Summer Bucket List

At the beginning of summer the boys and I created our "Summer Bucket List." Joel, Xander and I came up with a bunch of things that we wanted to do over the course of our summer. We have enjoyed having adventures and checking things off! I thought it would be fun to recap all in one place. I didn't get photos of *everything* but I got most!

Make a cardboard rocketship

Run in the sprinklers

Visit 2 new parks

Visit 2 new parks

Swim lessons

Visit the Colorado National Monument

Eat otterpops

Make a sidewalk chalk mural

Camping

Go down a waterslide (I didn't get any shots of the slide but it happened!)

Find a cool new picture spot
This was obviously one of my additions to the list. We had fun exploring this local lavender farm!

Lake day / Build a sandcastle

Roast s'mores

Eat snowcones

Go to a museum - Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Gelato on Main Street

Bowling selfie!

Explore a local orchard

The last thing we have to check off is our upcoming trip to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison where we will be camping and stargazing. We were planning on going in June but ended up having to reschedule for September. We'll still count it. =) But as Joel starts school this week our summer as such has come to a close. It's been a good one!

Home Sweet Home

Our new home brings us so much joy! So naturally we wanted to show it off. =) We moved in on March 30th and have been settling in nicely (sans an unfortunate adventure in our crawl space--ugh!). Today I finally felt like everything was looking good enough to take some photos and do a video tour. Happily I present, as Xander likes to say, "my Colorado house!"

And because I'm me, I also took photos. Joel insisted on being in every single one, because he's silly and awesome like that. 

View from the front entry

"Family room"

"Sitting room"

Dining room

Glorious kitchen

It's so silly, but I just love the pantry door

Kitchen

Kids bathroom

Playroom

Playroom

Office

Master bedroom

Taekwondo shrine in the master bedroom =)

Master bath <3

Holley dojang in the garage

Backyard

We have major plans for the backyard. I will probably end up posting progress updates, but we'll see how it goes!

Backyard

We are seriously in love with our new home. The interior is everything that we really wanted, and we are excited to invest time, money, and effort into the backyard to make it equally nice. It is so wonderful to finally feel like we can put down roots. It's time to make our house into our forever home!

2019 New Years Goals

Happy New Year!

Every year we create a poster with our goals for the coming year. This is one of my favorite traditions! The rules for the annual poster are A) the goals must be achievable in one year, and B) they must be quantifiable, as in, they have to be things we can measure and check off. 

First, I like to review how we did on our goals for the previous year. To be perfectly honest, we didn't do so hot this year. 2018 was a year of upheaval for us. At New Year's we didn't know where James would be working post graduation, so a lot was up in the air. As things coalesced, some of our goals changed or fell by the wayside. 

James:
Did marvelously with his Duolingo study this year, he's been making great progress in Spanish. He did read (or listen to an audiobook) every day. He did obtain a post-graduation job. He did not practice the piano every day.

Joel:
Learned to read! Of course it's still a developing skill, but we love to hear him read beginning books to us, it's awesome. He's still working on his roundhouse. =)

Xander:
His goals were ones that we neglected this year.

Valerie:
I did not work on my novel "Allspeaker" this year. (Although I did make some progress on "The Seventh Guardian" fortunately.) I did pretty well with my photography challenge. Duolingo totally fell by the wayside for me. I did finish my poomsae challenge in time for my black belt test in October. Bike riding didn't happen as intended. But I definitely got pregnant!

Family goals:
We successfully moved to Utah, a location which meant we didn't need to find a new martial arts school, haha. We went on one of the two camping trips we'd intended. James and I did attend the temple three times. We are still working through the Book of Mormon together. We're terrible about walking our dog, but at least we've been on a date every week!

And now I present our goals for 2019!

James:
-Daily Spanish study
-Daily reading/audiobook
-Settle finances
-Create and follow personal exercise plan
-Weekly video journal
-Bake 12 new recipes

Valerie:
-Earn 5th Dan
-Finish "The Seventh Guardian" revisions
-Project 52 with Clickin Moms (ie weekly photography project)
-Journal weekly
-Read 5 new books
-Finish Duolingo Spanish tree
-Take a yoga class

Family/Couple goals:
-Successfully move to Colorado
-Family camping trip
-Go star gazing
-Find a new martial arts school
-Trip to Tennessee
-Create a family budget
-Attend the temple (number of times to be determined when we know what part of Colorado we're moving to)
-Weekly "Come Follow Me" family study
-Weekly date night

We also want to add "Plant a tree" if we end up buying a house this year. But we'll have to see!

We decided not to set goals for the children this year. We've decided  to wait until they're old enough to set their own goals. We feel like we shouldn't be forcing our ideas of what their progression should be, but should let them discover their own interests. Of course we'll be working on things together, but it's a little different when we're setting up checkboxes on their behalf. So we'll revisit those in later years.

We are excited about this coming year. We've got some big changes ahead for our family. Hopefully our move will go well; we are looking forward to settling down at last and hopefully not moving again for a while! =) 

We wish you a happy New Year and a great 2019!