Goals – Page 5 – Adventure. Create. Relate

February 2022 Adventure Date – Sistine Chapel Exhibition

February 14, 2022Posted in adventure, fun, Goals, UncategorizedTagged adventure, adventure date, fun, Goals, relate, sistene chapel2 Comments

This month found us traveling to Dayton to see the Sistine Chapel Exhibition. I was quite excited about this since I don’t know that we will ever travel to Vatican City to see the real thing. The advertising photos of the exhibit were amazing – darkened hallways full of perfectly hung and lit artwork. It looked very dramatic and like an almost intimate exhibit with a clear direction and lots of space.

Well, as we all know, looks can be very deceiving. I am sure that this art was hung somewhere like the pictures in the past, but for this exhibition, it was tilted against walls that were not really tall enough, so it all leaned away from you. It was bottom lit in a very bright, open room, so it really lost all of the ambience I was expecting. It was also difficult to navigate as there wasn’t a clear path, so people were going all directions. There was also an audio tour you could listen to, either on listening devices they provided or on your phone. The listening devices were not distracting – they were quiet and people held them to their ears to hear. The phones were very loud and definitely made it difficult to read or really get lost in the artwork.

The big room where most of the artwork was displayed.

In spite of the chaotic atmosphere, I was eventually able to “settle in” to the experience and really focus on the art. It was amazing to see up close – a very different view than you would ever get in person. You could see the expressions and light and shadows and movement in the paintings so well. It was all out of order, but of course the first thing was The Creation of Adam. There were also many other Old Testament stories in a sort of side passageway – these were the most dramatically lit, were actually mounted fully upright, and also felt the most secluded for viewing.

The bulk of the rest of the paintings fell into 3 categories – Prophet portraits, Sibyl portraits, and The Lineage of Christ family tableaus. The prophets and Sibyls were all people that had foretold part of the story of Christ, and they were all pictured with 2 messengers of God who seemed to be delivering inspiration or information. The lineage of Christ family tableaus showed ancestors of Christ as children with their fathers and mothers to evoke the holy family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. I thought these paintings suffered a little from the fact that they were leaned away from us – it would have been pretty amazing had they seemed to be looking down at us instead of fading away. We did think the implied movement and light in these paintings was really breathtaking. Here are a few favorites.

In the middle of the large room of artwork, there was a large reproduction of The Last Judgement. This is a very symbolic and interesting piece that I could have sat and looked at for a long time. I was also one of the youngest in the room, so the benches were not for me. Nevertheless, we did stand and ponder it for quite a while. It contains 390 separate characters, including Jesus, Mary, John the Baptist, saints, martyrs, angels, chosen ones headed towards heavenly bliss, and sinners headed towards eternal damnation. I did not get a good angle to get a full shot, but here are some closer photos of the figures. I find St. Bartholemew (who was martyred by being flayed and is pictured below Christ and to the right just a bit) pretty disturbing with his empty meat suit…

All in all, we walked out pretty happy that we had seen the art, but not fully pleased with how it was presented. We give it 3 out of 5 stars and have found that we hope to see the real thing someday if possible.

Have you been to any excellent art exhibits lately? Did you see the Sistene Chapel Exhibition? Or the real thing in Vatican City? Let me know in the comments!

February 2022 Goals

February 2, 2022Posted in Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachers, UncategorizedTagged Goals, outschool, TeacherspayTeachersLeave a comment

It is inexplicably the first of February – how did we get here so fast? It doesn’t seem possible, but here we are. Anyway, it is time to recap my January 2022 goals and look at what I want to accomplish for this month. I am actually really pleasantly surprised by what I was able to accomplish last month – not all of my goals, but lots of solid progress.

At least one: Adventure Date, Create Date, and Family Game Night – Yes! We did all of this!
Write a 1:1 Phonics class on Outschool – Yup, in fact, I also made this 1:1 Confident Speakers class and this Scavenger Hunt Show-and-Tell class.
Add 10 new products to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store – Another yes! In fact, I added 15! which brings me up to 25 products.
Create 6 blog posts, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, and Pinterest pins – I did 5 blog posts, but I also did 24 Instagram posts, 27 Facebook posts, and 17 Pinterest pins. I’m going to count this as accomplished.
Make dinner 4 times a week – I did this 3/4 weeks – we had a pretty major family emergency when my daughter totaled her car this month (she is doing okay, no worries), so I am also pleased with this.
Go on 4 hikes – Only made it out 3 times, but with the family emergency, it just wasn’t a priority.
Walk at least 3 times a week – I logged 15 walks, so I am going to count this as done.
Log food and workouts on My Fitness Pal – I logged everyday starting January 3rd and I am down 4.8 pounds so far.
Record videos for Crafty Phonics – Letter R Club flex class – I did this and I feel very proud of them – just waiting on some learners for that class now.
Use my planner as a journal every morning and evening – I love my Rocketbook Panda Planner and I did use it everyday!

