Keeping Up With...2021 Goals (Weekly Recap 8/16 - 8/22)

This week marks the end of our summer break and the first week of school. We were supposed to have one more day of fun on Monday, but thunderstorms cancelled our trip to the pool and the boys decided they would rather just stay home and chill than figure out something else to do. Then on Tuesday we ran around doing last minute appointments and errands as best we could because our area got over 4 inches of rain in like an hour and we had major flooding in the area! Thankfully I was able to get AJ safely to the orthodontist and eye doctor, and back home. I then switched things around so I didn't have to drive the rest of the day. We walked up to meet Zak's teacher for the year and then hung out at home getting ready for an early bed time and school tomorrow morning.

Wednesday morning we were up bright and early for our first day of school! Daniel and AJ will (hopefully) be taking the bus this year so I have a little more flexibility in the mornings. Unfortunately Daniel missed his bus this morning because we had no idea that the stop changed for this year. But Adrian drove him to school on his way to work and dropped him off with no problems. AJ had freshman orientation today, with only freshman in the building to learn how things work and where things are. Everyone had a great first day and is looking forward to a fun filled year back in person! I enjoyed my first day alone in the house (even Rocky was at daycare) in what seems like forever! I got a few things done around the house but I mostly relaxed and watched TV.

The rest of the week passed quickly with everyone going to school and work. I didn't start subbing yet this year, I wanted a few days at home to catch my breath so I'll start next week. I got a lot done around the house that I haven't been able to catch up on since vacation. AJ had a very busy first weekend of marching band. Friday night was their first football game. It was an away game and Adrian and I made the drive to watch them. We enjoyed seeing them playing to support the team in the first half & loved both bands at halftime. We then headed home since the other boys had opted not to join us for the game. AJ had a great time and was especially excited that the football team won! Then Saturday morning we were all up early again for AJ to march in the Pataskala parade. He enjoyed marching and we all enjoyed watching him. We were excited to meet up with some friends as well and watch the parade with all of them. It was a hot day, but we made the best of it!

After all of that excitement, we pretty much came home Saturday afternoon and didn't do much of anything. We relaxed in our air conditioning, played board games and video games and watched TV. On Sunday we went to church and then spent the afternoon getting some work done around the house and making sure we were ready for a full week of school. It's going to take us a bit to get adjusted to this schedule, it's been so long since we had such a full schedule. But we are excited to have so much going on!

Here's how I did on my goals this week.

Working on Myself:

• Lose 50 20 pounds by exercising 5 days each week and walking at least 400 miles this year hitting 10,000 steps everyday -  I improved on this again this week and averaged about 9,000 steps each day this week. I hit 10,000 twice this week, it's so much easier when we are in school and I'm on a schedule. I tracked my calories everyday this week and ate really well. Unfortunately, the scale was not kind and I gained 1 pound this week for a total of 8 pounds lost so far this year. I think it was just a fluke thing so I'm determined to stay the course and have another great week this week! 
• Read 15 20 books for fun - I finished "Babyville" this week and it was very good, a typical chick lit book which are always my favorites. I got "The Goldfinch" back out from the library and will continue reading that starting tomorrow.
• Write Scripture(s) every day this year - I have done this all 234 days so far this year. I'm really enjoying this practice so far this year. For August I just picked a generic plan and am excited to see where it leads me.
• Attend 12 6 Zumba jam sessions to improve my teaching skills - I'm pausing this goal at 2 for the year until August September when I'm back to teaching. I will be taking this month to get my stamina back up and hopefully can do a virtual jam in early Sept.

Working on Family:

• Play all 152 of our board games together (either just Adrian and I or as a family) - We were exhausted again after our busy week but we managed to play 2 games this weekend. We played Near and Far which was a new game and thought it was just OK so we'll probably trade it. And we played Obsession which is one of our favorites! We started playing Sat night but were so tired that we left it set up and finished it Sun afternoon, with me just narrowly beating Adrian. So far we have played 108 of our games so far and are still on a good path to finish them up this year!
• Do 10 home improvement/reorganization projects - We are working on cleaning out our basement and spent another 20 minutes down there this weekend. We made another huge dent in the area and filled our trash can with stuff we don't need, including the leftover paint from when we painted the nursery 14 years ago!
• Pay off all of our outstanding credit card debit and don't incur any additional debt - We didn't incur anything this week and are paying the minimums on everything until we get back from (and pay for) our vacation next month.
• Watch 50 movies together and continue watching TV series together - We didn't watch any movies this week since we are back in school and AJ has football games every Friday night. We may try to sneak one in whenever we have a day off from school, but otherwise this goal is on hold until November. We have watched 34 movies so far this year. We are continuing to keep up with our TV shows and finished season 2 of "The Hollow" this week which was very interesting. It wasn't one of my favorite shows, but the boys enjoyed it.
• Celebrate a holiday every day this year - This week we celebrated National Bratwurst Day, National #2 Pencil Day, National Fajita Day, National Potato Day, National Bacon Lovers Day, National Honey Bee and and National Eat a Peach Day. Below are a few picture highlights of our holidays. I'm also chronicling them on Facebook so if we aren't friends there, feel free to add me or follow along at #CelebrateEveryDay
  
