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Scheduling Summer Made Easy
We’ve been filling our kids’ schedules since they could walk. Play dates, soccer practice, piano lessons, dinner, sleep, rinse and repeat. Now that school is out, making sure their days are filled with the right balance of productivity and play can be a daunting task – and the open calendar staring back at you is enough to keep you up at night! But what if the summer schedule was simply no schedule at all?
Just an hour and a half drive from Fort Worth, The Harbor on Possum Kingdom Lake is the perfect summer retreat. Kids of all ages enjoy running and playing in the gated community’s open fields, swinging on the playground, flying kites, and riding bikes. Every Saturday, a hayride takes families around the property, stopping to feed the longhorns along the way.
Now let’s dive into the water activities: fishing, boating, kayaking, water skiing, and tubing – all on the most beautiful lake in the Southwest. And it’s no surprise that the pool was built by one of the top 20 pool builders in America.
Even though it seems worlds away from the city, it’s close enough that you can drive back for a baseball game and be back in time for dinner. Speaking of…on the evenings when “what’s for dinner?” leaves you drawing a blank, there’s an extensive menu waiting down at The Grille (and a wine list for you).
And I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet. The concierge service! Send a list of your groceries before you go, and they will be waiting for you when you arrive. Need a babysitter? Done. Need ice for your party? They’ve got it covered. “It’s great to see families come together, away from the chaos of the city, enjoying time spent together,” said Claire, The Harbor’s concierge. And she will make sure that enjoying your time at The Harbor is the only thing you have to worry about.
So while your kids are out and about, walk along the hiking trails, relax at the spa, and kick back in a rocking chair to watch the sunset. Yes, this is a real place, and you should visit for a weekend. Take your kids. Heck, take their friends. The endless possibilities give life to imagination in all the ways a pre-made schedule can’t. And you can relax knowing that everything has been taken care of.
The Harbor is pleased to be teaming up with TanglewoodMoms.com to give away a free two-night stay at the Inn for one lucky TanglewoodMoms.com reader! (Holiday weekends are excluded.) In the comments below, tell us your favorite summertime memory from childhood. Building sand castles on the beach or catching lightning bugs in the front yard? Lemonade on Grandma’s front porch? Riding your bike in the neighborhood as the streetlights came on? Comments are open from now until noon on Wednesday, June 1, and the winner will be announced here and on Facebook at 7 pm on Wednesday, June 1. Remember, you must comment here on the blog to be entered into the drawing! Good luck!
xo, Victoria
Riding bikes to the trinity river!
Visiting our cousins, reading on lazy days, beach
After a day of swimming, family dinner gathering followed by catching fire flies with my brother. Then we would fall asleep with them on our bed side table!
Picking fresh mint leaves from the mountain streams in Ruidoso, NM. It was our favorite spot to cool down and wade in the streams!
Definitely riding my bike around with the other neighborhood kids and exploring.
Family camping trips!
Spending endless days at the beach with my family in the Dominican Republic, playing in the sand and collecting shells, and then staying to see the sunset.
My childhood was very lonely being an only child. But still I remember spending much time on a swing in the hammock under the roof feeling freshen the air, swim in the river, enjoy jumping in puddles of rain and smell the aroma of wet soil drench. So enjoying nature at its best.
Swimming in Inks Lake and the going to Galveston!
On the rare occasion it would rain in Texas in the summer, I would run outside and play in the warm rain. My favorite rain activity was turning magnolia leaves into little boats that I would “sail” down the rain swollen creek near my house. Nothing smells better than warm Texas rain and magnolia blossoms!
Blueberry picking with all my brothers. We would come home covered in blue and with full bellies.
Going fishing with my dad on Saturday mornings!
My favorite summertime memory would have to be watching my favorite baseball player, my son play baseball with no care in the world!
Ummmm, yes PLEASE! This would be DREAMY! We would LOVE a little getaway! And we LOVE Tanglewood Moms! xoxo
Eating watermelon and fishing off the dock of our lake house at Cedar Creek!
Riding bikes in the mountains in CO.