It feels really good to have done so well in so many areas. I am really looking forward to seeing how this month goes since it will be pretty busy. I hope that I have now put systems in place to keep things going in the right direction even when I have more going on. For this month, I have a lot of the same goals, but some variations.

At least one: Adventure Date, Create Date, and Family Game Night.
Use SEO to edit current Outschool classes to increase enrollment.
Add 10 new products to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.
Create 6 blog posts, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, and Pinterest pins.
Make dinner 4 times a week.
Go on 4 hikes.
Walk 3 times a week and lift weights 2 times a week.
Log food and workouts on My Fitness Pal.
Work on photography and previews for my TpT products.
Write 2 new Outschool classes including one escape room type class.

I am feeling really excited to start working on some new things this month. I have a lot to learn about SEO, product photography, and escape rooms, but I am really looking forward to learning new things. If you would like to be kept in the loop about my new products and classes, please sign up for my email list here:

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Do you have goals for February 2022? Share them in the comments so we can cheer each other on! We can do this!

January 2022 Adventure Date – The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit (Columbus)

January 30, 2022Posted in adventure, fun, Goals, relateTagged adventure, adventure date, fun, Goals, relateLeave a comment

This week, Keith and I got the chance to attend The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit in Columbus, Ohio. It is a traveling exhibit which will be in a different venue each place it goes, so it will most likely vary a little bit as far as your experience. This post is our thoughts an opinions – your mileage may vary.

We both went into this expecting something that it was not. We thought we would be walking through different rooms and interacting with the different spaces. Instead, we were ushered into a very large room that was 2-3 stories high and had 2 mirrored pillars. There were benches and circles on the floor to note where people were supposed to be in order to be socially distanced. We arrived with about 7 minutes left in the continuously running program (it is about 35 minutes long and has a very brief set of credits that roll before it restarts). The last 7 minutes might have been my favorite – we stayed to watch it twice. The Starry Night, Road with Cypress and Star, and The Starry Night Over the Rhone are featured and it is a lot like watching the moon and stars rise and reflect. It was mesmerizing the way that they edited the elements of the paintings together.

I really enjoyed a lot of the paintings featured in the presentation. I did have some trouble with the way it was edited at times. There were times my vertigo kicked in and it felt like I was going to fall. There were times I could not watch because my eyes couldn’t adjust fast enough. However, most of the time it was a feast for the eyes. I loved it when paintings seemed to build in elements or when one part of the painting moved and interacted in some way. There was always something to look at, and the music seemed to work really well with the presentation. The other part of the show that we stayed to watch twice was the sunflowers part. I did not realize how many different types of sunflower paintings he had done, but I really enjoyed seeing all of the different interpretations. I did not love how jarring the editing seemed at that point, but it went with the music I guess.

I am also a sucker for trees, flowers, and all things nature. Van Gogh seemed to agree because there were so many scenes with gorgeous natural settings. The trees that look like they are ablaze with Autumn color are, of course, my favorite. I also love the one that seems to be the woods with hundreds of fireflies.

Overall, it was not quite what we expected, but we walked out satisfied with our experience. We decided that it was 3.5 out of 5 stars – we were not blown away by the editing, but the beauty was overwhelming at times. I would definitely recommend the exhibit to others and we would love to go back and see the next one – we are told that there will be exhibits like this over the next 3 years. The next one appears to be Gustav Klimt starting in March, and we would definitely consider attending if our schedules are open.

Have you been to The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.

January 2022 Create Date – Pleasures of the Cup

January 23, 2022January 23, 2022Posted in create, fun, Goals, relateTagged create, create date, Goals, relate1 Comment

I am so excited to be writing about our first Create Date for 2022! I have missed this so much – although I will admit that we have done some creating and adventuring that didn’t appear here in the blog. I am really just thrilled that I have adventure and create dates on the books through March! So many things to look forward to!