  
  
  

Keeping Up With...2021 Goals (Weekly Recap 8/9 - 8/15)

This was our last full week of summer break and we really packed the fun in to the week!! I asked the boys what they wanted to do and then made a plan to do it all. We also left a lot of time for sleeping in, relaxing and playing video games since there won't be much time for those things when school starts either. We started the week with Daniel's friend Patrick coming over to hang for the day with the boys. Tuesday we dodged a few thunderstorms and spent the whole day at Zoombeezi Bay riding all of the slides, then went to see Space Jam: The New Legacy in the evening. We had an awesome day, probably could have stayed longer at the Bay but we all really wanted to see the movie too. I think next year we'll go back to having passes for Zoombeezi and make more frequent trips.

Wednesday and Thursday we had a few appointments including the dentist for AJ & Daniel, a Biology Zoom for AJ and schedule pick up for Daniel. Daniel also had a make up art camp class one day where he finally made his own t-shirt. Wednesday night the boys and their friends started up a new Dungeons and Dragons adventure together while Adrian served as their DM again. The parents wanted to wait until after fall sports since our days are so busy, but the kids really wanted to start now so we're doing the best we can to make it work. They had a great time playing, but especially seeing each other after a break over the summer. Thursday we went to Urban Air to jump for a few hours and Friday we finished up the week with a trip to COSI. We met up with some friends there which was awesome. We checked out energy, space, oceans and the traveling animation exhibit. We also watched a movie in the planetarium which was a really interesting look at the solar system.

The fun continued over the weekend, but Adrian was involved for all of that. Saturday morning we got up early and headed to Hocking Hills to canoe 5 miles down the river with AJ's Scout troop. Daniel sat this trip out since it's too hard to have 3 in a canoe and stayed home to take care of Rocky. AJ and I were in one canoe & Adrian and Zak in the other. We had a good time, although we also had a few struggles. The water was really low in some parts and we kept getting stuck on the bottom. But we made the best of it and made it to the end, fulfilling requirements for both of our Scouts. We were all exhausted after the trip so the rest of the day was a lot of TV and relaxing! Sunday we headed to church and then Daniel went over to another friend's house for the afternoon while Adrian and Zak went bowling and I worked for a few hours. Then we all came back home and got ready to head out to the drive in for the night. We saw Jungle Cruise & Free Guy which were both great!! It was a super late night and we didn't get home and in bed until 2am. It's going to be rough getting going tomorrow!

Here's how I did on my goals this week.

Working on Myself:

• Lose 50 20 pounds by exercising 5 days each week and walking at least 400 miles this year hitting 10,000 steps everyday -  Once again, I did better with this goal this week but am still struggling to hit 10,000 steps. I averaged about 7,500 steps each day this week, and did hit 10,000 on Tuesday when we went to Zoombeezi Bay. I tracked my calories most of the week and then took Sunday off so I could eat what I wanted at the drive in. I was again rewarded on the scale with a loss of 4 pounds, for a total of 9 pounds for this year. 
• Read 15 20 books for fun - I read another 25% of "Babyville" this week and am really enjoying it so far! I only have about 20% left so I plan to finish it next week
• Write Scripture(s) every day this year - I have done this all 227 days so far this year. I'm really enjoying this practice so far this year. For August I just picked a generic plan and am excited to see where it leads me.
• Attend 12 6 Zumba jam sessions to improve my teaching skills - I'm pausing this goal at 2 for the year until August September when I'm back to teaching. I will be taking this month to get my stamina back up and hopefully can do a virtual jam in early Sept.

Working on Family:

• Play all 152 of our board games together (either just Adrian and I or as a family) - We were exhausted after the busy week and canoe trip so we decided to just play a few favorites this weekend. We played Everdell and Castles of Burgundy and had a great time playing both! So far we have played 106 of our games so far and are still on a good path to finish them up this year!
• Do 10 home improvement/reorganization projects - We are working on cleaning out our basement but we didn't do anything this weekend because again we were super busy and tired.
• Pay off all of our outstanding credit card debit and don't incur any additional debt - We didn't incur anything this week and are paying the minimums on everything until we get back from (and pay for) our vacation next month.
• Watch 50 movies together and continue watching TV series together - We watched 3 movies this week "Space Jam: New Legacy," "Jungle Cruise" and "Free Guy." We went to the theater to see Space Jam which we all enjoyed and laughed thru. Then we saw the other 2 at the drive in and enjoyed them both. Jungle Cruise was hard to see because of the dark scenes, but we made the best of it. Free Guy was by far our favorite movie of the week - it was great and the boys already want to see it again! We have watched 34 movies so far this year.
• Celebrate a holiday every day this year - This week we celebrated National Book Lovers Day, National Smores Day, National Raspberry Tart Day, World Elephant Day, International Left Handers Day, National Creamsicle Day and National Relaxation Day. Below are a few picture highlights of our holidays. I'm also chronicling them on Facebook so if we aren't friends there, feel free to add me or follow along at #CelebrateEveryDay
  
