it, though.  Also, I've been newly pregnant this summer, so my energy is pretty variable.  Plus, it's been ridiculously hot this summer.  But last weekend, we took an evening and went to a tour of a local historic site and had a picnic at a park, and it was nice to get out and to spend some time together as a family.

[Laurel]

We have a natural tendency to stay home and do nothing/waste time, so we make sure to get out and do "forced family fun" on the weekends. And then, having some of the time filled with outside activities means we also make a point to make sure our time at home is relaxing and recharging.

[whitestavern]

I voted other. We work most of the weekends. I do a lot of paid work, plus grocery shopping and extra cleaning that didn't get done during the week. Dh works outside doing maintenance and extra projects. The kids help with whomever needs it the most. We have a demanding house :(

 

Fall and winter weekends also consist of hockey games and cross country meets (both in the fall months!)

[Chris in VA]

Dh is a priest, so weekends are for church. A lot of our social stuff is connected to it.

He gets Monday off, so sometimes, if dd has off from school, like on Federal holidays, we go out, but mostly we hang at home on weekends. If her boyfriend still lived here, weekends for her would be date time.

[regentrude]

When the kids were younger, we would spend at least one day out hiking as a family. We visited state parks, wilderness areas, nature centers. The day of hiking gave us exercise, nature, and uninterrupted time to talk away from all electronics and distractions. In hindsight that was the most important thing we did for our family and parenting.

 

Now with kids grown, DH and I still do at least one outing per weekend. If we can't hike because it is too hot, we might at least go to a river, float, or bike or check out new state parks and conservation areas we have not yet explored.

 

The other day of the weekend is usually spent at home, working on projects, cooking/baking/eating, entertaining, doing some work for our jobs.

[Wheres Toto]

I put we're 50/50.  We are either home just hanging out (with some cleaning/work being done) or we are actually away for the weekend. 

 

We were away a LOT this summer - camping in PA, camping out at the 4-H Fair, visiting the in-laws/going to the beach, we had our party one weekend.  I found it absolutely exhausting.  I don't think we were home/free even one weekend in all of July. 

 

I think my ideal would be every other weekend home with no plans.  So a true 50/50.

 

ETA: I don't count church on Sunday morning as an activity.  We do go every weekend that we are home. 

Edited September 5, 2016 by Where's Toto?

[AmandaVT]

We're about 50/50. I work most Saturdays and DH and DS go out adventuring. Saturday nights we usually do something as a family and Sundays tend to be cleaning, house stuff, etc. 

[Shellydon]

Work at home.  Yard care, garden upkeep.  Painting, remodeling.  Deep cleaning, pressure washing, sealing, tree trimming etc.  We generally work on the house all weekend long.

[Angie in VA]

Other: work + as much rest as possible. 

 

My guys end up working most Saturdays. We cherish restful Sundays!

[Tap]

Other:

 

I work every weekend.

 

Dh is home.  He is either laying on the couch watching movies, hanging out with friends, or working.  He is not the time to fiddle about.  He is either near coma level, or gone. 

 

The kids are here, there and everywhere.  

 

DD17 may sleep 12+ hours in one night, or 12 hours between the two.  It just depends on what is going on.  

 

DS21 is usually busy

 

DD9 is with her bio-dad

 

 

[catz]

My kids have activities that often meet over the weekend.  We do a late Sunday church service, Sunday School, youth group.  We're out of the house quite a bit on the weekends. 

[FaithManor]

We are halfsies. We have adventure and we have scheduled hang out/rest weekends too.

 

This weekend we stayed home for the most part, but we had night time bonfires followed by star gazing with out 8" telescope. So it has been really nice.

 

It wasn't entirely restful though just not physical. We spent most of Saturday working on maximum velocity and maximum altitude calculations for specific rockeg motors and rockets then checking our hand work against OpenRocket software simulations to see if our calculations were correcr before we teach the mathematics to the student launch team.

 

All of our Saturdays and Sundays from now to Oct.1 working with the team om the proposal so that is going to put a crimp in our adventure. But I do have one Friday night slated for kayaking, and Friday afternoon and evening to the RenCen festival so we can see a couple of Shakespeare plays and the birds of prey presentation.