For this particular Create Date, we did a little mixology with the Ohio History Connection in their virtual event called Ohio On The Rocks – Pleasures of the Cup. The event featured 3 segments where we mixed new cocktails and 4 segments where we learned some facts about Ohio during the Ice Age. Was it a little bit cheesy at points? Yes. Was it still super fun? Absolutely! We have actual done one other virtual event like this called Once Upon a Cocktail (it was fairy tale themed), and I have enjoyed both. We got to buy and mix new drinks and we definitely enjoyed making some cocktails from our last class over the holidays. Also, both times, we have done this “with” a friend, so we spent the time sending messages and photos back and forth. That was definitely wonderful and I would recommend attending the event with friends for that added fun.

I am going to leave you with some fun photos of our set up and drinks – we made Sex on a Glacier, The Purple Mammoth, and Damn the Weather. I think Damn the Weather was our favorite, although we enjoyed The Purple Mammoth a lot as well.

Have you ever taken a mixology class? Do you have a favorite mixed drink that you would recommend we learn to make? Have you ever attended a Pleasures of the Cup event? Let me know in the comments.

Love Letters and Seven Dragons – January 2022 Family Game Night

January 18, 2022Posted in family, family game night, fun, games, Goals, relateTagged family, family fun, family game night, fun, Goals, love letters, relate, seven dragonsLeave a comment

It finally happened. We were meant to have family game night the weekend of New Years, but everyone had horrible headaches because of the weather. So we postponed it. And then got our COVID booster shots the following week, causing another weekend of not feeling so great. It was not looking good for our family game night this month, but we pivoted and had family game day instead because we were all off of school and work for MLK Day. I made fondue, we snacked and played, and a good time was had by all.

We started out by eating fondue and playing Love Letters. Keith and I had played this at a game cafe several years ago now. We remember liking the game, so we chose it as this year’s “pickle gift” (the gift received by the person that finds the pickle on the Christmas tree first). Charlotte was the quickest pickle-finder this year, so it is technically her game. We will see how that plays out in a few years.

Chocolate fondue remains and Love Letters game

Although both Keith and I remember Love Letters as a quick game, it definitely took a while to get a winner. We all enjoyed it a lot, though, and some new inside jokes were definitely created. I was the biggest loser and Charlotte came out as our glorious winner in the end, although it was a tight race amongst everyone but me…

To finish off the afternoon, we played one quick round of Seven Dragons. This is a perennial favorite of ours and is definitely a go-to if we want something quick with not much set up. I was very, very close to prevailing with my black dragon goal, but Keith managed to swoop in and win at the last second. It was a tough loss, but a very fun afternoon.

Seven Dragons with background folded laundry to add to your viewing enjoyment…

We know that family game night is going to be changing as we continue this year. It might be only 2 or 3 of us at times, but we will definitely shoot for all 4 as much as possible. We are definitely on the look out for more 2 player games – do you have any favorites we should try? Please let me know in the comments!

Winter Wonderland Game – How to Make a Seasonal Candyland Board

January 6, 2022January 12, 2022Posted in create, games, outschool, teachers pay teachers, UncategorizedTagged articulation, articulation game, create, digital games, game, Goals, language, outschool, speech therapy, teacher games, teachers pay teachersLeave a comment

I don’t know about you, but I love to play board games. You may recall all of our family game nights and trips to game cafes – there’s just something about eating yummy snacks and moving tiny figures around a board. When I started teaching on Outschool, I knew that I wanted to share games with my students, but it took me a while to figure out how that was going to work. I am happy to say that I seem to have cracked part of the code, and I’m here today to share one of my very favorites with you.

I have played many a game of Candyland, so I knew that I wanted to make a game that would play similar but online. Once I got my Canva subscription (which you should run to your computer and do right now if you do any type of designing), I realized I had everything I needed to create a fun game board, spinner, and cards. I am here today to walk you through creating the same type of game – but it doesn’t have to be winter. It could be candy and monster themed for Halloween. It could be a fun spring trip through different flowers. The only limit here is your imagination. Whatever version you are going to make, you will follow a few basic steps.

Step 1: You need to create a fun background for your game board. It should have different terrains and elevations for visual appeal and optimal game play. I chose a winter wonderland with an icy bridge, chilly waterfall, mountains, trees, and some hills.

