Keeping Up With...2021 Goals (Weekly Recap 7/12 - 7/25)

I decided to put these two weeks together since they were the two weeks of our family vacation this year. I was going to do a few blog posts about our road trip out west, but as time is going by I honestly don't know that I will do that. I wrote recaps of each day and shared pictures on Facebook so I think for my own memories that will be enough, at least for now. Here is just a brief list of what we did each of the 14 days we were on the road:

- Day 1 - left OH and drove to St. Louis. Did the City Museum and the Gateway Arch

- Day 2 - Drove across Missouri and most of Kansas (most boring day - NO stops!!)

- Day 3 - Drove across Kansas and Colorado. Detoured to an awesome waterfall that we hiked to

- Day 4 - Toured Mesa Verde National Park, went to Four Corners & drove to Williams Arizona (thru a wind storm!) 

- Day 5 - Grand Canyon!!

- Day 6 - Grand Canyon!!

- Day 7 - Winslow Arizona, Toured Petrified Forest and Painted Desert

- Day 8 - Hiked Petroglyph Park, visited with my Aunt and drove thru Santa Fe

- Day 9 - Toured Roswell then drove across Texas

- Day 10 - Arrived at cabin in Broken Bow, OK to visit my brother

- Day 11 - Broken Bow, OK - boating, mini golf, wine tasting

- Day 12 - Broken Bow, OK - giant maze, beer tasting, relaxing!

- Day 13 - Drove to Memphis, toured Hot Springs Arkansas

- Day 14 - Toured Metropolis Illinois and drove HOME!

If you more information on anything we did, feel free to reach out. We had a great time, but it was also an exhausting trip. There was a lot we didn't get to see and are considering doing another trip like this again next summer. We learned some good lessons and will do the next one differently for sure (no more than 6 hours of driving each day!) We created a ton of memories and saw amazing sights. I'm thankful we were able to do this trip and pray the boys will remember it as one of their favorites.

Now with all of that fun, there was very little focus on my goals for these 2 weeks, and I am 100% fine with that. Here's how I did:

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 was all over the place with steps these two weeks! Most days averaged 8,000 steps, with some higher ones (Grand Canyon Day 1 I hit almost 18,000!) and some lower ones (the big driving days were low steps). I'm happy to report I felt good most of the time and was able to do more than I thought I would be able to do. I'm ready to refocus on this goal in August for sure!
• Read 15 20 books for fun - I finished "The Outsiders" over vacation for my 13th book of the year. It was as good as I remember the movie being! We'll be watching the movie soon since we were waiting for me to finish the book. I started my next book too "Babyville" but only read about 5% since I was too busy looking at the beautiful scenery and helping to drive.
• Write Scripture(s) every day this year - I missed a few days over vacation but caught up when we got home and have done this all 206 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 didn't play any games while on vacation but when we got home, we played 2, Loot and Monopoly Deal. Neither one was a favorite for us, we're hoping for better luck next week! We have played 97 games so far this year and are hoping to pick up the pace this fall. You can follow along on my thoughts on each game on this webpage.
• Do 10 home improvement/reorganization projects - We didn't do anything on this goal these two weeks, too busy having fun!
• Pay off all of our outstanding credit card debit and don't incur any additional debt - We didn't incur anything over this vacation since we've been saving for it for almost 2 years. We will pay off our credit cards when they come in and then reevaluate where we are financially and pay off my surgery next.
• Watch 50 movies together and continue watching TV series together - We didn't watch any movies or TV shows over vacation. It was nice to have a break from TV for most of the time!
• Celebrate a holiday every day this year - We still celebrated every day while on vacation, although for a lot of them I picked very easy holidays! Over the two weeks we celebrated: New Conversations Day, Go West Day, National French Fry Day, National Mac & Cheese Day, National Gummy Worm Day, National Fresh Spinach Day, World Emoji Day, National Ice Cream Day, National Daquiri Day, Stick out your Tongue Day, National Chess Day, National Lollipop Day, National Hot Dog Day, National Junk Food Day, Summer Leisure Day, National Peanut Butter & Chocolate Day, National Tequila Day, National Drive Thru Day, and National Wine & Cheese 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...Food (Meal Plan 8/1 - 8/7)

After an almost 3 month break, I am back to meal planning. This summer has flown by and I am very thankful that I haven't had to cook much at all. In May, I pretty much used up what we had to try to keep our grocery bill down and my cooking quick and easy since we were very busy. Then in June we had friends bring meals for over 3 weeks after my surgery. Between the meals, the leftovers and Adrian grilling a few times, we had all of our meals covered for that month. In July I had a few dinners I had to cook to once again empty our fridges, then we went on a two week vacation and ate on the road for that whole time. We've been back for just over a week and last week was a lot of fly by the seat cooking. This week we are finally refocusing on eating healthy and I'll be back in the kitchen most days.

