Our vision for 2021

Happy New Year!

Basically no one is sad to say goodbye to 2020. As we look back and assess the past year, my hope is that we can all give ourselves a lot of grace. 2020 definitely did not look like I imagined it would, one year ago. There were many things I wanted to do, hoped to do, planned to do, which simply could not happen. My hope is that we can celebrate the good things, let go of the things we could not control, and move forward with optimism.

So, 2020 in review:

Family Goals

• Attend the temple twice. When everything shut down in the spring, we were afraid we wouldn't get to go at all this year. But we did get to the temple once this year, for the sealing of Valerie's sister Cydney. <3
• Visit Canyonlands National Park. Just didn't happen. We've moved this to our 2021 goals.
• Invite new friends to our home x4. Two of these were accomplished before Covid struck, and we decided to count the visit of our newest sister-in-law as a third. =) All things considered, we feel okay with where this one ended up.
• Take Grandma and Grandpa to Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We went in June and had a great camping trip!
• Visit Tennessee. We visited James's family in September.
• Visit Twin Lakes. The most beautiful spot we've found in Colorado. Incredible!!
• Weekly Date Night. Lots of at-home dates this year forced us to get creative.
• Monthly FHE. This was new for us, we've never really done Family Home Evening. But we've loved it! Monthly works well for us.

Xander

• Read and write the alphabet. We're checking off the "read" part, as Xander is officially reading! But the writing part is still a work in progress

Joel

• Ride a bike without training wheels. We worked on this quite a bit over the summer, and it just wasn't clicking, so we took a break for awhile. But without prompting, Joel said he wanted to put it on his list for next year.
• Read a chapter book solo. He sailed through this goal early in the year. His favorites have been the Magic Tree House series and Roald Dahl's books.
• Run faster. In the spring, we set up a course in our cul-de-sac and timed him. We repeated it twice more, including a couple weeks ago, and his time significantly improved!

James

I've really been looking forward to this! It's been quite a year, and some of my goals didn't pan out, but I definitely feel pretty happy about my general growth and progress!

• Daily Spanish study: This went really well. I missed a day here and there, but they were few and far between. This has become as much of an ingrained habit as any I have, so I'm not going to make this an official goal going forward. At some point, however, I'd really like to take some more formal lessons and become semi-fluent one of these days.
• Read 12 new books: This might be a bit more weighted towards the end of the year, but I did it and then some!
• Emperor of Thorns: This is the 3rd in a fantasy trilogy. A pretty fun read, although a bit shallow and overly edgy at times. Be aware that this trilogy is chock full of extremely graphic violence, both standard and sexual.
• 11/22/63: This was such a powerful book, one of Stephen King's best. Imagine being able to travel back in time and save JFK from being assassinated; that's what's explored here. I loved the characters and the general storyline, and it even ended strong (which King often struggles with).
• The Crucible of Doubt: This is nonfiction that deals with faith struggles as a Latter-day Saint. It was valuable to me, and I highly recommend it to members of the Church that are struggling with their faith.
• The Lord of the Rings (counted as 3 books): I technically read this back when I was a kid, but I was much too young to appreciate it, so I'm counting it as new here. And wow, this book is deserving of every bit of praise it's received to date. The prose is some of the most beautiful I've ever read, and Tolkein is an incredible storyteller.
• The Licanius Trilogy (3 books): I suppose these should get their own separate reviews, but I don't feel they differed too much in quality. I picked these up because I kept seeing it recommended to Sanderson fans. It was fun, and I fell in love with Caeden especially, but I was disappointed by the high expectations I had going in. The story was only mildly interesting, and several of the main characters were pretty forgettable. 
• Chasing Gideon: This book follows various public defender systems in the United States since the Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright, back in 1963, that criminal defendants must be provided an attorney if they can't afford one. Chasing Gideon is informative and pretty depressing, but only because the state of public defense in the US is so horrible even today. Very much worth reading to get an idea on how inadequate public defender systems deprive defendants of basic and fundamental rights on a regular basis.
• Dawnshard: This is a short novel between books 3 and 4 of the Stormlight Archive. It was a pretty fun little book, and I enjoyed what happened with the story beats and character developments.
• The Traitor Baru Cormorant: This was my sleeper hit of the year. I went into this not really knowing what to expect, and what I discovered was a powerful fantasy story dealing with very real personal, social, and governmental issues. I can't really describe more without giving the story away, and it's very much worth going in blind.
• Rhythm of War: Book 4 of the Stormlight Archive, this was (unsurprisingly) my favorite of the year. I'll say right off the bat that it wasn't perfect; there were definitely story aspects and characters that fell a little flat. However, this is competing for my favorite of the series thus far. I deeply value what Sanderson did with Kaladin here, and generally speaking, I've never cried as much reading a book as I did here. An incredible continuation of arguably the best ongoing fantasy series today.
• The Green Mile: This is a rare instance of my having seen the movie before reading the book, and the movie was very faithful, so nothing was surprising going into this. It's still an emotional story with an important message concerning the death penalty, criminal justice, and race. Can absolutely recommend, but it's not for the squeamish. There's one execution scene in particular that's one of the most horrifying scenes I've ever read in a book, and I've read some pretty horrifying stuff.
• The Library at Mount Char: A low-fantasy/horror, I enjoyed this a great deal, but I doubt it would appeal to many. There's little exposition, the characters are generally unlikeable, and the violence is incredibly graphic (for real; for all my warnings in a couple of other books here, this is easily top-three most violent books I've ever read). For all that, it was a fascinating story with some really unique ideas and good execution to boot. 
• Starsight: The sequel to Sanderson's Skyward, this was a really fun read. I don't really go for YA, but I enjoyed this a lot, honestly a good bit more than Skyward. It's not especially complex or deep, and I felt it tried a bit too much to tug at the heartstrings, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it.
• Ace boot camp: COVID-19 cancelled this; will do this year.
• Come follow me: I did this every week (or made it up in adjacent weeks). I'm going to keep working on this in 2021.
• Get to 190: I made it! I'm at 188 today, but my lowest this year was 182. Holiday feasting has been bad for this, but I've done a lot better about controlling my eating.
• Bake 24 new recipes: I'm baking recipe number 24 today, so I'm counting this as complete!
• Pretzel rolls
• Pizza dough
• Scones
• Baguettes
• Tortillas
• Forest fruit cake
• Churros
• Bagels
• Cornbread
• Triple chocolate cheesecake
• Lemon chocolate mirror glaze cake
• Chocolate chip sourdough
• Oatmeal cream pies
• Steak and ale pie
• Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies
• Turtle cheesecake
• Peach cobbler
• Pumpkin cheesecakes
• Challah buns
• Mincemeat pie
• Gingerbread cookies
• Carrot cake
• Cranberry tart
• Eggnog cranberry starbread
• Weekly video journals: I've got to be honest, I gave up on this. It's just not my thing; perhaps I'll pick it back up in future.