My favorite Summer childhood memory is making homemade ice cream on warm Summer nights!!
I was born and raised in central Wisconsin and my favorite childhood memory is picking raspberries in my grandma’s huge raspberry patch! We would spend weeks at her house helping her pick, clean, sell, and of course eat!
Playing kick the can with all my neighbors.
Family road trips!
Catching tadpoles after summer rain!
Spending summers at my grandparent’s farm!
Staying up late and playing with neighborhood kids.
Visiting my great grandmother in Galveston and going to the beach!
I loved sucking on honey suckle flowers and catching fireflies
Playing basketball with my sister in our driveway on those warm but breezy June evenings while my parents sat in lawn chairs drinking iced tea and teasing us
My favorite summer memories are fishing with my granddaddy!
Catching salamanders on the Quebec-Vermont border at summer camp
I vividly remember the summer of 1988. my dad had an old work van (he laid tile for a living) that he had gutted to hold all his equipment. We didn’t have money to take family vacations and my siblings and I desperately wanted to go to the beach like our class mates. My dad would go to Home Depot in Friday nights and buy bags of sand. He would then throw them in the back of his van with shovels and a variety of toys, then drive through the stockyards (when exchange street was two way direction). My brothers, sister and I would happily build sand castles as if we were at the beach while my dad and step mom cruised Northside. Looking back, we broke all sorts of child safety laws, but the memories it left were definitely worth it!!
Every summer I would go with my Dad to his small hometown of Brady, Nebraska. We would go during the 4th of July for the town festival. Tractor riding, turtle racing, pie contests…too much fun! I want to do it again!
Going to the lake, learning how to water ski, riding my bikes for hours and snow cones!!!
Water skiing on Lake Travis for hours at a time!
I loved our block parties, where we’d catch frogs under the street lights, stargaze with telescopes, eat homemade ice cream and have races down the street. It was an idyllic childhood! 🙂
Playing with my friends outside! Leave in the morning, and back at dinner time!
Fresh peaches and homemade ice cream
Camping on the Norfolk coast (uk) with my cousins. Toasting marshmallows on the fire 🙂
I love the memory of hearing the sounds of the ice cream trunk coming down our street and scrambling to get change to buy a popsicle!
Summers at Lake of the Woods.
Summers for me were spent at the Country Club… in the pool… with my friends and lots of snacks!
To this day I still remember the ftw zoo school!! That’s the main reason I have my kids go every summer even though we live 5 hours away!!
My favorite childhood summer memories are my group of friends and I riding our bikes to the snow cone stand in the evenings then eating them on my trampoline. I still have that nostalgia on summer evenings with my kids now.
Summer vacations growing up were always in Florida. Destin became a home away from home. Now that I’m older, I wish I could give my parents a vacation full of fun memories ☀️?⛱
Riding my bike to the lake with my dad and sister and of course, stopping for donuts along the way.
My parents always rented the same cabin at Possum Kingdom every summer and it always felt like a second home though we didn’t own it. The lights on the water, fishing with bacon on the boatslips, learning to waterski– it doesn’t get better than life on PK!
Floating in the pool with a drink in my hand.
Let me rephrase that, I misread and thought it was favorite summer activity! Ha! I still loved spending hours in the pool with my cousins playing made up games.
Swimming and getting snow cones as often as possible!
Eating oranges in the hammock
With my grandma!
Every single day of summer was spent in the River Crest Country Club pool and it is the absolute best memories of my life. I was in that pool the moment the sun was up until the moment it set. I still have all my blue ribbons from swim meets. I won the 10 and under city swimming championship. More importantly, I remember my father bringing home carefree bubblegum for me from work every single day because my toes and fingers would be raw from the chlorine. I still miss those days of sun, zinc oxide on my nose, and cherry slushies at the pool. I hope someday that my future children will have those wonderful memories as wel!
Road trips to a different place to explore every summer!
My dad would take my brother and me to the water slides off of 820. Sometimes we would switch it up and go to the ones near Cherry Lane. ?
Finding seashells along the beach and building sandcastles. Nothing says summer like the smell of the ocean!
