It's getting close to the end of summer, at least for my family. The kids start school activities and sports on Aug 11, so we're just a few weeks away from me starting to wake up early each day and move them around. It's been an amazing summer for me, one that I never would have imagined at the start of the year, and we still have a couple more activities planned.

Most of my summer was my incredible sabbatical, which was the experience of a lifetime. My family had a few other events, and we've got a short vacation planned before school starts. While I'm sure most of you don't have anything like a 6 week adventure away from work, I am hoping you had some memorable times. With that in mind, I wanted a poll away from work this week.

What fun things have you done this summer (or this year) away from work?

Many of you have kids, or at least plan some summertime holiday. We've seen traffic go down at SQLServerCentral, so we know at least a good percentage of you haven't been diving into work each day and continuing your education. I suppose some of you have been working very hard on a project and haven't had time to take breaks to learn something, which is a good problem to have. At least in the short term.

Perhaps you have exciting plans coming up, but in either case, let us know what was a fun break from work this summer.