Valerie

So much of what I hoped to accomplish this year got ruined by Covid. =( I can't deny that looking at my personal goals is a bit discouraging. But I remind myself that it was a weird year, and I can feel good about what I did accomplish.

• Write Allspeaker. I started writing this novel in the spring, then took a break over the summer with the intent to return to it in the fall. However, when we got the green light from our editor in September, all my writing time this fall was dedicated to The Seventh Guardian instead.
• Complete Project 365. My goal was to take a photo every day this year. I did miss a day here and there, but deliberately made up for it each time the following day. I'm calling this one a success!
• Plant a garden. Our first ever garden was a rousing success! It was awesome to eat our own produce all summer.
• Attend Insta-Inspire. Nixed by Covid. =(
• Referee at the Colorado State Championships. Nixed by Covid. =(
• Read 10 new books. I finished 8, and am most of the way through a 9th.
• The Toll
• Where the Crawdads Sing
• Hold On To Your Kids
• The Handmaid's Tale
• Midnight Sun
• Dawnshard
• Rhythm of War
• I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
• (almost done!) In Spite of Lions
• Weekly Come Follow Me study. My scripture study was inconsistent this year. I'm resetting this goal for next year.
• Apply to Click Pro. This one I added after Insta-Inspire was canceled. I needed a new photography goal to keep me motivated. I made Click Pro in September.

Our purpose with this poster each year is to find things that we want to learn, improve, and do that are measurable and achievable within the year. We seek a balance of intellectual, physical, and spiritual in our personal goals. We want to push ourselves, without overdoing it.

Family Goals

• Visit Canyonlands National Park
• Go on 10 new hikes. We really want to spend more time outside this year!
• Camping Trip. Location TBD!
• Monthly FHE

Couple Goals

• Attend the Temple. We're feeling like one attendance this year may be ambitious.
• Make-up anniversary trip. We're planning to celebrate our 8th anniversary later this year, hoping that the Covid situation will be improved.
• Weekly date night.

Xander

• Earn yellow stripe. Xander has struggled a bit with taekwondo, so when he declared of his own volition that he wants to earn his yellow stripe belt, we were delighted!
• Take a painting class. This was another fun surprise. Xander specifically wants to learn how to paint "a real snake."
• Monthly date night with Mom or Dad. We have recently instituted parent-child dates, and we've all been loving them.

Joel

• Ride a bike without training wheels.
• Read two BIG books. We haven't picked them yet, but Joel definitely wants to step it up.
• Cook a meal solo. Joel really wants to learn how to cook all by himself. We're excited to see how it goes!
• Monthly date night with Mom or Dad.

James

Here's what I'm going for this year:

• Come Follow Me complete study: This year, I'm not only going to read the scriptures, I'm also going to follow the study guide a lot more. We'll see how it goes.
• Break brick with a punch: I'm testing for my 4th degree black belt next year, and I really want to punch a brick for it. I need to start on this now, and I absolutely need to break with it this year to make sure I'm ready.
• 18 new books: pretty self-explanatory!
• Knit a blanket: I got back into knitting recently, and this will be my first major project. I've already started, and I'm very excited to try it out!
• Ace boot camp: Same thing as last year. It will all be digital this year, but I want to excel and learn all that I need to to keep growing as a public defender.

Valerie

This year, I have exercised restraint with my list of goals. I take these very seriously, and over the years, I have proven very committed to them. Because of the nature of my goals this year (one in particular) and knowing how time-intensive they will be, I have kept my list much more limited than in years past.

• Release The Seventh Guardian. My third book is scheduled for publication in February. I'm delighted, but I also have a lot of work to do, both before and after it comes out.
• Open Grand Valley Taekwondo. This is the big one! I have been teaching in my garage for the last year, and I am so, so excited to open 'officially' in a commercial facility. Starting my own business is a big step. It's going to pretty significantly change life around here. But this has been my dream for many years, and I am so excited to finally be in a position to go for it.
• Read 10 new books.
• 50 Pushups. I've got pretty buff legs, and want to work on my arms this year. My goal is to do 50 good pushups in one go. If that proves too easy, I'll increase the number.
• Weekly Come Follow Me study. I have recommitted to my personal scripture study.

We are looking forward to an eventful year to come!