Step 2: You need to decide where you are going to make the start and where your end goal will be. On this board, I chose to start by the waterfall and then inserted an Ice Palace in the distance to welcome players to the end of the game.

Step 3: It is now time to create a winding path from your starting point to your end goal. I chose to use blue hexagons because they gave me chilly vibes and they meant the path could naturally twist and still interlock.

Step 4: This is my favorite step. This is the part where you get to make 6-7 creative checkpoint areas. These will be the areas of the board that you put on the cards that players will draw throughout the game. They will either be thrilled to skip ahead of everyone else or crushed to have to retrace their steps by moving back. I love to give these spaces personality and really play up how fun they might be to the kids – Don’t eat too many marshmallows in the fort! Be careful, they might be throwing snowballs up ahead! Don’t worry, the Yeti looks scary, but he’s really a big softie. 🙂

Step 5: You have created your areas, now you need to add some sort of marking to the actual spaces that people will go to when they draw those cards. I like to be sure there are 5-7 spaces between the special spaces, but you can make them as close or far apart as you like.

Step 6: Now is the time to make really fun names for all of your special areas. If my students are working on specific sounds, I will try to put them in all of the areas. If I have a mixed group or we are just working on language, I don’t stack sounds as much. This is another really fun step – I love making up names!

Step 7: The last step is also a naming step – you need to name your game. The name here was obvious before I even made the board, but please feel free to be as creative as you can with your name.

That’s it! You have a finished game board! Now you just need a spinner (make a circle like the one below and use a pencil and paperclip to spin) and some special cards (black and white versions are easiest on your printer).

Of course, if you don’t want to reinvent the horse, and if you would like some really nice words lists for L, R, S, and TH sounds, I have already done all of the work and you could just buy this resource in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. It can be found under Winter Wonderland Game with R, L, S, and TH Target Words. I have a few other winter and arctic animal themed games coming really soon and a free SZ Snowman Guess Who Game available as well. I hope you will check it out and click the heart to follow me so you don’t miss any of my new products. You could also join my email list if you want to be the first to know all of my news.

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What was your favorite board game as a kid? What about now? Leave me a note in the comments if you found this helpful or if you have a suggestion for another game I should try to make. I have some others coming soon, but I am always looking for new ideas. Have a winter wonderful day! 🙂

And So It Begins – January 2022 Goals

January 3, 2022January 9, 2022Posted in Goals, outschool, teachers pay teachers, UncategorizedTagged becca davis, Goals, january 2022, outschool, planning, review, teachers pay teachers4 Comments

The beginning of the year always feels so exciting. A fresh new start – like a field of new snow without footprints where we can blaze a new trail. Endless possibilities. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? And also completely terrifying! How do I know I am choosing to focus on the “right” things? What if I choose the wrong goals and I don’t meet them? It can be almost crippling.

This year, I had the privilege of working through a goal setting course by Becca Davis. It was so great because it made me look back before looking forward. I had to process what I thought and felt about last year before looking ahead to the future. It was such a simple thing, but honestly, not something I had ever thought to do before. It really made a BIG difference in how I looked at setting goals for this year. Seriously, I would 100% recommend the course if you are interested in making goals that will actually get you to the life you want to be living. You can see a sneak peek of the course materials below.

I also joined an awesome social selling membership that will include a lot of training and support this year, and I have enjoyed the goal setting things we have done over there, too. An Outschool Facebook group I am a part of is also doing some awesome trainings and reading some great books this year. I am seriously so excited for all the possibilities.

So, what does this all mean for the Blog? It means there will be a monthly goal post where I tell you the goals I have for the coming month and also recap how the previous month went. Being that this is the first goal setting post, I obviously won’t have anything to recap. I can tell you that I met exactly 1 of the many, many goals I tried to make last January. So, there’s nowhere to go but up this year. 🙂

For January 2022 (wow – first time I’ve typed that. It’s so weird!), my goals are:

At least one: Adventure Date, Create Date, and Family Game Night.
Write a 1:1 Phonics class on Outschool.
Add 10 new products to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.
Create 6 blog posts, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, and Pinterest pins.
Make dinner 4 times a week.
Go on 4 hikes.
Walk at least 3 times a week.
Log food and workouts on My Fitness Pal.
Record videos for Crafty Phonics – Letter R Club flex class.
Use my planner as a journal every morning and evening – I love my Rocketbook Panda Planner!