I would love this! Rides in the bed of my dads pickup to feed the cows at dusk.
Stealing my moms baking pans to make mud pies with the neighbor girls!
Spending hours out on the lake swimming, tubing and skiing!
Bar BQs with parents friends and their families, kids running everywhere and chasing fireflies all over the yard.
burying sweet tea in the backyard!
Going to camp longhorn!
Going every weekend to Coronado Beach and the Silver Strand. Playing in the sand, making sand castles and learning to body surf. Loved the beautiful California sunshine and mild weather. After moving to Colorado as a teenager we spent our weekends at Lake Powell. Loved water skiing, swimming and cliff jumping. I’ve been so fortunate to have parents that loved the outdoors. Carrying on that traditions with my own children.
Catching fireflies and making s’mores!
Playing outside!. P.s. We love claire and the harbor!!!
I love this!! My favorite memories involve checking on our garden (watching everything grow) and visiting the Texas coast!
Church camp campfires and amusement park trips, from open to close!
summer camp and fireflies!
My favorite memories are countless afternoons spent at the pool with friends.
Playing outside from morning until night (when the guard light came on)with neighborhood friends.
( *so glad we didn’t have electronics to worry about then… the good old days).
Swimming! Swimming! Swimming! We spent every day in the pool and loved it.
My best summer memories were of a bygone era, where a couple of neighborhood dads would cobble together wooden sawhorses to restrict vehicular traffic in and out of a few neighborhood streets, some skilled moms would hand crank homemade ice cream, and the kids would clutch Mason jars filled with fireflies, as they safely dashed around the paths in our block parties…
Hanging out at PK alllll summer long! The firework show at hells gate!
Long summer days spent boating, skiing and tubing on Lake of the Ozarks!
Summers visiting Colorado! We vacationed with another family and they are by far my favorite memories!
Camping with my family on the Guadalupe River!
Spending Summer’s swimming at the club and playing golf with my dad! I love summertime!!
Visiting my 20+ first cousins in Iowa! We lived for summer and going to little league baseball games, the lake, playing tennis. It was wonderful!
Every summer I got to go spend two weeks with my grandparents! We would fish, hike and explore!! It was the best!
We would go camping in CO springs every summer at our tiny cabin. No electricity, just spent the week hiking, reading and fishing!
I don’t have a favorite memory because I’ve yet to go to possum kingdom. However, I’d love for this to be how my first memory begins. (Fingers-crossed)
Grilling hot dogs on our huge old charcoal grill and watching projector home movies outside at night!
Spendjng summers at camp & Possum Kingdom!
My favorite summertime memory is spend time at the lake with my family!
Swimming, water skiing, board games and catching fish from the dock with cousins on Lake Conroe.
Spending our summer days riding 4-wheelers through the mud. (I grew up in southwest LA) Also going to our family camp at the beach.
camping in the front yard in sleeping bags and watching stars, playing with my dad in the pool and having him rub the bottom of my foot on the stubble from his beard
Endless days of swimming with the entire family.
Riding bikes with my brother and sister until it was time to come in for dinner. Then going back out for a game of badminton or looking for lighting ing bugs.
Roasting marshmallows on a campfire and making smores! We used to go camping all the time!
Swimming, waterskiing, and laying out by the pool or lake! Can’t beat a sunny summer day!
Visiting family and spending hours having fun in the sun!
spending time with my Mimi, having “afternoon tea & biscuits.” <3
Spending the night with my grandparents, packing a picnic lunch, and going camping
Water skiing with friends, then fishing with my parents. If the fish were hopping, then fish fry for dinner that night. Love summer time!
Summer trips to the lake in Indiana!
No backyard fences made for the best games of tag and all the kids on the block could play until the sun went down!
Our yearly camping trip to S. Padre Island with all of my aunts, uncles and cousins!
Camping at the beach building sandcastles and burying siblings to their waist and necks.
I loved catching Monarch butterflies and picking yellow dandelions in the fields of Minnesota where I grew up. Jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler under it was also a lot of fun.
Picnic lunches and long afternoons on the beach!
Huge multiyard hide and go seek games with all the neiborhood kids!