We are so thankful that we had meals for all of those weeks covered, however since everyone was also trying to cook for the boys, we got a lot of pasta based dishes, and a lot of desserts. While they were all delicious, they have really added inches to all of our waist lines. And since I wasn't exercising at all for the month of June, I am really feeling it right now! I am looking forward to lots of fresh fruit and veggies over the next few months. We are still members with our CSA, but I got very small deliveries for most of the first half of the season. We were able to freeze some of the stuff we got so that will be available for months still. And now we'll have larger deliveries over the second half of the season so I'll be cooking around their produce for the next few months.

Our schedule is also starting to pick up with the boys' activities starting up this month. We will have a busy fall with AJ doing marching band and AJ and Zak doing Scouts. Plus Daniel will have a longer art class this fall and he would like to add a digital art class if I can figure one out. Plus they are all going back to school full time this year (yay!) and I'll be heading back to work this month too. Adrian is back in the office a few days each week and Rocky still goes to day care once per week. Our schedule will be crazy so as always I will make sure I have supplies for easy dinners like breakfasts, salads, sandwiches and leftovers. While the busy schedule is tough, I'm so thankful we're able to get back to (mostly) normal life after a year and a half of lots of adjustments and changes.

Here's what we're eating this week:
Sunday - Leftover Pizza and Air Fryer Chicken Wings
Monday - Breaded Pork Chops and String Bean Salad
Tuesday - Burrito Bowls for the adults & Tacos for the kids
Wednesday - Rueben Sandwiches & Corn on the Cob
Thursday - Vegetable Lo Mein
Friday - Air Fryer Salmon with Roasted Potatoes and Zucchini
Saturday - Grilled Steak and Corn on the Cob

Water Flavor - I don't have any extra fruit right now so I threw in some frozen berries to flavor my water this week. I did this last week as well and it was delicious!

Baking - Zak and I are making chocolate chip cookies for Wednesday since that is the holiday. Other than that, I haven't thought about any baking this week. I'd like to get back to making muffins or breads for breakfast, I think I'll start that next week. One step at a time for now!!

Keeping Up With...2021 Goals (Weekly Recap 7/5 - 7/11)

This was another split week for us. Adrian had Monday off for the holiday, so we spent most of the day doing all the work around the house that we blew off to have fun last weekend. Daniel had his last art camp of the summer which started on Monday morning so we were all up and moving early. The rest of the week was a pretty typical week. Adrian worked, Daniel went to camp, the boys played video games and helped me around the house and we all worked together to get ready for the trip. Adrian worked thru Thursday and then we switched into vacation mode. 

Friday we were up and moving pretty early. We all had haircut appointments and a few things to pick up to finish getting ready to leave. Then we spent the rest of the day packing up the van for our epic two week road trip to see America. We also spent a lot of time with Rocky since she won't be joining us. We got a ton done and were able to relax a little at the end of the day and finish catching up on all of our shows before we hit the road. Saturday morning we were up bright and early and hit the road for our vacation. I'll be doing a separate post about our vacation in the upcoming weeks, so I'll just move on to my goals update for this week.

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 am again not worrying about this goal for the month of July since I'm still recovering and building my strength, plus we're gone on vacation for half the month. This past week I averaged about 7,000 steps each day. I'm trying to walk as much as I can to get my stamina up, but also being careful because I still get tired pretty quickly. 
• Read 15 20 books for fun - I started "The Outsiders" this week and read about half. I was hoping to finish it this week, but just didn't have time. I have this and 2 other books ready to read over vacation, hoping to get some time to read in the car each day.
• Write Scripture(s) every day this year - I have done this all 192 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 didn't play any games this week, just too busy with vacation. We did pack 3 games that we hope to play over these two weeks in our downtime, we'll see if that happens or not. You can follow along on my thoughts on each game on this webpage.
• Do 10 home improvement/reorganization projects - We finished staining the fence this week! Adrian and the boys worked really hard to get this finished around busy schedules and horrible weather. This was our 5th project of the year that we completed! When we get home we'll be staining the play set and then figuring out what we're doing to finish out the year.
• 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 did watch any movies this week and instead binged on our TV shows that we have been watching all summer so we are totally caught up on those before we leave. We watched Loki (awesome!), Lego Masters, Press Your Luck, The Cube and Holey Moley. 
• Celebrate a holiday every day this year - This week we celebrated 8 holidays since we doubled up on Wednesday. We celebrated National Graham Cracker Day, National Fried Chicken Day, National Pasta Day, National Chocolate Day, National Freezer Pop Day, Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket, Don't Step on a Bee Day and National Essential Oil 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 6/28 - 7/4)

