Keeping Up With...2021 Goals (Weekly Recap 7/26 - 8/1)

This was our first week back to real life after vacation and is the (very early) start to a new school year as well. AJ started marching band camp this week, going to school every day from 8am until 4pm. He said it is hard, but he is loving it. He's super excited about their halftime show and got a lot of nice compliments from the band director and also from a few other kids in the band. It was a lot of early mornings this week but I'm excited to see how this year goes for him doing something new!

While he was there, Adrian headed back to work and the other boys and I tried to squeeze a little bit more fun out of our summer. We went swimming with friends one day and jumped on trampolines at Get Air. Zak went bowling one night and fishing Saturday morning with Adrian. Daniel had a sleepover with one of his friends on Saturday and had another friend over on Sunday to hang. I went out for a wine tasting with some of my girlfriends and managed to get everything unpacked and put away after vacation. AJ managed to sneak in some time to got a friend's birthday party one night in addition to band camp. It was a very fun filled week for all of us!

But the most exciting news of this week was that I had my second follow up with my doctor after surgery and he said everything looks "perfect." He said I am cleared to resume all activities as I feel able. I am so thankful for all who prayed and helped me during these past few weeks! I know that recovery could have been so much harder and taken a lot more time, so I am thankful to be back to my old self so quickly. I will begin planning my Zumba classes and return to teaching in September after taking August to increase my endurance and fitness.

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 didn't get as many steps in this week as I would have liked, but I was really tired most of the week between recovering from vacation and getting back in the groove of getting up early. I averaged around 6,000 steps per day this week with a few really high days and a few really low days. I also weighed in this weekend to get a baseline for the last 5 months of this year. I wasn't surprised to see a gain but I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was only up about 2 pounds and I'm still down 1 pound for the year. Ready to refocus for August!
• Read 15 20 books for fun - I read about 20% of "Babyville" this week and am really enjoying it so far!
• Write Scripture(s) every day this year - I have done this all 213 days so far this year. I'm really enjoying this practice so far this year. For July I picked a plan focused on peace since we have 2 weeks in the car together and I feel like I might need some peace, ha!
• Attend 12 6 Zumba jam sessions to improve my teaching skills - I'm pausing this goal at 2 for the year until August when I'm back to teaching.

Working on Family:

• Play all 152 of our board games together (either just Adrian and I or as a family) - We played 4 games this weekend, Mechs vs Minions, Monopoly Empire, The Mind and Minecraft: Builders and Biomes. They were all pretty good, with Mechs vs Minions being the favorite of the weekend. We also really want to play the Minecraft game with Zak, we both think he'll really enjoy it. So far we have played 101 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 didn't do anything this week on this goal, other than recover from vacation and get everything unpacked, washed and put away. We did decide that our next project will be cleaning out our basement, which honestly may take us the rest of this year. But we really want it cleared out before we move on to any other projects.
• 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 "Clue" this week as a family and everyone loved it! The boys thought it was hilarious, especially the ending which is my favorite part as well. We have watched 30 movies so far this year.
• Celebrate a holiday every day this year - This week we celebrated National Bagelfest Day, Gary Gygax Day, National Waterpark Day, World Tiger Day, National Cheesecake Day, National Jump for Jellybeans Day and Spider-Man 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