[The Girls' Mom]

I *want* it to be adventure time.  However, with my dh's health, by the time the work week is over, he is beat and has to rest.  Sometimes he does a few things on Saturday.  Sunday is definitely rest day.  So, if we do anything, it usually has to be without him.  Often, we just watch movies all weekend.

[Spryte]

I put other. We do a lot of entertaining, and regularly have large groups. We do a biweekly Tiara Night for adults and kids, but it's really about the adults connecting and relaxing. Easy food, drinks, s'mores, and tiaras are required. This evolved as a joke, but it's a Thing here now. From Tiara Night, we frequently have overnight family guests, so that morphs into a big breakfast and midday cookout with kids running everywhere.

 

The alternate weekends we go out for adventures, but I wouldn't call our at home weekends restful, you know?

 

Then we sort of intersperse large gatherings and parties. Kid parties, but I have an issue with them - I love them, so we might go overboard a tad. :) An intervention may be needed here...

Edited September 5, 2016 by Spryte

[LucyStoner]

It depends. We are pretty active and get outside a lot but my husband is studying, on top of working, so we don't expect much of that to include him until he's done with school.

 

Saturdays my husband often is working, it's usually me on my own schlepping older son to enrichment classes and younger son to sports. When I have my niece and nephew they might have enrichment classes too or, depending on the season, sports. Then we usually have some at home time. I tend to take the boys hiking during the week. Dinner might be alone or with friends. Sundays, my husband is usually off and we generally do either somethung in the the AM or the early PM with him, with him studying the block of time we aren't doing something all together and then studying more after dinner. He finagles his schedule some to make sure he gets to at least a couple of our younger sons games each season. Mondays it's not uncommon for him to be off work, but during the school year the boys both have outside classes and therapy appointments on Mondays so it's not really a weekend day. My husband splits his time most Mondays between schoolwork and getting stuff done for us.

 

When he wasn't in school, weekends often contained more far flung adventures. Because we had two days off at the same time and because we had more resources for such things. This was also before the boys got heavily invested in other Saturday activities.

[myfunnybunch]

I voted Other.

 

The boys' activities, the things they're passionate about, have ramped up in commitment as they've hit the teen years, so they're usually busy with their extracurriculars.

 

Working around their schedules, though, we're about 50/50. We either go for adventures (before/after or skipping the extras) or stay home to clean and rest and get caught up on things.

[Guest]

You missed the 'household projects and chores family'. Ideally weekends are for rest and that is what I aim to do, but most of the time we end up working on things around the house we have no time for during the week, especially my husband.

 

The kids go off with my inlaws on Saturday for adventures and playing so I voted we are about 50/50, but the truth is our 'being at home' means getting work done, and lots of it.

[BlsdMama]

Since moving here it feels like weekends are for projects.  I'm a little over it.

[wintermom]

The past couple years it seems that weekends are becoming an extension of our week. The dc have activities, I drive them around, dh and I play some tennis together and/or tennis with others. They are often as busy as a normal weekday. Monday is often my "rest day." 

[SparklyUnicorn]

mixed

 

One kid has choir on the weekend.  I usually do the food shopping.  DH usually works on something.  We usually play a lot of card and board games. 

 

 

 

 

[SamanthaCarter]

Saturday: Projects, groceries, cleaning, errands. Sunday: Church, rest, library, homemade pizza. I'd love to get to the point in our lives where we did something fun even half the weekends. 

[LMD]

We are stay at home as much as possible. We have 20 acres, plenty of work and adventure around here! Last weekend the kids were painting and woodworking, dh took a couple of kids grocery shopping and I was just pottering.

[marbel]

We are pretty  much stuck in the Sat/Sun weekend routine due to husband's work.  Saturday can go a few different ways:

 

- housework/projects - next Saturday we're doing the big garage cleanout, yippee!   :blink:

- "homework" - for high school and college students, and for my part-time-pastor husband who often has to spend Saturday doing sermon prep

- real work for one kid

- everyone scattered

 

But the best way which is also the rarest:

 

- off adventuring together

 

Sunday is church and sometimes church-related activities, then most likely rest, but maybe some homework for the kids and a little housework for me, though I try to keep it a chore-free day.  

