Sunday, January 04, 2015

Family Fun List 2015

I don't make New Year's resolutions these days. If you do, you might enjoy my latest Tungsten Hippo post about books and resolutions.

I do make lists, though. A couple of years ago, I decided to write a Family Fun List for the new year as part of our New Year's Eve celebrations. That was so successful that we did it again last year, and now it is a tradition.

Here's how we did on the 2014 list:

  1. Go to Legoland (Petunia) - We went twice, thanks to the special "buy one ticket and come back again for free" deal. We all love Legoland. Petunia wants to stay in the hotel there some time. Maybe we will do a "staycation" this year and do that. We'll see.
  2. Go ice skating (Pumpkin) - We did this as part of someone's birthday party. Pumpkin didn't end up liking it that much.
  3. Go fishing (Mr. Snarky) - We attempted to do this in Catalina, but the kids didn't like the spot Mr. Snarky found. So in the end, we crossed this one off in Arizona over Christmas break.
  4. Ride a surrey bike again (me- I am going to pick this every year until the kids are too old to agree to do it! It is just downright fun.) - Done!  
  5. Buy ice cream from an ice cream truck (Petunia) - We did this a couple of times. The kids pick the most horrible ice cream, but they love it.
  6. Go camping (Pumpkin) - We camped in Joshua Tree right before Thanksgiving. Brrrr. But beautiful. And being the age that we are, Mr. Snarky and I had fun recreating the iconic photos from U2's Joshua Tree album for our Christmas cards.
  7. Buy donuts at a donut shop (Mr. Snarky) - Done very early on. And a huge hit with everyone except me (I prefer cookies).
  8. Visit the new downtown library (me) - This was a lot of fun, and we should do it more often. We tried to go back over Thanksgiving weekend with my parents, but the hours hand changed and it was closed when we got there.
  9. Walk on the beach and collect shells (Petunia) - Pumpkin groaned about this one a bit, but ended up having a lot of fun. I tweeted a couple of pictures of this outing, which I'll include below.
  10. Hike to the top of a hill or mountain (Pumpkin) - Mr. Snarky has grudgingly agreed that we can consider our Great Sand Dunes hike as satisfying this one. Turns out, the kids aren't so into this sort of hiking- Pumpkin only picked it because Mr. Snarky had picked it the year before and not gotten to do it. (Awwww.)
  11. Go on a boat ride (Mr. Snarky) - We road on a boat to Catalina. Unfortunately, the seas were unusually rough and the kids got sick. They had a lot of fun in Catalina, though, so hopefully we can try again sometime!
  12. Go to the dinosaur museum (me- we have a membership, after all!) - I think we went twice before the membership expired.

Here are the pictures of shell collecting:







And here's our list for 2015:

  1. Go buy a doughnut and a doughnut shop (Petunia)
  2. Got to a candy shop and buy candy (Pumpkin)
  3. Go on an Amtrak or Coaster train (Mr. Snarky)
  4. Go to an art museum (me)
  5. Have a beach day with friends (Petunia)
  6. Make a LEGO town in the living room (Pumpkin)
  7. Go to the Safari Park and see the tigers (Mr. Snarky)
  8. Explore a new neighborhood (me)
  9. Visit the old mission in Mission Valley (Petunia- with some prompting from Mr. Snarky)
  10. Walk around our neighborhood and look at holiday decorations (Pumpkin- to be done either at Halloween or Christmas time)
  11. Visit the Friendship Park at the border (Mr. Snarky)
  12. Ride a surrey bike (me- I'm telling you, it will be on the list for as long as everyone else lets me put it there)
We've already done one of the things on the list- yesterday, we built LEGO Town

I also write lists for my own goals, but I'll talk about those in a separate post. Right now, it is time for me to go take down some Christmas decorations!

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:49 AM

    I love the idea of doing lists for the new year! I might steal that idea for when my kids are a little bigger.

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  2. Haha I love that a (probable?) typo makes Petunia into a doughnut entrepreneur in #1.

    Props again for LEGO town (I say again because I commented on tumblr, I'm lookupatthesky over there). Did you build all the models that day or were they already done?

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  3. I love this idea. Maybe I'll bring it up with the kids tonight. We've had a rough morning adjusting to being back on school schedules. I'm anticipating crankiness. Maybe making a happy list will help!

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  4. Love this idea and have to remember it for when my kids are a bit older!

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