As summer comes to a short end, we reminiscence on all the memories of 2017's summer break. As much as we wish this could be an endless summer, we head back to school next month and wait a whole other year before we hit another summer break. But wait just a minute! Summer can't be over quite yet as we haven't even discussed half of what we did this summer! Ask yourself, what have you accomplished this summer? Was it sleeping in all day and hanging out with friends all night? Was it just chilling out by the pool side or binge watching Netflix with your best friends? And most of all, what was your best summer memory? When we ask ourselves these questions, how are we going to remember this summer? Here are 5 ways to review your month of July or go all out to remember the whole summer!:

1. Print pictures and put them in a photo book or along your wall.

Now you've probably taken all the selfies and pictures you possibly can on every outing or just chilling at home. Now it's time to print them and a do a photo book or a wall collage. Preferably, I like wall collages because you can't lose photos if they are on your wall!

For a Photo Book:

Go to a Michael's or a craft store near you, grab different kinds of photo books (some have different size pages or more pages) depending on how many photos you have that you can print out.

For printed photos, I like going to Walgreen's or Costco to print out photos because it's cheap and they turn out very high quality.

After you grab all your materials and photos, go home and start inserting pictures by the date they were taken. Maybe scroll through your phone's photos one last time to see what date that photo was taken so you can date the back of the pictures.

Viola! You now have a "Remembering the Summer Break of 2017" photo book.

For a Wall Collage:

For this, you can do it many different types of ways. It's just all based on how much you want to spend. You can go to Home Depot and get cork boards as large as your wall or in tiny squares to start. Measure your wall before going to Home Depot otherwise you are going to be completely lost on how much to get. Or you can go to Walmart and invest in a 30 pack of white poster boards for $15.00. That's probably your cheapest and easiest bet right here.

If you go with the poster boards, grab some masking tape or 2 sided heavy duty tape so you can tape your poster board to the wall and your pictures to the board. If anything, you can staple it to the wall.

Once you've grabbed all your materials, start with one poster board and place each picture (I would put it by the date they were taken, just like above^) on there neatly, making sure there are no gaps. If you run out of room on the board and there is a strip of poster board showing, you need to grab another poster board and flip the one that has the pictures on it and tape the two boards together, flip it back over and start covering the white areas with pictures.

Continue these steps until the board stretches from one end of the wall to the other, from top to bottom and left to right. If there is still a white strip of poster board showing, carefully cut right next to the last pictures on the board.

Once everything is put into place, carefully flip the board over and start placing the masking tape from one end to the other. Do all 4 corners and place a strip of making tape about 1 inch from each other to stick on the wall. If not, you can use sticky, adhesive tabs. Then place your wall collage on the wall of your choice.

For the cork boards at home depot, this can become really tricky. You're going to have to use wood glue and glue each of the squares together to make it fit your wall. You're going to have to use very heavy duty hanging adhesive tabs for this project and a glue stick or Elmer's glue.

Once you have all the materials, you're going to have to start by measuring your wall one last time before gluing the cork squares together. If it is too big, you are going to have to use a saw to size down the cork board. Once this is done, you can now place your photos on your cork board.

As for the pictures, I highly recommend (as I have probably said a million times already) putting them in order by the date they were taken. Now that you have an idea on where you are going to place the pictures, it's time to break out the glue sticks or Elmer's glue. I highly recommend using a glue stick because Elmer's glue, if you use too much of it at once, it can seep through the picture and damage it. So now take the glue stick and go across from corner to corner of the picture, then carefully place it on the cork board.

Continue with these steps until you have completely covered the cork board.

BAM! Now you have a whole wall collage to remember the 2017 Summer Break.

There you have it folks. A whole wall collage! You can even add to it if you feel like later on or make another one. One thing I would recommend so your pictures don't wear and tear over time is placing a thin acrylic glass over the board (once it is completely done to your liking. For this you would need to use a cork board instead of poster boards). Acrylic glass can be come quite expensive, but you can always look for cheap custom sign shops to do it for you.

2. Post #TB or #TBT on Instagram.

Everyone has social media platforms up the wall! More than 400 million users are on Instagram a day and each week, #TB or #TBT is always trending. Now that Facebook has hashtags, more than 1.59 billion users are on Facebook and using #TB or #TBT and more than 320 million are on Twitter using the same hashtags. Each trending hashtag, means more and more throwbacks for you! Whether or not you use these hashtags to get noticed for more likes, followers, or because it's trending, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are the best ways to keep memories alive. You can always scroll back to the very beginning of your photos and albums to recollect past memories and Facebook even has a memories notification! Social media is a powerful things and it just keeps getting more powerful by the minute! Enjoy your #TB and #TBT!

3. Think about it, blog about it.

Thinking about all the summer memories you've had can be quite overwhelming. Take a minute and start blogging about your summer. People WANT to hear about different experiences others go through so they can understand and get a sort of feel of what it would feel like if they went through that same experience. So think about what you did everyday of summer and BAM! You've got a full blog about lifestyle, travel, and adventure. Just don't be posting about the party you were at last night after you left the bar drunk, then you'll be in shipshape to the high life of the lifestyle.

Here at the Odyssey, we love to hear about your summer plans, your life experiences, and everything in between! Apply here to become a member of our writing team!

4. Write what you did this summer in a journal and end with your favorite memory of that day.

Keeping a journal is a great idea when it comes to where you've traveled or what you've done this summer. You can always go back and read about what you did and what you could have done or what you'll do next time around. You can take it with you the next time you go out so you can do one thing that you haven't done before; maybe something scary and out of the normal comfort zone. Almost like a bucket list, this journal will be your guide to your summer. A journal app must-have is the Day One App. It tracks where you've been and is easy to take down what you did that day with the location of where you were! I highly recommend this app as it helps me think of all the places I've been so I can write about my experiences to tell you. If not, I love bullet journals! The experience of hand writing your journal is the best feeling in the world. A WHOLE HECK of a lot better than typing it in your phone. Location tagging is nice, but it's better to be in the moment.

5. Go get lunch/coffee with friends and think about everything you did this summer.

It's always nice to get lunch or coffee with friends, especially if they're leaving to go to a different college this fall! Let's just say, you've hung out all summer. You've been on trip after trip, exploring new heights, finding yourselves, and better yet you could have met the boy or girl of your dreams or even traveled the world! Of course you don't want this summer to end, but the least you could do is get together before you both leave again to head back to the dorms, reflect on the whole summer, and post a million more Snapchats. Hell, you can even talk about your next summer plans! There is no harm in that.

With these 5 things, they are the classy, neat ways to showing off your latest summer vacay! Pretty cool, I know! So as for this July Review, what was your favorite memory of this summer? What did you do? Where did you go? Anything that was out of your comfort zone? Did you accomplish a fear or something you've always wanted to do? What are your plans next summer? And are you going to do one of my many memory keeping hacks?

I want to hear about your experience, tell me about it!

Until next time,