Spending my summers at Camp Longhorn and in Port Aransas are two of my favorite childhood summertime memories!
My favorite summer memories are sleeping in and being on the boat with my family! 🙂
Many summer nights were spent hanging out with family in the backyard swimming and running around. We often caught lighting bugs in mason jars and spent many night enjoying homemade ice cream. Great memories and have continued with my own daughter.
Spending the early evening at the beach when the crowds we be gone. We would have packed a picnic supper and would enjoy the cooler breeze, playing in the waves and feeding the seagulls. If it was an evening with a bright moon we would lie under the stars and listen to the waves.
Staying in a cabin with my grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles in New Braunfels.
This place looks so cool! Trying to plan a family vacation this summer, and I’d love to take my family to The Harbor!
Swimming, hanging out at friends houses and family vacations!!!
Late summer nights playing with our cousins who were our neighbors (awesomeness!) riding our bikes and chasing the ice cream man! And my absolute favorite.. Riding our bikes to the public library to read books (once a nerd always a nerd!)
I loved catching fireflies, learning to waterski and camping!
Swimming and jet-skiing on Eagle Mountain Lake with my friends.
My family would love to spend time on the lake skiing, fishing, and having family fun!
Playing with the adventure people all day with my brother in the yard and when it rained, sending them down the gutters in their little canoes. My dad would also buy an super long piece of painter’s plastic and make the neighborhood’s longest slip and slide and everyone would come over. And ice cream socials!
So many things I enjoyed – my Aunt making us Orange Crush Ice Cream while we played all day at the lake, capturing lighting bugs in glass jars, sitting on the porch eating watermelons and having seed spitting contest, using dishwahing soap to make the ultimate slip -n- slide, all the neighbor kids playing baseball in yard till we literally could not see the ball. Seriously the very best summers as a kid!
Riding bikes until dark with neighbor friends, swimming all day and also catching lightning bugs with my cousins at our grandparent’s house…to name a few!
Every summer growing up we joined a local community pool. All my summer memories as a kid are from that pool. Swim lessons with friends and the greased watermelon contest on 4th of July. Simple times and simple fun.
Swimming in the waves in Galveston
I loved going to Maine every summer go stay at the lake house. There were tons of neighbors our age and we would all ride our bikes into town to get Dairy Queen ice cream. After, we would play home run derby and hide and seek. During the rainy days we would play cards and bet with tootsie rolls.
Riding bikes and playing jump rope! Of course drinking from the water hose when we got thirsty 🙂
Family, fishing and fireworks! Love passing that on with my boys!
My favorite suumertime memory is of me playing outside all day long once school was out. I was such a tomboy in my overalls. My neighbor friends and i would get chalk and draw out hopscotch boards, play four square, even fashion together tether ball with a pole. Luckily we also had a creek nearby and i loved catching tadpoles, making mud pies and catching fire flies at dusk. It would only end when we would hear our moms hollar “dinners ready”. We would be dirty as heck but so happy to have been outside having adventures all day. So glad i grew up before TV and video games became the favorite past times of our youth.
Camping on the beach in South Padre.
My grandad built a lake house on Lake Palo Pinto when I was a kid and the whole family went all the time. My favorite memories are when my sister and I got to ride with my grandparents to the lakehouse. I remember driving up and down the hills to get there. The closer we got, the more excited we would get. This was before seatbelts were a big deal so we’d practically be bouncing off the walls in the backseat! LOL
Lemonade stands! Night games! Swimming after dark! Ice cream trucks!
We grew up in West Texas. It was so hot the earth would crack beneath our feet. Tumble weeds would glide past our house on the daily. It was the early 80’s and if we weren’t plastered in front of the TV , glued to the never ending stream of captivating music videos on MTV while we took for granted the cool hum of our overworked A/C as it churned out its relentless ballad, we were either baking poolside, at the lake, or cruising about town with the top down,radio blaring, not a care in the world, our entire future lay out before us, unknown….
Spending one month of the summer with my grandmother in Chicago and one month with my grandmother in Wisconsin. We got to spend summer nights with our cousins on their pond and with our other cousins in my grandmothers basement listening to music.
