Family Adventures | Hiking
Having family adventure outings planned on the calendar creates a sense of expectancy and anticipation for parents and children. Here I share how we do that each year, and how fun it is for everyone. “All aboard!” for lifelong bonding and family memories!
Do you ever get excited when you plan a vacation or maybe a date with your husband? Perhaps you remember back to when you were a child and could hardly sleep the night before Christmas. That’s what it’s like to have family adventures on the calendar for your family to look forward to each month.
Our girls know that there’s something planned each month of the year. Often times they will look on the calendar to remind themselves when it is and what that month’s adventure will be. They get so excited and look forward to it!
Our annual tradition – family adventures on the calendar
Each New Year’s Day, our family tradition is to sit down together and discuss what we’d all like to do that year for our family adventures. We write each idea down on paper. If there are a lot of suggestions, then we decide on twelve outings, one for each month. Once we have the final list, we start planning the day or weekend for the activity.
We try to work around any existing commitments we may have, like sports, dance recitals, cousin camp, etc. (I’ll write a post all about cousin camp that we host every year, so be sure to look for that in the coming month!.) For example, we declare July as “fair” month since the two middle girls show dairy goats at the county fair, which makes that month super busy. Thus, the county fair becomes our family adventure for that month.
Some Ideas to get you started
We like to keep our family adventures simple and budget friendly. With a family of five, that means getting creative and packing lunch to bring along. In my opinion, it just adds to making the event more memorable and time spent together preparing and anticipating.
Here’s a list of things we planned this past year:
- Laser tag
- Silver Falls hike
- Basketball state tourney in Bend
- Cannon Beach tide pools
- Seaside boardwalk
- Dance recitals
- County fair
- Cousin camp
- Hawaii family reunion – Oahu and Big Island (this was a rare vacation and such a blessing!)
- Cider pressing
- Hosted Thanksgiving
- Nutcracker dance recital – Man cub and I got to dance in this one, too!
November and December we usually don’t plan an extra family adventure since we have family get-togethers planned. Also, we try to host an extended family brunch once a month or so, depending on the time of year.
Family Adventure Hike Video
Creating Family bonds with anticipation
Although I can’t remember where I read this idea, I’m so glad we started this tradition of planning family adventures and scheduled them onto the calendar. We all look forward to it each month, and the building of anticipation and excitement makes the year so much more meaningful with all the special time spent and memories made with each other.
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Start your own adventure planning
What do you think of this idea? Does your family have its own version? Let me know in the comments below. I know you’ll come up with some great plans suited especially for your family.