Do you make goals? Do you do it by year? Quarter? Month? What are you working towards this month? Let’s cheer each other on – if you plan it, you can achieve it! Let’s go! 🙂

I would love to stay in touch – please join my email list if you want to follow my adventures for this year.

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Dude! We’re Getting the Band Back Together!

December 24, 2021January 9, 2022Posted in adventure, create, family, fun, Goals, outschool, relate, teachers pay teachersTagged adventure, create, Goals, relate, updateLeave a comment

During this slow down and wait time, we have had some major shifts in our family. We halted our monthly adventure and create dates, we stayed home but definitely also stayed a bit separate. We all have our own areas of the house and we tend to gravitate to them. We have stopped doing many family things unless we are out of town or it is a special occasion. We need to get back to Adventuring, Creating, and Relating to each other more.

At the same time as we have stopped our dates and family nights, I have started 2 new creative endeavors. I am a teacher on Outschool with classes in phonics, crafts, phonemic awareness, confident speaking, and vocabulary. I have thoroughly enjoyed creating games and activities for all of my classes the past 20 months – it has been an amazing creative outlet and adventure in learning new things. This past month, I have taken my creating to another level and opened a Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) shop to sell the materials I have made for my classes. It is a very slow start, but I am really hopeful that this will be another great creative outlet.

What does all of this mean for my blog? Our family (and also our marriage) is definitely ready for some adventure and create dates again – we have done a few new things during this pandemic, but I have not been ready to write about them. It has taken me a long time to be ready to share this part of me again. Looking back at the past 2 years, however, I realized that writing is my way of coping with things, and I have felt a real desire to get back to it. So, my dear friends, I will be back to posting. And, since I have 2 new creative jobs of my own, I will be posting more. The goal will be 3 monthly posts (adventure, create, and relate) and then 1-2 weekly posts (Outschool and TpT shop). It feels good just to be writing this post, so I am certain this is the right decision for me at this time. I hope that it will be a fun and interesting thing for you, as well!

I would love to request that you take a moment to look me up at my two jobs and follow me. If you use my personal link on Outschool as a new family, you can get a $20 credit towards your first class: https://outschool.com/?signup=true&usid=7SKDulCR&utm_campaign=share_invite_link (I am also happy to help anyone interested in teaching on Outschool to apply – my referral code is: 7SKDulCR)

You can find me on TpT at the following link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Sellers-Im-Following/Add/Ae-Speech-And-Language-Services I have a few products added and will be adding a lot more over the next few months. (Right now I am very excited about my Time-Themed Treasure Hunt games for the Vocalic R and R Blend, L, S, and TH sounds – you can find out more about them in my shop.)

I can’t leave you without a little taste of the create, adventure, and relate posts that I wanted to make the past 20 months. I hope you enjoy – let me know below if you want to learn more about any of them. 🙂

We did art with McHarper online for a while.

As I close this post, I want to make 2 promises. First of all, I promise to keep this blog about adventures, creating, and relating. Secondly, I promise to have a fun post about my yearly goals for our family and for my businesses in the next couple of weeks.

If you want to be sure you don’t miss future updates, please join my email list. I have lots of fun things planned for this year and I would love to share them with you!

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January Family Game Night Recap

January 27, 2019February 1, 2019Posted in family game nightTagged family, family game night, fgn, fun, games, Goals, relateLeave a comment

As I stated in my first post, we have a goal of having at least 2 Family Game Nights (FGN) a month this year. We also plan to include our extended families, but that did not happen this month since we just saw everyone over the holidays. 🙂 We were total overachievers, though, and managed to have 5 nights of games and snacks this month!

We had our first FGN at Tabletop Game Cafe in Clintonville on January 2nd. It was a great day of games – we tried the games Stuffed Fables, Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate, and Kill Doctor Lucky. Stuffed Fables ended up being a lot more involved than we wanted, so we played the first adventure and moved on. Another group was playing Betrayal at House on the Hill, so we tried the D&D version of the game and enjoyed it. We would really like to try the Haunted House version still. Our last pick, Kill Doctor Lucky, was quick to learn and and we all enjoyed it. We will definitely be back to Tabletop to eat delicious samosas and try out some more games!

Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate

Our next FGN was January 6th because we were all home without plans. We decided to eat some of our yummy snack gifts from Japan (Thank you Kamei and Sato families!!) and we played Exploding Kittens and Smallworld. It was the first time for all of us playing Exploding Kittens, but it did promise it was for people that like kittens, explosions, laser beams and sometimes goats, so we were pretty sure we would like it. It was an instant favorite with all the kitten art! Keith, Micah, and I had all played Smallworld before, but it was Charlotte’s first time. We all enjoyed the game. We also really enjoyed the Japanese snacks.

Our planned Snacks and games – we did get to Oregon Trail and we did not eat all the snacks. 🙂

On January 20th, all activities outside our house were canceled due to weather. So, we took the chance to have a FGN! We played Pitt and Quarriors. Pitt is one of Micah’s favorites, so he was excited to play. It was not my night with the cards, so at one point I was trying to see how far negative I could go before someone won the game. Needless to say, I was not the winner. But it was a fun time for everyone. We had played Quarriors on New Year’s Eve Eve with Charlotte and it is now one of her favorite games to request. She has always like collecting things in bags, so I think this is just an extension of that passion. 😉 We all really do like the game, though. We tried a couple more snacks from Japan (chocolate drizzled potato chips and teriyaki rice cakes – both yum!!) and had chips and Little Debbies as well. And orange slices as you can see in the photos…

The plan – we did not play Forbidden Island, but we ate most of the snacks.
Playing Pitt
Playing Quarriors

This past weekend, we actually had two FGN opportunities because we were away in a treehouse cabin with no television! It was wonderful! The first night, we played an old favorite from before Keith and I had kids – Filthy Rich! It is really fun that the kids are now old enough to appreciate and enjoy games we used to play. Charlotte did not want to be Queen of the Shmoos, but it is still true that Nobody Shops at Shorty’s. The kids may have thought we were strange for the entire language we have surrounding that game, but they went along with it anyway. We also played a quick game of Tsuro. In the end, I sent Charlotte off the board, Keith sent both of us off, and Micah was victorious. We had some really great green tea (for the adults) and hot chocolate (for the kids) and some Japanese chocolate mushroom snacks, a known family favorite.

Filthy Rich – such a fun game!
Playing Tsuro

Our second night at the cabin, we had a short FGN because we had a late dinner and didn’t have a lot of time. We played Monopoly Deal, a quick version of the Monopoly game that only uses cards but still manages to break relationships and evenings. Just kidding, it is pretty fun, but you do have to be okay with hurting other people in order to win. I am not blessed with that skill, so it will probably never be my first game pick. We had jiffy pop, green tea mochi (another family favorite), and new little chocolate and green tea Japanese treats – so yummy! We have decided there is a reason we’ve never done jiffy pop as a family snack before, though. So much shaking!

Monopoly Deal and snacks
Seriously, the little chocolate and green tea trees are fantastic!

We are sure that our opportunities for FGN will be much more limited as we move forward due to theater and other commitments, so who knows what February will look like. Will we pick a new country for snacks? Will we just try new things from Japan and the US? I guess you will have to wait and see like the rest of us!

2019 Family Goals

January 20, 2019Posted in GoalsTagged create, date, family fun, family game night, Goals, relateLeave a comment

At the beginning of this year, I sat down and worked on some vision board activities to try to have some focus for our family this year. I was given a list of words and had to narrow it down to just 10 words that really spoke to me. Next I narrowed the list down to 5 words, and finally down to just 3. After carefully working through my options, I was left with Adventure, Create, and Relate. For this winter and spring, we are going to be starting a couple of different things to start to bring more of those words into our lives.

Keith and I have really been a great team and have worked hard to do lots of extracurricular activities for and with our children. Along the way, it felt like our relationship was taking a backseat. One of the things we want to do this year is have one Adventure Date and one Create Date a month. It will force us to try new things and be creative, both things we love to do. Sometimes these dates will involve our kids because we love doing things with them and want to expose them to new opportunities. Most of the dates, however, will just be the two of us and I am really excited as we start to plan out what we will be doing the next couple of months.

At the Franklin Park Conservatory’s “Conservatory Aglow”

Another thing that we love to do as a family but have not been doing lately is family game nights. So, we also made the goal to have two family game nights a month. Additionally, one game night each quarter will include Keith’s parents and at least two during the course of the year will involve mine. We are so fortunate to have our parents still around and able to enjoy activities with us, and we really wanted to focus more on those relationships. Plus, we love some friendly family competition!