New Year's Day Family Camp

We were struggling with coming up with something to do on New Year's Day.  I wanted to definitely take advantage of Ben off of work and do something "fun."  We've gone cross-country skiing a couple of times on NYD, but it didn't seem like the right activity this year (temps in the low-teens, $$$, possibility of bad roads, etc.).

So Ben came up with an idea of just having a bunch of different activities planned and scheduled for the whole day.  I thought that sounded great.  I came up with having each of us chose an activity that we wanted to do - a home-based activity pretty much.  (You know, so we couldn't say something like, "Fly to Hawaii!")  So that's what we did and it was an awesome day!  Here are the activities each of us chose:

Lucy - playing scattergories
Emmy - having a talent show
Jonas - cookie-decorating contest
Miles - playing monopoly
Me - playing Kahoot (It's an online trivia game.  Everyone has a device.  You pick your own trivia category - like "Harry Potter" or "gymnastics."  Then questions pop up on the computer and everyone uses their device to answer questions quickly and correctly.  It's totally fun.)
Ben - I don't know, actually.  He had a few ideas that we did . .. shoveling snow, poem recitation, and a curling tournament.

We began the day with some stretching and exercising - Ben's idea.  It was . . . funny.  Then it was on to some shoveling!

 The day after Christmas, our white Christmas arrived.  Then we got a bit more on NYE and NYD.  Yay!

 The only picture of our whole family (minus Miles' mouth) that day!  :)  On our way to more shoveling . . .

 Our friends the Crims (as in my friend Michelle and her husband Cory/Bishop) were enjoying San Diego and needed their house shoveled.  "Snow" fun!

 How many kids does it take to shovel a driveway?

Since were were already in our snow-clothes, we decided to take the dogs for a walk.

 But, really, the dogs decided to take the boys for a run.  :)

 Even Bella!  :)

 We stopped at the park and Bella enjoyed her first slide-ride.

 The kids got to enjoy some yummy maple-syrup snow-cones.  (Gather up fresh, white snow.  Pour in maple syrup.  Stir.  Devour.)

We had a talent show that afternoon:

 Lucy composed and played a piano piece.

 Miles displayed some of his art-work.

 Emmy choreographed and performed a gym routine. (On the hardwood floor with socks - not the best combination . . .)

 After many fits of giggles, Jonas finally played the trombone.

Ben and I were the judges.  They all won!  Shocker!

Then we did our cookie-decorating contest.  Earlier, everyone had been given a blob of dough to shape however they wanted.  Once cooled, it was time to decorate:

 Lucy's had the word "gym" on it, skis, and I'm not sure what else.

 Emmy made a gymnast - cute!  She won!

 Jonas' had a trombone and music notes.  Very cool.

 Miles' "Starry Night" cookie.

 Mine got uglier and uglier as time went on . . .

 Ben's was simple and nice.  :)  They all tasted yummy!

Next up was the curling tournament.  We had a double-elimination bracket and it worked out great!  Jonas ended up getting DQ'd (disqualified) because of his negative/rude comments (mainly sighs and "Oh my gosh" repeated at least 2,019 times).

 Miles and Lucy ended up in the finals . . .with Miles as our Winner!  I think it went Miles, Lucy, Emmy, Ben, then myself.

Ben found poems for himself and the kids to read/recite.  Actually, he found them just for the girls.  I found my own.  Miles has a short one by Shel Silverstein memorized that he recited.  Jonas recited a lame "Roses are Red. . . " and so we gave him one to read.  :)

 Lucy's was entitled something along the lines of "My Teacher Farted Today."  Haha.

I think playing monopoly was our final activity of the day (oh, maybe it was watching an episode of Studio C., since we ran out of time for a movie).  Even though most of us groaned when Miles chose the game, everyone enjoyed it!  There were many more monopoly games played in the last few days of our break.

What a fabulous way to begin the new year!  I can't wait to do it next year . . .