This was another busy and exhausting week for us, but so much fun! The biggest thing going on this whole week was Zak going to Cub Scout Day Camp at Camp Lazarus for the week. I normally go with him but I decided to skip this year since I'm still recovering and it is a very physical week. He had a great time this week and I'm proud of him for going without me. His favorite things this week were shooting off rockets, exploding soap, cooking over a fire multiple times, learning how to fold a flag and participating in a flag ceremony. And of course he also enjoyed archery, slingshots, catapults and BB guns, but those are getting to be routine for him. He did have a few struggles including dealing with rain and storms just about every day. It was also extremely hot on Monday and Tuesday and by late Tuesday he was suffering from heat exhaustion and needed a trip to the med tent. He recovered after some Gatorade and cool air and was fine by the time he got home that night. Adrian and I were able to go with him for half day on Friday and he was so excited to have us both there. It was a great week and I hope he made a lot of memories! Here are just a few of my favorite pictures the leaders took this week.

While Zak was at camp every day, I hung out at home with the other two boys. Daniel had art camp each afternoon and his friend Addy came here so they could do the camp together even though it's a virtual camp. They made 3 different mosaics here on Monday-Wednesday and then had a field trip to an artist workshop on Thursday where they made 2 more mosaics. They had a great week, Daniel really enjoyed this camp. AJ worked on his summer project for Biology and his Family Life merit badge this week as well as helping me around the house since he was the only one not in camp. Adrian worked in his office most of the week and had a few late nights. But then the Senate finished for the year on Wednesday and he ended up getting Friday off so he had a long 4 day weekend for the holiday.

Our weekend was jam packed as well! After going to camp on Friday, we spent Saturday relaxing at home and playing games until later in the evening when we headed out to Gahanna for their annual fireworks display. We also spent some of the afternoon celebrating Rocky's second birthday! We made her a cake, got her a new collar and some new toys and gave her lots of walks and treats all day. Sunday was the 4th of July and we spent the day much like Saturday, relaxing and playing games. Around 9:30 we headed outside and watched a bunch of our neighbors set off a ton of fireworks. Zak loved seeing them and was outside for over an hour watching them with Adrian. They eventually got in his car and drove around to find better viewing areas. AJ, Daniel and I were out watching for about 45 minutes before we came home to rest and keep a very scared Rocky company. We also got a few things done around the house and ready for vacation over the weekend, it was a great mix of fun and work and we feel ready for this last week of work before hitting the road on Saturday!

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 am again not worrying about this goal for the month of July since I'm still recovering and building my strength, plus we're gone on vacation for half the month. This past week I averaged about 7,000 steps each day and also hit my first 10,000 step day since surgery! I'm trying to walk as much as I can to get my stamina up, but also being careful because I still get tired pretty quickly. I did weigh in on the 1st and I gained 4 pounds in June which is not surprising considering I ate a ton and didn't move. I honestly thought it might be higher. I will definitely be focusing on this goal in August!
• Read 15 20 books for fun - I finished "Gilead" this week for my 12th book of the year. This week I'll be starting "The Outsiders" and since it's short I'm hoping to finish it before we leave for vacation.
• Write Scripture(s) every day this year - I have done this all 185 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 5 games this week, we had a 5 day weekend but lots of other stuff on our agenda as you saw above. We played Marvel Champions, Maracaibo, Machi Koro Legacy and Golden Girls Monopoly as a couple and Magic Maze as a family. We have played 95 of our games so far this year, and seem to be on a good pace to get thru them all this year. You can follow along on my thoughts on each game on this webpage.
• Do 10 home improvement/reorganization projects - We continued staining the fence this week and are almost done. The weather was tough this week with a lot of rain and some very hot days which slowed us down. But we have about 2 hours of work left so we're confident it will get done before we leave next week.
• 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 two movies again this week, European Vacation (just OK, but the boys thought it was hilarious) and In The Heights (adults loved it, boys were confused). Our total for the year so far is 29 movies. Our one month of HBO Max really helped bump this number up. We seem to be on track to his this goal, but we're skipping most of this month so we'll see. We also have a list of shows that we are watching as family this summer including Loki (awesome!), Lego Masters, Press Your Luck, The Cube and Holey Moley. We hope to keep up with those each week and watch 2 movies, but it may be tough.
• Celebrate a holiday every day this year - This week we celebrated 8 holidays since we doubled up on Sunday. We celebrated Paul Bunyan Day, National Waffle Maker Day, National Meteor Day, National Chicken Wing Day, National UFO Day, National Chocolate Wafer Day, Independence Day and National Caesar Salad 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 6/21 - 6/27)