  
  

Keeping Up With...2021 Goals (Weekly Recap 8/2 - 8/8)

It was another super busy week around here as we wrap up our summer! AJ had his second week of band camp and continues to really enjoy it. Daniel also had his final art camp of the summer so I spent the week feeling like a taxi driving everyone where they needed to be, which is just fine with me! While they were gone at their camps, Zak and I had some one on one time together. We went to the Scout shop and to Target to get what he needs for the new school year. We also had dentist appointments, which isn't super fun, but happy to get it out of the way and find out neither of us has cavities!

Other than camp, we did a few fun things this week. AJ and Zak went swimming Monday night for a Scout event. They learned some rescue techniques and then had fun splashing around with the other kids. While they were there, Daniel had a friend over to hang out and then had their weekly art class together. On Thursday Daniel's art camp was cancelled so he joined Zak and I and some friends for some swimming at another Columbus City pool. They had a great time at this pool, especially on the water slides they have there. We finished out the week with signing Zak up for the bowling league again and he bowled a few games with Adrian to get ready for the season.

The two highlights of this week were going to our first movie in the theater as a family since COVID and AJ's band preview night. Since we all wanted to see "Black Widow," we took advantage of the cheap ticket prices on Tuesday nights and went to see it in the theater. It was a good movie and the action was so much better on the big screen! I've seen just about every Avengers movie in the theaters so it was nice not to miss this one. Then on Friday night we all headed to the high school to watch part of the halftime show that AJ is learning this year. They are performing songs from current female pop stars and the show is called "Queen Bee." We really enjoyed seeing all of their hard work come together and AJ looked so happy and confident after the performance! Can't wait to see how the rest of the year goes and then see the final show in a few weeks!!

Here's how I did on my goals this week.

Working on Myself:

• Lose 50 20 pounds by exercising 5 days each week and walking at least 400 miles this year hitting 10,000 steps everyday -  I did better with this goal this week but am still struggling to hit 10,000 steps. I averaged about 8,000 steps each day this week, with Monday being the lowest day with only around 6,000 but also getting over 9,000 steps on Monday & Thursday. I tracked my calories all week and felt great! I was also rewarded on the scale with a loss of 4 pounds, for a total of 5 pounds for this year. 
• Read 15 20 books for fun - I read another 25% of "Babyville" this week and am really enjoying it so far!
• Write Scripture(s) every day this year - I have done this all 220 days so far this year. I'm really enjoying this practice so far this year. For August I just picked a generic plan and am excited to see where it leads me.
• Attend 12 6 Zumba jam sessions to improve my teaching skills - I'm pausing this goal at 2 for the year until August September when I'm back to teaching. I will be taking this month to get my stamina back up and hopefully can do a virtual jam in early Sept.

Working on Family:

• Play all 152 of our board games together (either just Adrian and I or as a family) - We played 5 games this weekend, Medium as a family and Monopoly Gamer, the Minecraft card game, Mansions of Madness and New York Slice as a couple. We enjoyed most of them, except New York Slice which we will be looking to trade. I also don't really like Mansions of Madness, but Adrian and AJ do so they'll play it together. So far we have played 106 of our games so far and are really on a good path to finish them up this year!
• Do 10 home improvement/reorganization projects - We are working on cleaning out our basement and spent 20 minutes down there this weekend. We already got rid of a lot of stuff in that short time!!
• Pay off all of our outstanding credit card debit and don't incur any additional debt - We didn't incur anything this week and are paying the minimums on everything until we get back from (and pay for) our vacation next month.
• Watch 50 movies together and continue watching TV series together - We watched "Black Widow" this week as a family and everyone loved it! It was our first movie back in a theater and I think we all forgot how much we love going to the theater. We'll be back very soon!! We have watched 31 movies so far this year.
• Celebrate a holiday every day this year - This week we celebrated 8 holidays because we doubled up on Thursday. We celebrated National Ice Cream Sandwich Day, National Watermelon Day, National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, National Green Pepper Day, National Underwear Day, National Fresh Breath Day, National Raspberries and Cream Day and National Zucchini Day. Below are a few picture highlights of our holidays. I'm also chronicling them on Facebook so if we aren't friends there, feel free to add me or follow along at #CelebrateEveryDay