 

Our kids still like to do stuff with us when time permits. Today (holiday Monday) we went to a neat place some of you might know (Creekland?):  Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in East/Central PA (ETA: Or maybe it's more the Poconos region).  We ended up buying a membership so we'd be '"forced" to go back to get our money's worth.   Had to go up a  notch from family membership because of the over-18 kid, but I think it was worth it.   Our time with them is running out.  

 

Edited September 5, 2016 by marbel

[Ausmumof3]

Weekends here are for farm work and fixer upper house jobs. Sunday mornings are for church and Sunday school and evenings are often a time to visit parents.

[Guest]

Weekends are for DH laying his eyeballs on what I've been dealing with all week.

 

j/k

 

We have a regular school day on Saturdays, usually, and do something oot and aboot on Sundays together when possible. I may be committing to something upcoming on Sundays soon, though, in which case we may use his weekday off to go do things. After school

[ScoutTN]

We do some of everything.

 

We have adventures sometimes. Small, local ones like a long walk at the park or an afternoon at the Nature center or a picnic are common. Whole weekends away are 2-3x a year.

 

More often Saturday is for grocery shopping, errands, yardwork etc. Sunday is for church and unstructured play or rest. We often watch tv or a movie together on the weekends.

 

Weekends are often for hospitality. We frequently share a meal with friends or family.

 

Near Christmas and in the late spring, weekends are for concerts, recitals and theater. And parties!

[Melinda S in TX]

During the week we do all of our regular stuff and errand running.  I don't like running errands in the evening or on the weekend when everything is so crowded.  Saturday is work day.  Farm things and bigger projects than we can tackle during the week.  Sunday is church, lunch at Subway with the inlaws and the rest of the day is relaxing and spending time together.

[Melissa in Australia]

Other-

 we try to live self sufficiently Weekends are for outside work namely gardening. 

[SKL]

I voted 50/50.  I try to have some activities on weekends.  In addition to Saturday morning scheduled stuff (horse riding, math class), I look for opportunities to do one-off organized activities (hikes, library classes, museum exhibit / event, volunteer activity) or go enjoy nature for a while.  On Sundays during the school year, we try to do church / Sunday School, the kids may have sports practice, and we do domestic work around the house.  However, I work 7 days, so I can't be out messing around all weekend, and the kids need time to be free range.

 

I don't really "relax" much at this stage of my life.  I have visions of relaxing someday.  :)

[Carrie12345]

I voted 50/50, but it's probably closer to 40/60.  Maybe even 30/70 or 20/80 in the cold months.

 

Dh needs down time, and I need it even more.  Our kids, however, love to go, go, go.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Carrie12345

[Zinnia]

We are half and half, usually.  I have a child that really hates down time.  We do some of it, sure, but not as much as we did before he was born.  :)  He starts pacing the house if we hang around too much, and then it becomes, "find something to do!" which isn't fun for anyone.

 

This weekend, dh worked Saturday morning from about 5 to 12.  We all hung around the house, watched TV, etc.  We spent the afternoon at the pool.  Sunday, we went to church, then up to the mountains for a drive to buy apples.  Monday, we cleaned house in the morning, dh ran an errand with ds mid-day, we had lunch, then we spent the afternoon at the pool.  Grilled out for supper.  I would say that this is a typical weekend, maybe a bit more stay-at-home relaxing than normal.

 

Activities do add up very quickly.  I tend to seek out the cheapest, closest to free, activities I can find.  We often take picnics to the pool or hiking or wherever.  That has evolved into our family style.  I am lucky that I live in a large metro area, and there is always something free going on.  

[MysteryJen]

October through the beginning of August, weekends are for meets, with the occasional judo or tennis tournament thrown in for fun. So if we have a "free" one (always practices that take up most of Saturday), we rest and maybe do projects, but usually not. August and September we do projects or hangout and nap.

 

We all need downtime from work, swim, and school.

[TheReader]

DH thinks weekends are for adventures. I think weekends are for rest. The boys are more on my side of things than DH's, but also more willing to go adventure than I am.

 

So.....we're something in the middle, but not a true 50/50. It can be a little exhausting, honestly; we definitely adventure more than I would like to, but I know if you ask my DH he'd say the same, we stay home more than he likes to.