We had a super busy week and I honestly felt like I just spent the week making sure people were where they needed to be on time. Daniel had virtual art camp Monday thru Wednesday and then a field trip to OSU for art camp on Thursday. He enjoyed learning a new skill and making some cool art in this Mandala and Labyrinth themed camp. Zak had two different camps this week, Roblox virtual camp in the mornings and Art camp at a local church in the afternoons. He loved them both and was very creative in making things in both camps. We had a few technical glitches in both of the online camps, mostly on the days that Adrian was in the office, but we figured out work arounds and made it all work.

In between all of those camps, we had two doctor appointments, one for AJ and Zak with the pediatrician and one for Zak at Children's to figure out why he's still struggling with his writing. AJ also had Boy Scouts Monday night and worked on his Honors Biology summer project during the week. He also built a  crab robot from a kit we got as a gift. I had a Cub Scout planning meeting Tuesday night, which was nice to finally meet in person. And Zak went fishing for a few hours on Thursday and bowling with Adrian on Saturday. It was a super busy week and I was very thankful that we had a ton of leftovers and easy meals to eat all week because I could barely keep up with everything we needed to do.

Our weekend was a nice mix and fun and relaxing. Friday night we had a family art camp with Daniel's art teacher and we had a scavenger hunt and made a family labyrinth with the items we found. It was a ton of fun, even though we had some frustrating moments. Saturday night we spent a ton of time playing board games, video games, watching TV and recovering from the busy week. Sunday we had Adrian's parents over for dinner and they took Zak fishing again for a few hours. We enjoyed BBQ cooked on Adrian's new grill and had a nice visit. We didn't get as much accomplished around the house as we would have liked, but that's OK, we'll catch up over the next week.

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 am not worrying about this goal for the month of June since I'm recovering. Since the doctor cleared me to walk more, I started wearing my Fitbit and got around 5,000 steps each day with Saturday being my highest day with about 7,300 steps. That is my highest step count since surgery! My goal is to work back up to 10,000 by the end of this month so I'm ready to go for my vacation. I'll only be weighing in at the end of this month, I know I'm gaining weight, it is what it is.
• Read 15 20 books for fun - I read about 25% of "Gilead" and am planning to finish it up next week.
• Write Scripture(s) every day this year - I have done this all 178 days so far this year. I'm really enjoying this practice so far this year. For June I picked a plan focused on friendship since we are leaning heavily on our friends this month for help.
• 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 6 games again this week. We played Labyrinth, Lost Cities, Marvel Legendary, Machi Koro and Lords of Waterdeep as a couple and Just One as a family. We have played 91 of our games so far this year. You can follow along on my thoughts on each game on this webpage.
• Do 10 home improvement/reorganization projects - We continued staining the fence this week and are about halfway done. Once again we had to postpone this somewhat since it was raining on and off all weekend. Thankfully next week looks better so we're hoping to finish it then.
• 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 two movies this week, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (just OK, but the boys thought it was hilarious) and The Witches (new remake - we thought it was great!) Our total for the year so far is 27 movies. We also have a list of shows that we are watching as family this summer including Loki (awesome!), Lego Masters, Press Your Luck, The Cube and Holey Moley. We hope to keep up with those each week and watch 2 movies, but it may be tough.
• Celebrate a holiday every day this year - This week we celebrated 9 holidays since we doubled up on Monday and Saturday. We celebrated National Giraffe Day, National Selfie Day, National Chocolate Eclair Day, National Hydration Day, National Bomb Pop Day, Beatles Day, Smurf Day, National Tropical Drink Day and National Ice Cream Cake 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