Swimming in neighborhood pool
Summer days were spent hanging out with neighborhood kids, we would ride bikes, have lemonade stands, swim a ton and toss the ball around at the park. The simple pleasures of childhood!
My favorite summer memory was walking the 3 or 4 blocks to the zoo, and being able to hear the lions roar in the distance sometimes. Perfect summer!
Packing up the suburban and heading to port A w the family! Watching the kiddos fly kites, make sand castles, and enjoy each other’s company is priceless
My grandparents had a house in lake granbury when I was a child. My best summer memories are going there with my siblings and eating as many Popsicles as we could and getting up to go fishing off their dock before the sun was even up!
Going to the coast almost every weekend. I don’t think I appreciated it then but now I look back with fond memories.
My favorite memories as a child are skiing and tubing on Possum Kingdom Lake. My moms family has been going to Possum Kingdom since she was a kid. We love the lake! Just wish we could be there more.
Spending the summers at my grandparents farm! Picking peaches from the orchard, riding the tractor, and swimming in the trough my grandfather would fill with water! Oh and the fishing with my dad!! Greatest memories ever!!
Some of my best memories are swimming, running barefoot in the grass catching lightening bugs & family time by the campfire!
Riding bikes all over the neighborhood with friends, chasing lightening bugs and 4th of July parties with big firework shows!
My favorite summertime memories entail family road trips across the great USA to visit our grandparents and other family members. Lots of quality family time!
Swimming all day long, from right when I woke up until it was time to go to bed!
Picking blackberries with my grandmother. We’d come back to the house, wash them and put them in bowls with sugar. Will remember that always.
Having huge lobster and clam dinners at my family’s home in Bar Harbor, Maine!
My favorite summertime memories were going for bananna splits with my grandfather at a local ice cream shop!
Going to the beach with my family
Night swims, Popsicles, frying eggs on the sidewalk, tanning before we knew it was bad, road trips to Padre, Colorado & Florida…
My favorite memory from my summers as a child would have to be swimming until dark at Colonial Country Club. My Dad would come meet the whole family after a day of working and he would throw us up in the air in the pool and do cannonballs off the high dive! Then we would eat ice cream and listen to the sound of the locusts in the trees. Such sweet memories and I can’t wait to do it with our 3 children!
Watermelon fights in Pinson Creek at Camp Huawni in East Texas
My favorite summer memory was grabbing a popsicle and walking the 3 or 4 blocks up to the Fort Worth Zoo for a fun filled day! Getting to be outdoors, carrying a picnic lunch and sometimes even hearing the lions roar on the way is a memory I’ll never forget!
My parents were both teachers so my favorite summer memories are made up of spending time with them!
Summertime memories as a child are deliciously filled with sweet thoughts of running around the neighborhood and climbing tress. Of using the hose to cool off and playing Night Games throughout the backyards. Eventually we were dragged away by parents making promises of being able to return to our many adventures the next day.
Packing up lunch and dinner to take to the lake with the family and spending the entire day out on the water. We would ski, water tub and swim all day long.
Visiting my grandparents house in Wisconsin, and enjoying a break from the heat!
My favorite memory is when my grandmother used to pull my sister and myself in a little red wagon down to the park to play. We would sing songs the whole way. I miss it and I miss my grandmother!
Our family trips with cousins to the mountains of Colorado or New Mexico were my favorite summer moments. Sky full of stars and a blazing campfire. Roasting hot dogs and s’mores. Now we want to spread the tradition to our children! Ready for summer!
I spent the summers going to my grandparents home and fishing every day!
goong out on Lake LBJ all day. I mean breakfast lunch and dinner. And late night fishing trips on the boat.
Spending lazy days at the lake and pool in east Texas!
Spending days on the boat and nights around the campfire at my grandma and grandpas house in northern Wisconsin! I still am like a kid when we go back every summer!
Any vacation with water, sunshine, and family!!!!
Bike riding all day long!
Swimming all day at my grandparents then staying up late and my grandma making us shakes! Such a great treat!